Looking for help with calibration of E

I'm trying to calibrate using pronterface and sprinter on ramps 1.4. I have been changing axis_steps_per_unit for E. The original value was 700, which just made the extruder motor make a high pitched whine. I have been lowering the steps per unit and at 50 it started to spin, but too fast. I have slowed it down now to 9 and have started to test print with some success. Now i am making very small changes between 8.5 and 9.5, but it seems that I cannot find a happy middle ground between no flow, and way too much flow.

One concern of mine is that when heating and purging the extruder before print, I have to set the extrude button to about 300mm of filament, and only about 5mm actually extrudes for each click. Am I going about this wrong?

Let's first establish that you are using propper microstepping on the RAMPS. Did you install all of the jumpers (3) under the Pololu drivers?

Are your stepper motors 0.18 Deg. per step, or are they 0.09 Deg. per step?

Have you adjusted the current on the extruder stepper driver to something reasonable? The motor should be hot, but not so hot that you cannot touch it.

As a start, my steppers are 1.8 deg, all 3 jumpers are installed under my extruder driver, and the pot on the controller is reasonably set. I have tried two different approaches, each with it's own showstoppers.

Using pronterface I calibrated Axis_steps_per_unit in Sprinter to be about 525 from original of 700. This worked in the GUI menu, the 'extrude' button was +/- .5mm over a 10mm feed, close enough to dial in later. When I make a .gcode file and print it, the extruder does not turn but locks the gears from being turned by hand, it warms but does not get hot. The other axis all move in slow motion, about 1mm every 5 seconds, but the nozzle does trace the correct print while oozing most of the first layer until it runs out of melted filament.

The other approach, which seems wrong was to not use the extrude button, and try to guess check method to get it to print files. A value of approxamately 9 for Asix_steps_per_unit gave me a ballpark OK print for a layer or so, but I could not get things to go smooth for more than 2 layers before it would either stop printing, or start flowing way too much plastic and get sloppy. It also was very drooly and had very poor precision. I could not use the 'extrude button' without telling it to extrude 300mm of plastic or so, and having it only extrude a very small amount. I do not understand the difference in methods, but this way it printed at regular printing speed, not in slow motion, something else must have been changed but I don't know what.

I messed around with settings, different firmwares, and different host softwares since completing RAMPS about a month ago. I have tried deleting all of my files and re-downloading several times to get the defaults back with no better clarity of what I'm doing wrong. I feel like I have tried most configurations of software/firmware offered on the wiki with only more confusion.

My reprap worked for about 8 months with Gen3 electronics (I ordered RAMPS after makerfaire) I have now downgraded back to my Gen3 electronics, but even here I am still running into more problems. Everything works alright except the hot end thermocouple. Since I upgraded to a makergear extruder (from techzone oak block) with the purchase of my RAMPS, I now have a different thermocouple that I cannot get my old electronics to read. I am trying now to upload the 5D firmware to the extruder like I was successfully able to do a few months ago, and now when I download the file and compile it gives me error "'NUMTEMPS' was not declared in this scope". Both my computers get this error, and I cannot compile or download to the controller.

I'm thinking now of re-installing the RAMPS board again and wiping my system of the softwares and firmwares to start over with detailed notes of my changes and results. I regret not keeping better records of my work. Do any of my problems sound familiar to anyone? I'm very turned around, but I think I'm overlooking something very simple.

Are you using Skeinforge 40 or newer?

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I hooked up my RAMPS again. I created a new folder and unzipped Printrun, Sprinter, and Skeinforge 41 from my download directory. I put a copy of my skeinforge folder in the pronterface folder. In Sprinter I chose option 33 for motherboard, and uncommented #define RAMPS_V_1_3 in pins.h and re-downloaded the fresh firmware.

I connect with pronterface and I can home all axis. With default settings the extruder is moving way too much filament when I request 5mm, probably around 20mm. I will have to adjust for this later.

