Heated bed not heating?

Hi

I received my Robo3D earlier in the week (in Australia).

Following the Getting Started Guide on this site. I had no luck getting the software to recognise the printer on my Mac, so I had to resort to a virtual Windows installation and this time the software worked fine and I was able to configure the printer and slicer as per the instructions.

The X/Y/Z movements all seem to work fine (tested with the manual mode of Repetier-Host software and the "homing" buttons). The hot end temperature monitoring works, and I was able to successfully heat to 230C and loaded filament as per instructions.

But when I follow the rest of the test print instructions I get nowhere. I have the .STL file loaded, the Slicer operation completed, and begun preheating the hot end and bed. The hot end reaches it's temperature quickly, but the heated bed does not warm at all. And when I run the print job, nothing happens.

I'm hoping there's just something simple I'm overlooking - but would appreciate some advice!

Thanks
Tim

 

Thanks for the quick reply

Yes I'm in Australia, using a Macbook Air running Lion 10.7.5. The virtual PC I'm using is running Windows 7.

The printer arrived assembled, and the packaging appeared intact etc.

I followed the "Getting Started Guide" on this website (http://guide.robo3dprinter.com/) so I'm pretty sure I've used the correct settings from there, but if you can please link me to the video you mention, I'll double-check the settings shown there.

Cheers
Tim

 

Thanks Harry,

Yes I did click Apply to store the settings in Repetier, and double-checked that the correct ROBOPRINT/1/2 profiles were created in Slicer. Everything appeared to be working fine until I got to the first test print stage. The hot end had heated smoothly, and I was able to load/extrude/retract filament, but the heated bed never began warming and the print job never began.

I will watch the videos you linked and make sure I have done things correctly, and update this thread tomorrow

Cheers
Tim

 

Thanks for the replies, and taking the time to read. I've made some minor progress but the main issues still remain.

Harry - on a hunch (seeing as it was working for you) I upgraded from 10.7.5 to Mountain Lion 10.8.4, and was able to connect to the printer with Repetier on the Mac, without needing the virtual Windows install. So that's progress I can be confident my issues aren't related to virtualisation!

But the good news ends there for me I'm afraid. I can still do everything I was able to do under Windows (ie Connect the printer, move the printhead and printbed around with the X/Y/Z controls, heat the hot end, load filament, extrude filament). But my heated bed still refuses to heat.

I can confirm that the hot end has heated fine (210C) and been stable there for 30 minutes, but the heated bed has remained at 22.5C-22.7C (room temp) for the same period.

The LED is green with a rapidly blinking red light as well. Is there a diagnostics table for the LEDs?

Jeff - thanks for your suggestion, I do have the PLA/ABS model so I think my next step in troubleshooting is to try a PLA print with the heat bed set to 0C. I did try this on the Windows machine with no luck, but think it is probably worth trying again, under the native Mac OS.

Will report back tomorrow!

Cheers
Tim

 

Back again

OK, once again some minor progress but some problems remain.

Jeff - as you suggested I tried a print job with PLA filament and the heated bed temp set to 0C. This time the printer did commence the job, although the first layer would not stick to the bed so I just ended with a growing glob on the end of the extruder. Killed the job after a minute or two. I believe the hot-end temperature was ok (set at 190C for first layer in Slic3r, and 180C for subsequent). The Z level was OK too (sheet of paper width between hot end and print bed).

I'm in a fairly cold room, so presume this is why the print wouldn't stick. But at least it was extruding as per the Slic3r program - I'm another step further along than yesterday!

Harry - thanks for the suggestions; I will track down the assembly videos for the heated bed and check these connections you mention.

Watch this space

Thanks again guys for taking the time to reply and trying to assist.

Tim

 

Hey all

Happy to report my heated bed is now functioning perfectly. Harry's suggestion to double-check the wiring paid off, as one of the heated bed wires (connecting to D8) was loose. Once that was reattached everything worked as expected. Thanks Harry!

My first attempts at a PLA print didn't work though, with the filament not sticking to the plate. I think my Z axis is level and I tried the print with the bed at 55C (as suggested in the Software Configuration startup guide) and then 70C (as suggested in the Troubleshooting starter guide) but as the heated bed is really for ABS I plan to try again tomorrow using ABS and relevel the Z axis when swapping filaments.

Once again I'll report back

Tim

 

Thanks for the links, Harry. I had come across a mention of this boro glass yesterday when googling re: my test prints not sticking, but wasn't sure how necessary it was. Will try and track some down locally (Adelaide, Australia). I'm eager to get testing though, so think I will still try an ABS print straight to the heated bed.

 

Whoops, I went ahead and tried an ABS print before seeing your last message. Hopefully I have not damaged the heated bed.

I used the 5mm calibration cube STL file, and got about a dozen layers printed before the extruder "bumped" the print out of position and things went pear-shaped

Looks like one corner of the print started lifting off the bed, which caused the extruder to collide. My temperatures were Extruder 225C, Bed 87C (I had it set to 90C but it was struggling to get that high - lots of fan cycling and two steps forward, one step back temperature increments once I hid the mid 80s).

I managed to find some blue tape at the local hardware store, but it is fairly narrow (1"). How would you advise applying it? How problematic would small gaps/overlaps be if I laid down some parallel strips? I imagine it would be quite difficult to get them perfectly flush.

Would I use the standard recommended heat settings (ie 190/180 55/55 PLA and 220/210 90/80 ABS) when using blue tape?

Cheers
Tim