Author Topic: PeterE builds a 3d Printer (Read 67614 times)

picclock · « **Reply #125 on:** February 20, 2016, 11:29:28 AM »

Hi Peter

FWIW the presets on my boards are far from 'linear'. The max current on mine is 2.5A, with 0.1 ohm resisters that corresponds to 1.25v top end. But the pot range is 0 to 3.3v. I think I read the pots for your drivers work the wrong way round, clockwise to decrease current.

Two things that may help. When it powers up the motors are disabled. Sending a home command or a motors on (M17) should sort it. Commands are listed http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code - not all are supported by Marlin.

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #126 on:** February 21, 2016, 05:09:59 AM »

Aha, thanks picclock!

Always tricky when having different suppliers. The G-code command list for Marlin is super!

The descriptions I use works very well and there are basically no differences from when they were written till today, but... something kind of tells me that the later verwsions of Pronterface and Marlin have been enhanced and nowadays include more functions than at the time of writing.

The "new" function for adding separate fans for double extruders is one of them. I simply have to use the descriptions as a base and go from there.

It may just be that I have to connect the two thermistors to get on with the settings. More to do today.

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #127 on:** February 22, 2016, 04:19:05 PM »

This is annoying

From getting error 0 which is equal to no thermistor connected, to now get error MAXTEMP instead!

Having read through a bunch of googled pages it seems to circle around the default setting of thermistor type in the Marlin firmware. As said it is set to type 0 but should be set to type 1. Also took the time to check the resistance and both was around 150 Ohm as measured. They are of type 100kOhm and that seems right so far.

The annoying thing is that I cannot proceed with the movement settings until these temp errors are fixed as the firmware shuts the board down for safety sake

Oh well, there is a day tomorrow as well. I will win over this one as well - some day.

BR

/Peter

chipenter · « **Reply #128 on:** February 22, 2016, 05:24:14 PM »

You can change to cnc router in printer settings that will disable the temp and extruder to check movement .
I should have said in Repetier Host .

picclock · « **Reply #129 on:** February 23, 2016, 03:02:32 AM »

Hi PeterE

Resistance of the thermisters at room temp should be around 100k @ 25C. If it is showing too hot likely a short, too cold likely open circuit. 150 ohms is too low and 150k too high unless its really cold where you are :-). If ambient is below 5C Mintemp error occurs and system stops. You will need to repower the system to restart. Are you disconnecting the thermisters to read the value?. If they are still connected you will get a low reading.

Best to try to sort this - it will have to done at some time, but if you get desperate, assuming you are using Marlin RC1_3, it can be fooled for debug purposes by enabling the following in configuration.h (around line 146 - just remove the forward slashes)

#define DUMMY_THERMISTOR_998_VALUE 25
#define DUMMY_THERMISTOR_999_VALUE 100

Obviously recompile and upload when done.

Are you going to use auto bed levelling?. I have been looking at the servo type for mine, where it will take measurements in different bed positions and adjust the head height accordingly.

Good luck with the fault finding.

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #130 on:** February 23, 2016, 12:14:51 PM »

Thanks for useful input both Jeff and picclock!

As far as I have understood from more web surfing is that this is a very common exercise when starting up a new printer. One of the important steps seems to be to set the correct type of thermistor in the Marlin h-file. The value should be set to "1" but is by default set to "0". Changing that should take the activities a bit more forward.

My measurement of about 150 Ohm should of course be 150 kOhm, missed the scale setting on the DVM

sorry. thermistors = OK.

Then on top of it all, I am doing this in my garage and it is not a warm place. It probably circles bewteen 4 to 10 Degree C. This doesn't help either. Perhaps time to move the printer indoors to a warmer area for the moment

So, time to adjust G-codes in marlin - fingers crossed ....

/Peter

picclock · « **Reply #131 on:** February 24, 2016, 09:39:19 AM »

Hi PeterE

If your workshop is that cold it would be best to change the mintemp values to prevent the mintemp error. Once this error occurs the system stops completely, even though the display looks normal. They are set @5C by default, so if you changed them to 1C that may help your situation. The max temps will also probably need to be increased if you are printing Nylon. From configuration.h around line 65.

// The minimal temperature defines the temperature below which the heater will not be enabled It is used
// to check that the wiring to the thermistor is not broken.
// Otherwise this would lead to the heater being powered on all the time.
#define HEATER_0_MINTEMP 5
#define HEATER_1_MINTEMP 5
#define HEATER_2_MINTEMP 5
#define HEATER_3_MINTEMP 5
#define BED_MINTEMP 5

// When temperature exceeds max temp, your heater will be switched off.
// This feature exists to protect your hotend from overheating accidentally, but *NOT* from thermistor short/failure!
// You should use MINTEMP for thermistor short/failure protection.
#define HEATER_0_MAXTEMP 275
#define HEATER_1_MAXTEMP 275
#define HEATER_2_MAXTEMP 275
#define HEATER_3_MAXTEMP 275
#define BED_MAXTEMP 150

May I wish you swift progress.