When I load an STL file it shows up in the grid preview area on the GUI. I click print and the X,Y,Z work but E does not move.

You should try Marlin instead of Sprinter on RAMPS. The look ahead feature deals with short segments much better than Skeinforge and the configuration.h file is almost identical to Sprinter. You can get it from github.

This is the wrong link so I removed it. Somehow, my paste buffer didn't update and I ended up giving the 5D firmware as sublime caught and corrected in his reply. Thanks sublime for the correction.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2011 05:44AM by brnrd.

brnrd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You should try Marlin instead of Sprinter on
> RAMPS. The look ahead feature deals with short
> segments much better than Skeinforge and the
> configuration.h file is almost identical to
> Sprinter. You can get it from github.


+1

You need to turn on dimension in skeinforge.

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Downloaded Marlin and made the same updates as I did in Sprinter for configuration.h and pins.h. When I compile I get these errors:

Marlin.cpp:2280:1: error: pasting "DIO" and "-" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Marlin.cpp:2280:1: error: invalid suffix "_RPORT" on integer constant
Marlin.cpp:2280:1: error: pasting "DIO" and "-" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Marlin.cpp:2280:1: error: invalid suffix "_PIN" on integer constant
Marlin.cpp:2293:1: error: pasting "DIO" and "-" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Marlin.cpp:2293:1: error: invalid suffix "_RPORT" on integer constant
Marlin.cpp:2293:1: error: pasting "DIO" and "-" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Marlin.cpp:2293:1: error: invalid suffix "_PIN" on integer constant
Marlin.cpp:2306:1: error: pasting "DIO" and "-" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Marlin.cpp:2306:1: error: invalid suffix "_RPORT" on integer constant
Marlin.cpp:2306:1: error: pasting "DIO" and "-" does not give a valid preprocessing token
Marlin.cpp:2306:1: error: invalid suffix "_PIN" on integer constant
Marlin.cpp: In function 'void __vector_17()':
Marlin:2223: error: 'DIO' was not declared in this scope
Marlin:2236: error: 'DIO' was not declared in this scope
Marlin:2249: error: 'DIO' was not declared in this scope

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2011 12:28AM by jeffwilson.

I followed this post [forums.reprap.org] about turning on demention in skienforge, but I did not get the same resolution after I had turned the setting on.

I clicked craft->dimention-> checkbox for activate dimention. Re-loaded an STL file with a new file name and tried to print again. No extruder movement during the print, but the pronterface GUI 'extrude' button has control over the motor when not printing.

Did you click the save button at the bottom.

And the link Brnd gave you was for the RepRap 5D firmware which you do not want at all. This is the marlin link [github.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2011 12:31AM by Sublime.

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Yeah, I saved the settings and verified by closing and re-opening the program. Dimention is checked, but I did not adjust any settings in that window other than activating it.

I got marlin uploaded and am finding that pronterface "extrude" button is not working right. I set the extrude length to 5mm and the speed default was 200mm/min. This locked the motor, and I randomly entered in several numbers before finding that 2mm/min produced about a 10rpm (very slow) movement of the drive gear off the extruder motor shaft for a short time. Almost no filament movement on the hobbed bolt.

Without changing anything, I loaded a calibration STL, waiting for it to build, and hit print. The printer worked on all 3 axis and the extruder motor turned about 4 times faster than it looks like it should, luckily my idler bearing is off so i'm not feeding plastic.

It seems that there is a huge disparity between the GUI button, and the Gcode

Have you done [forums.reprap.org] exactly as said.

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I did, and I loaded a new STL after the changes were made. I verified the .gcode file I was using had reasonable values for E.

Here is the first 50 or so lines of my gcode file i'm using.

