Solved Need some help...

Hi all,

Well, I've ad my Robo R1 for nearly a year now. It's been down for about 10 of those months. Mostly because I was simply frustrated with trying to get it to stay in a working state.

When it works, it is great. When it decides to quit it's great at quitting too.

Here's the saga and the issues I am now having:

Fired it back up, updated MatterControl to 1.3, updated FW through MatterControl to V3. <--- in the past I have done this through arduino .. am I missing something?

Had a wicked jam in the hotend. Hotend fan had crapped out .. replaced it , no joy. Decided to replace hotend.

Replace hotend. Everything is great - several prints later I notice that it's acting funky. Sent a print and the carriage went to the roof - wouldn't stop. Unplugged and reset -- hmmm...

Now it seems that the Z limit switch is no longer working. Send another print and the steppers do not stop. Sends limit switch into the death roll. Red wire is torn away. NICE!

Solder red wire back to the switch. Note: Left side switch was soldered from the factory .. right side is crimped.

Anyway - solder back on and now it is intermittently working. I open terminal and can see the response when it works. More often than not ... it doesn't. So , no printing for me. I did re-solder to be sure. Also checked black wire... soldered a little more on just in case.

Symptoms: Limit switch not working, prints were printing in the air, no response from the terminal when I manually click limit switch.

I spend more time fixing this damned thing than using it.


QUESTION: I noticed on one thread that you are supposed to disable hardware leveling in MatterControl Does this apply to it's newest version?

QUESTION 2: When my machine would actually work - it would only do a 3 point bed leveling. I am seeing some machines do a 9 point. Any thoughts?


Thanks in advance.

- Rob

 

Thanks Mark - when you say throw away MC ... as in , literally?

Did everyone break away from it and go to something else? I've not been around for a while.

Some progress on this thread - I just pulled everything apart for a 4th time. The switch I re-wired the switch and re-soldered it one last time. Terminal shows the switch working now. Both sides will activate it. So... that's good. I think. Have a print running now to see how it goes.

Thanks for the link - I did cruise through it earlier. I'll double-check but as of right now, it is really looking like the wiring was a no-go. When I de-soldered the negative lead, it looked like only a few strands were actually soldered from the beginning. Not sure if the death-spin removed some but ... it's progress.

Thanks again! Will report back with final results tomorrow.

- R

 

MatterControl should be named "What's the Matter? Control". It's idiotic. Update the firmware from Mike Kelly's link, you'll find it on here, and yes, use the Arduino. Then use Slic3r and something like Pronterface, or just use Cura for both. I highly recommend the RepRap LCD controller, by the way. Once you have all that done, you'll know it isn't the software. If your z-stop problem persists, replace the wiring. The chances that you have a bad z switch are less than the chances you have bad wiring. If that doesn't work, replace the switches too. You have to be very persistent with these printers. By the time you understand how to deal with any issue, you'll be like a felon with jail house tats all over you but you'll be just as tough .

 

Well .. thanks again guys. I really appreciate all of the advice.

Good news - I've been printing for 2 days straight without issue. Looks like it was indeed the wiring.

@Island Bill , I've already got the jailhouse tats .. just not a felon (yet!). Thanks again for the encouragement. I have become quite proficient at disassembling and reassembling this thing. No fears moving forward. Now I just need to ditch MatterControl. Once I do, I might get a new tat to commemorate it's departure Honestly though, for me it hasn't been an issue as I've been printing some pretty simple subjects however; I probably just don't know what I've been missing.

Marking this one as resolved.

Thanks again!