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Unresolved Print looks like sandpaper

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 16, 2020.

  1. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    #1 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 16, 2020
  2. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    Sorry, accidentally deleted my post.

    I recently did a tune up on my Robo R1+ and replaced the belts. tightened them, replaced the hotend nozzle, cleaned the lead screws, replaced a faulty arduino, replaced all the stepper drivers and made some changes to the sketch file and uploaded it. That being said, when i print i get what you see in the link above. I am printing at a .2 layer height with 30%infill at 165 degrees. I used the calibration circle to level the bed and check the bed adhesion with no issues, then i started on my primary print. Any ideas on what could be causing that? Strangely enough I did notice that the lead screws could be easily stopped with very little pressure when they are on, while I was cleaning them.


    Also it was printed at the angle shown. There are pics of the top and bottom.
     
    #2 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 16, 2020
  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    A few questions...
    1) Is that picture showing the top of the print or the bottom facing up? Rather is the TOP picture on that page the top or the bottom? I suspect it is the bottom -- please confirm.
    2) Have you updated the firmware at any point or is it stock (just need to know what version you might be on)?

    I have some possibilities in mind...
     
    #3 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  4. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    I recently rebuilt from the frame up a Robo R1 and the firmware i got was from the Robo site so I believe it to be the stock firmware with some minor changes like the min temp setting etc... The thing that prompted the tune up was that the nozzle was no longer .4 (it was about .8 from running wood filament through it) and the motors just completely stopped moving. Ended up having to replace the arduino.

    There should be 5 pics. Pic one is the top in the orientation i printed it. Second pic is the top of the print towards the back of the printer and there is only supposed to be one hole on top and bottom so that part is ok. Third pic is of the bottom of the part in pic 2. fourth pic is of the top of the part printed to the front of the printer and Pic 5 is of the same part in pic 4 just the bottom.
    I figured I would cover all my bases with the pics, sorry if that was confusing.
     
    #4 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 17, 2020
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    OK, if print 1 is the top then you need more top/bottom layers configured in the slicer.
    Even so that is rather rough. Which firmware did you use to reload onto the Arduino. Be specific and point me to the download link so I can be certain I know what you used. Also exactly which model do you have? R1 or R1+? It matters...
     
    #5 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  6. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    Sorry about that, I keep forgetting that there is an R1 and an R1+. I have the R1+ and used ROBO3DR1PLUSV2 firmware. Also, I did not let the print finish because of the grinding/crunching noise of the nozzle dragging on top of the print, you are looking at 4% of the total print..
     
    #6 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 17, 2020
  7. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    OK, you are certain it is an R1+? If not do you have a picture of where the threaded rods go into the bottom of the printer -- I can tell from that. Because if you loaded the R1+ firmware on the R1, well, it it would fail on the Z axis :)
     
    #7 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  8. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    Here you go.
     

    Attached Files:

    #8 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 17, 2020
  9. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    #9 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You need to do both stepper drivers for the Z (I do not know why Robo thought two drivers was a good idea).
     
    #10 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  11. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    Ok, so this is new to me. The link showed me how to boost the current and I understand that but it does not say what the max limit for the motors is. Also, would it be easier to just replace the stepper driver or is this a stepper motor issue and not a stepper driver issue? Enquiring minds want to know.
     
    #11 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 17, 2020
  12. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The motors are likely 1.5 amps per phase and they are 2 phase steppers so ... (doing the math) 3 amps :)

    The stepper driver can't put out more than about 2A

    What can happen if they are pushed too hard is that they will get hot. Not a problem unless they get to be too hot to touch.
     
    #12 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The stepper drivers are small (cheap) little circuit boards mounted on the RAMPS. You can get them for about $2 each in quantities of 5 or more. The cheaper steppers are going to be $12-20 so, the stepper drive is cheaper.
     
    #13 mark tomlinson, Oct 17, 2020
  14. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    I tried it but now it just sounds super loud when extruder goes down from any height, i think i did it right. Anyway I know what the issue is just not how to fix it. it started to make this squeal when it was printing but i thought it was from the extruder but it turns out that it is from the z axis. When the steppers are enabled I can barely move the x and y axis unless I use a decent amount of force but when i i barely hold either z axis threaded rod it stops and pulses lightly. I found this out because I was cleaning the threaded rods on my other robo and it does not do the same, i set it to 100mm up and lightly hold a cloth to them and they are fine but not on this one. Is that still a problem with the voltage or something else all together. I tried changing out the stepper with 8 other known good ones and same thing then i did the voltage fix and nothing. Any ideas?
     
