Unresolved Another Problem and Poor Quality

Hey,

Following my mail to you a month or so ago (the HP mail) I managed to get things somewhat moving again. I printed the Calibration ring and a few other small things but then disappeared for Christmas break

Now, I'm fed up with this (again). It just seems to be one thing after another with the machine.

Issue 1: I gave up on Windows as my W8 machine just doesn't get along with the software for some reason. It just random sits in idle mode. So I install it on my Mac and low and behold inside five minutes I had printed a few things. Take a look at the links... https://www.dropbox.com/s/vp6jnk69gf0g4gz/Photo 04-01-2015 13 53 01.jpg?dl=0 and https://www.dropbox.com/s/v717t1gb6vxi3x0/Photo 04-01-2015 13 53 06.jpg?dl=0 .What is with the very poor quality? A friend uploaded some photos of his printout of a T-Rex using a Makerbot and the quality is FAR superior. No jagged lines, no missing pieces, no bended parts. All smooth and looks fantastic

Issue 2: After last nights relative success I thought I'd have another crack at it. W8 machine again didn't want to play so turned the Macbook on. Now, the bed heats up to about 40 degrees and then begins to cool thus the print never starting. I'm using PLA so I question why it is heating the bed but given that it worked last night I left it to the default. I've looked on the forums and it suggests the problem may be the wiring which leads me to the next issue

Issue 3: As I noted in my mail, I have had this printer since December last year and have still not printed anything really of use. Fair enough I haven't had much time but didn't I pay for a plug and play printer rather than all this messing about?

Apologies if I seem a little peeved at this but I had thought after all this time I was making progress only for something else to go wrong with it and after a year of a 'plug and play' option still not working I do question what else I have to do

Regards,
Stephen

 

My first print on bare glass with no calibration looked far far better then that.

The robo3d is not a microwave, you cant just hit go and walk away. Windows is not your problem, maybe another piece of software but most likely 80% of people on here are running windows 8.

I am using 8.1 myself.

 

Wanted to tell him what was not the problem from the little info he gave.

Just trying to give back

 

OK, Sorry. I thought the forums were moderated by the team or something

The problems are really as described

Issue 1: When I manage to get it to print it prints very poor quality

Issue 2: The heat bed now heats up to 40 degrees and goes no further then starts to cool

Issue 3: I understand this isn't like a Microwave but I paid an extra $100 to have the thing built and ready to use (aside from minor configurations) but it hasn't been that way (Issue 1 and Issue 2)

I'm not sure what other info I can provide so I'll address each of you separately...

K1E1V1I1N - What did you do to get a first print that was better than these? Any config changes from the standard Matter Control? I have messed around with the printer a lot as these were not the first problems encountered. I had problems with feeding the thread (wires were reversed on the board), the extruder (due to previous problem and my frustration it ended up becoming clogged), the glass (it broke), Axis poles (the bolts came off), prints sticking (used hairspray) and so I have gone beyond the calibrate it with the piece of paper and pinch points etc advice by Robo3d. I agree Windows likely isn't part of the problem but my W8 machine is. Its strange that the W8 machine had issues but as soon as I plugged the Mac in it printed right away with no problem. So I will no longer use the W8 machine... but now the Mac is experiencing Issue 2 as well and obviously Issue 1

Mark Tomlinson - What other information would be useful to help troubleshoot the issues? On the Mac I downloaded MatterControl, connected to the printer and clicked print. Nothing changed at all. To make sure I had the standard configuration I did removed it and reinstalled Matter Control on the W8 machine and hit the problems

 

To be honest I am super new only had my printer for 10 days now. my first print was right out of the box no changes no hairspray or glue just hit the print button.

But I have the R1 I am guessing you do not. I wouldn't even try and guess what the differences are. setting the height on the 3 points is not really enough IMO, I think you need to make sure you are the same left and right. someone posted up here before how he would start on the left, check the height then move 50mm to the right and check again and twist the left or right z posts 1 at a time to make things all level then move 50mm again to the right and keep going to the other side of the build plate.

I am sure that sounds confusing so hopefully someone will explain it better.

 

With this number of problems, I'd start with baby steps and try to tackle the problems one at a time.

I'd start making sure I had the latest firmware, then I'd work on getting the bed heating properly.

Instead of using the software interface preheat button, I'd actually try to send a raw heat command using a terminal window and watching the progress. If it is still stopping at 40, I'd look into swapping the RAMPS board.

After I got the bed heating sorted out, I'd start working with getting a good first layer before attempting to actually print anything. Getting a good first layer is critical, from what I can tell.

I've suffered from a few printer build quality issues myself, but they haven't been as bad as what you're experiencing. Be patient, keep asking questions here, and hopefully we can help you get to some real printing.

 

Plug and play only goes so far as your computer, which seems to be the roadblock right now.

Chances are good your computer assigned an incorrect driver for the arduino, and you can correct it using this guide: http://help.robo3dprinter.com/Guide/How to Connect to your printer on windows/4

Your prints look a bit like a temperature issue causing under extrusion. Do you run an in-line oiler? Generally less important on what I presume is a J-head. Is it black or grey body? Brass heater block or stainless?