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #132 on:** February 24, 2016, 11:51:23 AM »

Hi picclock,

Thanks for the info, I will include that. I got this link from a friend at another forum (model railroading in Sweden) and this instruction to set up the firmware is way superior to the one I started with:
http://solidutopia.com/marlin-firmware-user-guide-basic/

It is clear that I have simply missed a fair number of settings and I will do a recompilation. I will include your temp limits due to shop temps.

I still think the journey has been satisfying anyway. Some troubles on the way makes one learn a lot about the equipment whatever it is, and being familiar with it helps in turn to get appropriate results.

We will see where this goes.

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #133 on:** February 28, 2016, 09:50:25 AM »

Just a small status update. A few days of other activities like a hard rock concert and a visit to some old dear frinds delayed any printer activities for two days.

Tried to use the instruction linked to above. Went from bad to worse unfortunately

now the printer does not even react on connect command.

I must have set something wrong somewhere even though I ticked off the instruction step by step. I kind of get lost in those endlessrows of attributes without line breaks for each value. I may well have changed a value for another attribute because of that.

Ah well, will have another go at it this evening.

==== And the evening came ...

Got a very useful tip from my son, the computer wiz, that the things that sometimes makes files hard to read in Windows is due to lack of line breaks. There are two kinds of line breaks, the carriage Return (CR) and the Line Feed (LF), Windows only likes one of them and discards the other, so the .h-files obviously use the other

There is though an OpenSource program - of course - called notepad++ that seems to be able to recognize both.

Downloaded the program and tested with one of the example files in Marlin and it becomes a whole different thing to edit files when they are readable!

With a normal Windows Notepad it looks like this:

... and using notepad++ it looks like this

This makes ever so much easier to edit the files correctly. Must check the all the files as well. Thought it might be a useful tip.

BR

/Peter

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #134 on:** March 02, 2016, 04:46:31 PM »

Sorry guys, this build has ground to more or less a halt due to me not being friends with either Arduino or Marlin

I dawned on me the other day that the Arduino IDE tool actually was the tool to edit the files, and then I got a whole project instead of a single file .... (I have been doing things in complete opposite manner for years. Editing a single file using a good line editor (VI) and then compiling on command line. Simple and effective, but now - noooo.

Guess how many times I have had to unzip the downloaded set of firmware files due to me mashing one file or the other up

I will get some help from my computer-knowledgeable son and that will probably help but it will delay things for longer than expected.

BR

/Peter

efrench · « **Reply #135 on:** March 03, 2016, 04:07:49 AM »

Visual Studio 2015 does Arduino quite nicely and the Community version is free.

chipenter · « **Reply #136 on:** March 03, 2016, 04:20:09 AM »

I have set Wordpad as defalt for Arduino and G-code files , or anything with wordwrap .

PeterE · « **Reply #137 on:** March 03, 2016, 04:07:15 PM »

Thanks a lot for good tips both. Will remember those.

Will still try to use the Marlin/Arduino combination that I have but together with my son as two pairs of eyes see more bugs than one pair.

Also got tipped about this site that seems quite helpful for 3D printer setup. http://marlinkimbra.it/

/Peter

picclock · « **Reply #138 on:** March 06, 2016, 03:03:00 AM »

Hi PeterE

I am at the stage where I can home the axis and am preparing to do the thermal calibration. If I can offer any assistance let me know. My current configuration seems to work OK, although I have set the extruder temp to zero to allow me to calibrate the filament feed. You are welcome to a copy of the configuration files assuming you are using Marlin RC3. If I can be of any other assistance please post or pm me.

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #139 on:** March 06, 2016, 06:48:42 AM »

Nice to hear (read) that your setup is coming together as planned. I think it is good to take enough time to do the initial setup and calibration work to get proper pints, otherwise one just gets annoyed by having to re-do that later.

Thank you very much for your generous offer! I will keep that in mind, but I have not given up hope yet to get it running myself. (Stubborn, me?!? Noooo

) I have come to a point where the configuration file seems to be complete and is compiling properly. Last time I tried uploading I got another error at upload time, something about a ctrlD error or something similar. Have not had time to do anything about that this weekend as my youngest daughter is moving out - yessss

- the downside is that I missed the last step in the stairs at home while carrying a piece of furniture down and sprained my ankle

I constantly get fooled by my new pair of glasses and short range depth sight is differfent with and without - sigh!

Anyway, I will get there I am sure, and if it still keeps protesting I will get in touch I promise.

BR

/Peter

chipenter · « **Reply #140 on:** March 06, 2016, 10:18:19 AM »

Iff you get it to upload once it will give an error message the next time as the upload is in the Arduino memory , confused me to a few times .

PeterE · « **Reply #141 on:** March 06, 2016, 12:31:59 PM »

Hi chipenter,

Aha, so that's why! That is something I have been thinking a bit about. A thing that is different between different hardware and applications. How does it react to repeated uploads? Is there an automatic write-over function, or do I need to empty a memory? Seems like I am close to this one.