    #14 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 19, 2020
  15. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Well, if the Z steppers are misbehaving you only have a few possible culprits.
    It is either mechanical or electrical. If you can (with the power off) manually spin the Z leadscrews easily and smoothly then it is not a mechanical problem. That leaves ... electrical.

    The way the electrical works is:

    ARDUINO MEGA-->RAMPS I/O --> STEPPER DRIVER --> STEPPER MOTOR

    So, assuming the other steppers (X, Y, extruder) are working you can usually rule out the Arduino*
    That leaves:

    RAMPS I/O --> STEPPER DRIVER --> STEPPER MOTOR

    If you swapped in a new stepper driver board (the small ones) and that did not change it then that really just leaves:

    RAMPS I/O --> STEPPER MOTOR

    If it were me I would swap in a new RAMPS and test it. No firmware reloading required, just swap the card. It is a bit of a pain since all of the electrical components connect to it. I would leave the stepper motor until last because those are seldom* the failure point.

    The steppers are also a pain because you can't just replace the stepper motor easily on the Z since it includes integrated leadscrews on the R1+. The stepper and the threaded rod are a single part. What you CAN do is to disconnect the Z cable from one of the steppers at a time and connect it to a different axis -- X or Y -- just for testing. Then see if when you tell the machine to raise the Z does the other stepper respond correctly? If it does then likely the stepper is bad. However... because the RAMPS on the R1+ uses two different stepper driver outputs for the Z (one for each Z stepper -- left and right) it is unlikely that the steppers are the problem* or the crossbar would get to a weird angle with one stepper working and the other misbehaving and you would immediately notice that. Since I assume both steppers are stepping the same amount... we can rule that out.

    That really just leaves the RAMPS board as the main culprit. With an R1/Beta you can buy it from Amazon and see (<$20) however with an R1+ you have to rethink that. The R1+ RAMPS board is slightly customized in how the wires land on the outputs. The easiest thing is to buy a board directly from PartsBuilt.com if they have it in stock. (they do at the moment: https://www.partsbuilt.com/ramps-board-r1-robo/)

    If that does not sort it then you have something odd with the steppers themselves or the wiring harness. It might be worth replacing the Arduino Mega and reloading the firmware since it is cheap from Amazon (<$20) and could potentially be at fault*




    *Not always, but usually
     
    #15 mark tomlinson, Oct 20, 2020
  16. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    If you would rather convert to a generic RAMPS 1.4 card there is a thread on that :)
     
    #16 mark tomlinson, Oct 20, 2020
  17. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    Sorry for taking so long to respond, been a rough week at wok. So I replaced pretty much all of the parts on my robo r1+ and still have no idea why this is happening. I even went through the effort of ordering some tools and parts to replace the y axis pillow blocks with a set I printed from thingiverse and the y axis has never been more solid, no play in any direction and smooth forward and backwards motion. Pulled out my other robo r1+ and it does the same thing. One of them is a stock setup and the other has had the generic RAMPS 1.4 conversion. At this point I have tried different parts, different slicers and even a different machine and I am getting a bit frustrated. Best print I got was with an SD card and it only got about 4 layers in before the print started to look terrible and the print head scraped over it bad enough to shift the print. Unless I find a solution then i am afraid I will have to sell one for parts and just buy an Ender 3.
     
    #17 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 24, 2020
  18. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Start eliminating things, it may be something less obvious.

    What is common among all of the printers and models?
    If you print a calibration cube on those same printers.... does it work?
     
    #18 mark tomlinson, Oct 24, 2020
  19. Miguel Rodriguez

    Miguel Rodriguez Member

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    My generic ramps R1+ has had all the components aside from motors and power supply replaced. Honestly the only things that have not been replaced are the wiring, power supplies, motors or the arduino/ramps boards on the second R1+ and i know I made changes to the sketch but that was only for the mintemp and lcd screen.
     
    #19 Miguel Rodriguez, Oct 24, 2020

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