I don't really think it's fair to compare the robo to a makerbot. One is three times as expensive and with a little patience you can get prints that are 99% as good as the makerbots. I bought a rep2x for work last year and it was 2800. My printer can usually outperform it and I haven't spent even close to 1/3 of that.

Depending on the filament settings it might not have the bed temp enabled. You need to make sure the gcode is told to set the print bed to 40 otherwise it won't care about pre-heat settings

I'd start with some basic prints like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24238 or this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:211514 to figure out what temp is good for your filament.

Mark Tomlinson sliced the second one for the robo3d here: http://forums.robo3dprinter.com/ind...ess-with-increase-in-z.3591/page-2#post-32378 but you may need to modify the firmware to allow it to print below 195C

If your bed ONLY gets to 40C chances are the thermistor is loose against the heater. Make sure it's making contact. You can verify the actual temp with an IR thermometer

 

I appreciate the responses on this even given the somewhat limited detail. I will give this a thorough read through tomorrow evening and take some of the recommended actions

Note though that the temperature issue of the bed was not an issue on the Mac last night. It was only today that this has surfaced.

I may well e-mail the technical support too as suggested earlier (I thought this forum was tech support ) they did say in their e-mail that they can set up Skype calls or even swap parts out if they are appearing to be the problem

Once I have had a look at this I will reply back with an update as hopefully if it all gets sorted it may be valuable reference for others

 

Fwiw, I couldn't get it to work at all on Mac... or on older versions of Windows. Only worked when I used Boot Camp to turn my Mac into a Win 8.1 machine (however, it did work on an older, cheaper Lenovo desktop running XP, as well)

 

OK, so had a chance to have another look at this and frustratingly there is nothing I can do with it. See below on the suggestions

This isn't possible. The Mac was printing the day before but now suddenly with no changes to Mac except the item to print it doesn't want to play ball. I'm not fussed about the W8 machine. It's a corporate laptop anyway

I assume its the extruder and if so then it is the plastic white body one with the tape around the bottom. It looks to be a brass heater block. Not sure what an in-line oiler is so I say no to running one of those. What is it and what difference would it make?

I completely agree and can't fault the guys at Robo3D but the reality is I've been promised something which has so far massively under-delivered. Having had the thing for a year it's still not printing right although previously full-time job and part-time education meant limited time to dedicate to babysitting it which is why I paid for the fully-built solution. I'd not expect to shell out £200 on a HP printer and have to endure the problems I have with this.

Now this is sort of a problem. Even though I select PLA it insists on heating the print bed as a default Matter Control setting. In my view, this shouldn't matter if it heats for PLA or not, but given that I'm using PLA but the heatbed fails it stops me from printing at all. I'm aware there are fixes for this in the software that I can use to default the bed to 0 BUT that doesn't solve the problem that the headbed is failing and thus means I'll never be able to print with ABS until fixed

I took a print of the command line earlier... doesn't show much except the printer bed reaching 43.6, staying there for around 10 seconds and then declining

I have printed basic things. When it was printing I printed a small guitar pick numerous times and the calibration ring. So stepped it up to something more complex (the cable wrap and comb). I will looks to use the two noted though too

I don't have an IR thermometer. Being honest I'm not an advanced user. I bought this to see what it could do. I know very little technical things about a printer and therefore would prefer not to go fiddling about with wires on it. Hence why I bought a fully assembled version which I thought was plug-and-play

I have mailed Robo 3D again, not had a response and so sent out a 'parts replacement' request for pretty much the entire printer! But if you have any further suggestions that don't involve wiring up the machine I would be happy to listen and try them

 

I have V1 which is probably out of date and so will get Arduino to refresh it and see what happens

I did the above and still starting to temp-down once it hit the 46 degree mark

Patience is what led to me focusing on other things for the last months. Working full-time and studying a part-time masters and trying to have a decent social life means patience wears very thin when working on stuff like this

 

What other software options are there?

With the oiler I need to get the thing working first. I just redid the firmware and temp of the bed now stops at 37 degrees. Likely not related though. possibly the ramps board

I think its waiting on Robo3D to respond now... I'm not messing about swapping boards out!

 

Mark, I know you are very down on MC... can you explain, specifically, why? What in particular does it do wrong/poorly (other than using CuraEngine, which doesn't seem to work at all)

When I was researching slicers/hosts, I saw one forum where people were VERY excited about MC and were saying they wish they hadn't bought Simplify... they actually liked MC more. (I did see a lot of problems with people running on Mac but, hey, that's par for the course when you use a Mac. I've seen the same kind of complaints about people trying ro use wifi booster antennae, USB microscopes, and more that won't work on Mac. I just tried to install some motion capture tools on my MBP, and even industry-standard Autodesk doesn't run on Mac. It even works on Red Hat and Fedora, though! At some point, you'd think people would just figure out that if you want versatility, you don't use Mac. )