Will have to study the behaviour of the Arduino a bit more. It is way different than a Raspberry Pie.

BR

/Peter

PeterE · « **Reply #142 on:** March 20, 2016, 05:47:48 PM »

A lot of reading done and new things learned, but still no activity from the printer.

It seems like there is some SW bit missing even though I have downloaded all that I think is supposed to be in place according to descriptions.

I even tried to make a configuration on the MarlinKimbra site and not even that one worked. The filed uploads all right (I think) but when I switch power on nothing happens and I cannot get the PC and printer/Arduino to connect. It says connecting ... but nothing happens, and the Pronterface SW does not open so I can manipulate the movements for calibration.

In a way I am stuck and have a hard time finding out why it does not work. I think I will reinstall all SW from start to see if that helps.

This is going to take a loooong time to get going.

chipenter · « **Reply #143 on:** March 21, 2016, 04:22:48 AM »

Have you tried Repetier Host it comes with all the Python files to instal in one , in Marlin config h you need to set the board , port speed , end stops , pull up resitors and temps .

picclock · « **Reply #144 on:** March 21, 2016, 07:19:38 AM »

Hi PeterE

With Marlin installed you should be able to control all the printer functions from the graphic display. No other connection to a computer/slicer or anything else is needed. The motors will only power up if you just tell it to home in Marlin. Only the Marlin firmware is needed to get this far - and in fact check out the whole machine. When you turn it on does the graphic display show any error messages. I got caught out with the mintemp message when a thermister was not connected, as once that message shows the whole system stops.

If the display is not working you likely have power supply issues. Generally, the display will come alive with just the power from a usb lead. No display likely means the ribbon cables are reversed.

Hope this helps

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #145 on:** March 21, 2016, 04:34:21 PM »

Hi,

@chipenter; Thanks for the tip. I checked out the Repetier Host site and it looks interesting to say the least. I think also it is possible to install it in parallell to the Marlin on my PC for comparison sake. Think I will do that if not just for the learning curve of 3D SW varieties.

@picclock; You are right, the display is not working. I will try to reverse the cables to see if I have got them mixed up. The numbering is mostly hidden under the board connectors so it is really a bit of guesswork to get it right. After switching places I will get an answer.

The comment about power supply issues is also interesting. I have been thinking along that line as well. Everything uploads etc, but no other activity kind of suggests that. The fan in the PSU starts and I have 12 V DC on the lines to the Arduino so should work, but one thing annoys me. I can see that there are a number of bridging connectors and I wonder if any of those are placed on the wrong connectors. There is nothing described about that in the description for a "normal" setup, only if I want to either have a separate power supply to the Arduino PSU inlet together with the power to the RAMPS shield, or if I want to enable the PS_ON function.

Will try the simple bits first and see where goes.

Even though this is kind of frustrating, it is also very educative - both for me and my son. As it seems we will have use for this contraption as it start functioning

/Peter

Quick reply after an equally quick test. The display lights up when power si switched on. So does a red LED on the Arduino board which means that we have power. The display does not show any text or graphics, just an area where I think graphics will be displayed when everything is operable.

So first quick test gives some indication at least. Back tomorrow.

chipenter · « **Reply #146 on:** March 21, 2016, 05:30:45 PM »

It should be a green light on connection so something is not right .

picclock · « **Reply #147 on:** March 22, 2016, 09:12:02 AM »

@ chipenter

My arduino board has red leds. The one nearest the print connector flashes to show the system running, and the one just behind is on permanently to indicate power. I had a very early board with one green led, but I fried it by shorting two pins together :-0

Best Regards

picclock

PeterE · « **Reply #148 on:** March 22, 2016, 05:25:37 PM »

Chipenter & picclock,

Yes there is surely something fishy going on. The green activity lights works well when connecting the PC through the USB port and clearly shows both being switched on and if I upload it blinks like --- yes.

The red LED in question is placed just inside the connectors to the RAMPS board on the left side about half way from the USB end. I can see it lighting through the RAMPS board.

Must try to figure out what it wants to tell.

Will try to install Repetier to see if I understand that one a bit easier.

/Peter

picclock · « **Reply #149 on:** March 23, 2016, 04:06:12 AM »

Hi PeterE

I think we may have a slight misunderstanding. The red leds I was referring to are on the arduino board. It is likely these that you can see through the holes in the ramps board. The ramps board - well my one at least - has a green led at the green plug in connector end. It is only necessary to plug a printer usb lead into the arduino (with ramps attached) to power up a useable functioning display - no other power supplies or connections required. If the bed/head thermistors are not connected the system will halt with a MINTEMP error message. Either way the Marlin screen should be displayed and will continue to be so even if the system is halted. Basically the display will work with just the ramps/Arduino boards assembled together even with or without the motor drivers, thermistors or any other connections. Very first post of my build log shows a picture of this complete with MINTEMP error, as nothing connected.

I think I am as keen to see your printer working as I am to get my own finished

. Good luck with the debugging.

Best regards

picclock.

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Author Topic: PeterE builds a 3d Printer (Read 67614 times)