Unanswered Trying to calibrate printer and print correctly

Welcome. You are the proud owner of a 2013 Robo3D Beta. Their first printer sold via Kickstarter.

It can be incrementally upgraded to be the equivalent of an R1+, and not even cost that much to do

 

Now some things to know...
That version of the printer did not include autoleveling.
You had to manually level the print bed.

Painters tape or hairspray will work fine once you get it leveled and the nozzle offset from the bed set correctly.
You have to do all of this manually, there is no way to did in the software unless you update the printer to have autoleveling.

I'd suggest we help you get it doing basic printing and then you print the parts you can for the autoleveling upgrade and buy the switches (they are cheap) and we can show you how to update the firmware to include autoleveling

 

Let me see a picture of the bed without the tape on it...

 

1) OK, the pictures confirm it is a beta
2) so you need to make sure that you are not trying to use autoleveling (it will not work correctly with that hardware). For now, make sure whatever slicer you use does NOT include a G29 in the startup GCode block it uses. If you are not aware of how/where to check this we need to know which slicer/host program you are using and then can show you where to set that.
3) If the Z nuts are getting knocked out of the crossbar then you have the Z home position set too low. The way the printer finds "home" is that is pushes each axis (X, Y, Z) until the home switch triggers. The X axis home switch is shown in this picture :


The Y axis is under the bed -- under the front edge there is a switch and a post to trigger it similar to the above for X
The Z you already have in your photo

So when it get the HOME command (G28) it drives the X home (looks for the switch to close) then drives the Y home (waits for the switch to close) and lastly drives the Z home (waits for the switch to close.

If that unseats your Z rod nuts from the crossbar then you need to adjust the screw that is on top of the Z home switch to extend further down towards the switch (which means that when the switch closes the crossbar is further off of the bed and so is the extruder)

Keep doing that -- raise the Z, adjust the screw and homing the printer -- until the Z nuts are no longer getting unseated and the nozzle is just touching the bed.

Once you get there we an take the next step and start leveling.

 

The only "position" that the printer actually knows -- is HOME. Everything else is math

 

If the bed actually is lower in the center, you can sort that out with a thin piece of float glass (window glass like you can buy at a hardware store) cut to fit the bed, hold it on with binder clamps. You will have to readjust your Z home switch when you add that over the existing bed.

Probably the best upgrade is to add autoleveling, but get it printing first There are parts you need to print to do that.

 

You do not need:

M565 Z-0.90 ;

That sets the offset for the autoleveling so with no G29 it is unused.


You want to adjust the offset of Z axis (with the screw again and yes -- those switches are a couple bucks at amazon) so that when you slide a sheet of paper under the tip of the nozzle it will move, but you can feel resistance/drag on the paper from the nozzle. That is where you want it set at to start printing.

Adding autoleveling is a simple modification. A quick summary is:
1) You print two switch mounts mounts
2) swap the Z nuts for slightly longer ones
3) move the one Z switch and add a second one in series with it (minor wiring redo)
4) load the correct firmware

There is a thread on it here and I can point you to the printable parts on thingiverse So once you get it printing it is a one-day job.

 

Once you have the initial height of the nozzle correct I would print something like the attached 1-layer tall print and adjust it at the corners with the screws until it looks like this: https://www.printedsolid.com/blogs/news/37035715-get-your-prints-to-stick-check-your-skirt

Attached is a sample 1-layer model to slice and use

Again if you bed really is warped such that it will not print correctly in the middle look at adding a thin sheet of float glass since that will sort it out.

 

Use the model I included above for testing since it is quick

 

You can also use shims of any sort as well to help space the bed/nozzle. One thing that helped a lot with the old bed was to add springs around the screws that anchor the bed to the rails. That way simply turning the screw would easily allow you to adjust the height of the bed at any given corner and you just kept adjusting until you had it as level as you could get it,


This is a genius idea: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:125626

 

There are screws in the corners that attach the bed plate to the rails.
See my link above for the thingiverse link that shows how to add a spring to the screw that you can then easily adjust -- You do not need the plastic printed sheath for the springs for the screws with springs to work...