Solved Robo 1+ is “stuck up in the ceiling” and won’t come back down

Hi... we're new to this forum and to 3D printing...


We got an R1 Plus for Christmas… we have successfully printed several things.

By this weekend we haven't printed for a week or so... Sunday we printed one thing though we needed a couple restarts and it worked the third time...

The first time the extruder "hit" the bed hard then went up a few inches above the bed and we turned it off… the second time the extruder continued moving around a few inches above the bed so we turned it off and back on again... after a reboot it was ok for the third time and printed just fine – a file of a minion from thingiverse that we had printed successfully (the first time) before.


Later that evening we tried to reprint a second thing we had successfully printed before... but... extruder is "stuck" up in the top of the R1 Plus... way at the top... off and back on a couple times and it just kept moving up higher. So we tried to move it down, but the Matter Control X, Y & Z buttons not bringing it down. The X just moved the extruder all the way left, the Y just moved the bed all the way back, and the Z movet it up into the top… it’s “up in the ceiling… you can only see the very bottom of the tip of the extruder… to see the rest you need to put your head under it and look up.


Help! (?)


Later Monday night… I decided to try to print one more thing tonight... and once the extruder warmed up, it moved even higher, grinding the gears... seems like the printer doesn't recognize where the extruder is... how to "reset" the X Y & Z coordinates?


And to add insult to injury this didn’t post the first time even though it said it did. ☹

 

And since it had been a couple days since we last tried, I re-tried to print again just now...
two things...

first - "Pencil Monster" - h t t p s : // www . thingiverse . com / thing:3329717

after the bed and extruder heated up, the extruder, already "on the ceiling" started to move, apparently further upward, and proceeded to sound a little like a jackhammer, though not as loud.

I turned the R1+ off and back on again and more jackhammer... and then off and back on and more jackhammer... then unplugged and back on and quiet... no jackhammer.


second - "Fidget ball cube" - h t t p s : // www . thingiverse . com / thing:2204181

same thing, but skipped restarting twice... jackhammer and just pulled the plug and then created this "Post Reply."

might you be available to work with us on the phone tomorrow evening (Friday), or maybe over the weekend? Or one evening or later afternoon next week?

Thanks,
Abby & Dad

 

Wheres Waldo,

Thank you.

We see the two Z-axis switches... they are both attached to the black bracket that houses the brass (?) bolt that moves up and down with the Z-axis screws turn.
They are at mirror images of one another... left one has the orange button the left and the right one has the orange button on the right.
Both have the outside terminals connected and the middle terminal unconnected.

I manually screwed the bars down and then turned on the printer and when we tried to print it drove itself down... alllllll the way down... when it hit the front left corner, it pressed down quite hard and seemed to pop the opposite side of the bed up... then it went to the front right corner then to the center and started printing... with the extruder an inch or so above the bed and it wasn't printing correctly.

How to recalibrate the location so it knows where it is?

Thank you for your help.​

 

Geof,

I manually screwed the bars down and then turned on the printer and when we tried to print it drove itself down... alllllll the way down... when it hit the front left corner, it pressed down quite hard and seemed to pop the opposite side of the bed up... then it went to the front right corner then to the center and started printing... with the extruder an inch or so above the bed and it wasn't printing correctly.

How to recalibrate the location so it knows where it is?

Thank you for your help.​

 

Mark,

Thank you.

I did watch the video and then I manually screwed the bars down and then turned on the printer and when we tried to print it drove itself down... alllllll the way down... when it hit the front left corner, it pressed down quite hard and seemed to pop the opposite side of the bed up... then it went to the front right corner then to the center and started printing... with the extruder an inch or so above the bed and it wasn't printing correctly.

How to recalibrate the location so it knows where it is?

Thank you for your help.​

 

Thanks to help from several people we were able to manually screwed the bars down and then turned on the printer and when we tried to print it drove itself down... alllllll the way down... when it hit the front left corner, it pressed down quite hard and seemed to pop the opposite side of the bed up... then it went to the front right corner then to the center and started printing... with the extruder an inch or so above the bed and it wasn't printing correctly.

So we turned it off... then we noticed that the right Z-axis bracket was low... so I re-attached it to the right side so it looks like the left side… and then I manually turned the right screw so the left-right bars are level.

And I used the X, Y, & Z controls in Matter Control to move things... and the Z worked up and down... but it would not go down any further than a finger thickness or so above the bed.

so I manually screwed it down...

then I tried to print Pencil Monster...

and it worked itself up and up and up as it went from left to right... then I came down but not all the way down and started printing above the bed so I stopped and sent this.

I have attached the log file from Matter Control Terminal console thing.

Thank you for your help.
Abby & Dad​

 

Juuuust curious... how to get "everything" moved to the home position?

 

`

Well... I captured some photos, which are all 4-5 meg in size... max for this is 512 Meg...
and when I tried to upload I received this error message "The uploaded file is too large for the server to process."

 

I thought earlier... perhaps you could point me to a site where we can see how the switches are supposed to be connected?

 

OK... I don't have accounts on the other site but I do have an Instagram account (untouched since Oct!?!?).


Two pictures of the left Z-axis:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtPcndUjsiX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtPcx16DZci/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet


Two pictures of the right Z-axis:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtPc0rxDoso/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtPc3SujG-F/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

 

We are now battling sickness and will get to your helpful recommendations as soon as we are well. Thank you for your guidance!