New to Robo 3d R1 (and 3d printing) Please help.

I've tried searching for hours, but I'm just lost at this point.

I picked up the R1 last night at Fry's Electronics, the store I went to normally only had the Velleman K8200 so when I seen this I just had to have it.

After un-boxing and installing the software, I tried to print a whistle as it was fairly small. The MatterControl software guided me through the paper calibration steps. on the last step the bed makes a crazy vibration sound when the bed slides all the way forward ( towards me) I see there is a limit switch when it goes towards the back and that seems to work, I haven't found a limit switch for forward motion. MC said complete so I proceeded to print.

The whistle started off well, it stuck to the hairspray coated bed but didn't finish. Seems like the extruder jammed on one of the final layers. This print was the best I got.

Even after re-calibrating with the paper method, the first layer doesnt get close enough I think. Its coming out like spaghetti and just turns into a molten ball on the end of the nozzle when it gets to the 2nd or 3rd layer.

Am I not doing the paper calibration correctly? Should it make that loud vibration noise?

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

 

The loud vibration probably means it moved past it's available volume. The robo, along with most reprap style printers, don't use max endstops cause they're usually unnecessary.

If you use the manual controls are you able to go the full 254mm on the Y or does it stall early?

 

I can go the whole way now after manually sliding the bed fully back and forth, seems to have centered it withing the travel. So if that vibration is OK, I have to figure out how to properly calibrate the nozzle to bed clearance and why the nozzle lifts about an inch after touching the bed then starts printing up in the air on my last few attempts. Unfortunately I am at work now so I will have to wait until later.

Anything else I should plan to look at once I get home?

 

How the z_min endstop works is there are 2 switches on both sides of the x axis being pressed against the carriage. As soon as the nozzle touches the bed, the coupler nut unseats from the housing and the switches disengage.

If the switches disengage too early it won't make it to the home position.

The usual cause of this is that the X axis is not level. You should be able to move the x carriage back and forth while maintaining a consistent distance from the bed. You can use a piece of paper to verify the nozzle distance is the same.

If this is level and the switches are still disengaging early you might try loosening the screw holding the switch bracket and verifying it's pressed against the carriage, but not holding it up. It's critical the coupler nut is what is pushing up the carriage and not the switch itself.

 

I did notice the X gap is greater towards the right side of the printer ( away from home). Visibly noticeable. Do I adjust this manually or does the calibration do this for me? Sounds like that might be my main issue... The blue switch mounts on the carriage nuts are fully seated and they click when doing a calibration.

Since this model has the magnetic bed mounts, doesn't look like the tesseract spring mounts would work for me.

 

manually. The two motors are on the same circuit, so if you move one you generate a current that can move the other. So hold one rod while you twist the other one until it's level.

With automatic leveling tessarects spring mounts are unnecessary

 

Thank you! I will try this tonight. Will keep you posted.

 

Ok so I seem to have gotten the carriage leveled from left to right, and the prints are WAY better, but now it looks like the bed is not level front to back.

I don't notice it on small prints but the larger prints the more the bed travels towards the back of the printer the gap increases. It's not a huge amount but it's enough that the first layer will start of perfect but as it moves to the bottom of the print area the slurry turns into noodles. Maybe about .05-.1 mm. Sorry for my non technical explanation.

How to I level front to back?

 

The auto bed leveling does that for you

 

Here is an example of what is happening. The second photo shows how much better the layers are after the carriage leveling

 

Glad you got it printing. You might check Ziggy's thread on Z-axis stability and ribbing fixes.