G90
G21
M105
M106
M140 S60.0
M141 S30.0
M142 S0.0
M113 S1.0
M104 S200.0
G1 X28.8 Y48.888 Z0.72 F60.0
G1 F798.0
G1 E0.0
G1 F60.0
M101
M108 S210.0
G1 X28.8 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E42.0156
G1 X31.68 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E50.3355
G1 X31.68 Y40.248 Z0.72 F240.0 E117.3109
G1 X34.56 Y35.928 Z0.72 F240.0 E132.3099
G1 X34.56 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E211.7652
G1 X37.44 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E220.0851
G1 X37.44 Y31.608 Z0.72 F240.0 E312.0203
G1 X40.32 Y28.728 Z0.72 F240.0 E323.7864
G1 X40.32 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E424.0415
G1 X43.2 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E432.3615
G1 X43.2 Y25.848 Z0.72 F240.0 E540.9365
G1 X46.08 Y22.968 Z0.72 F240.0 E552.7026
G1 X46.08 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E669.5976
G1 X48.96 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E677.9175
G1 X48.96 Y21.528 Z0.72 F240.0 E798.9724
G1 X51.84 Y20.088 Z0.72 F240.0 E808.2744
G1 X51.84 Y34.632 Z0.72 F240.0 E850.29
G1 X54.72 Y33.192 Z0.72 F240.0 E859.5919
G1 X54.72 Y18.648 Z0.72 F240.0 E901.6076
G1 X57.6 Y17.208 Z0.72 F240.0 E910.9095
G1 X57.6 Y34.632 Z0.72 F240.0 E961.2451
G1 F798.0
G1 E961.2451
G1 F240.0
M103
G1 X57.6 Y44.568 Z0.72 F960.0
G1 F798.0
G1 E961.2451
G1 F960.0
M101
G1 X57.6 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E1015.7406
G1 X54.72 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E1024.0605
G1 X54.72 Y46.008 Z0.72 F240.0 E1074.396
G1 X51.84 Y44.568 Z0.72 F240.0 E1083.698
G1 X51.84 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E1138.1935
G1 F798.0
G1 E1138.1935
G1 F240.0
M103

Those are not reasonable. They should be more like.

G1 X31.68 Y63.432 Z0.72 F240.0 E0.0309
G1 X31.68 Y40.248 Z0.72 F240.0 E0.0355

In the speed tab are flow and feedrates set to the same values.

Those look more like pre Skeinforge 40 values.

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My speed settings are:
checked - activate speed
checked - add flow rate
bridge feed and flow rates (ratio) 1.0 and 1.0
duty cycle at beginning 1.0
duty cycle at end 0.0
feed rate mm/s 16
flow rate setting 210
orbital feed rate .5
maximum z feed rate 1
perimeter feed and flow rates .75 and .75
travel feed rate 16

jeffwilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My speed settings are:
> checked - activate speed
> checked - add flow rate
> bridge feed and flow rates (ratio) 1.0 and 1.0
> duty cycle at beginning 1.0
> duty cycle at end 0.0
> feed rate mm/s 16
> flow rate setting 210 With SF 40 and newer this always needs to be the same as the one above
> orbital feed rate .5
> maximum z feed rate 1
> perimeter feed and flow rates .75 and .75
> travel feed rate 16


so for 16mm/s
> feed rate mm/s 16
> flow rate setting 16

For 30mm/s
> feed rate mm/s 30
> flow rate setting 30

etc etc etc etc

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Changing to Marlin seemed to have fixed some of my issues.

I did 4 test prints of a 40mm test cube from thingiverse. The first one came out half size at 20mm and overflowing with too much plastic so I stopped it 2 layers after the raft was done. In my Marlin firmware I changed x and y from 40 to 80, and left E at default of 76.2.

This made the second print near exactly 40mm on each side. It had not even close to enough plastic coming out, so I opened the firmware again and edited the E to 152.4 (2x 76.2) for the 3rd print. This was not quite enough and the bead of plastic was laying down un-uniformly.

The fourth print used E of 160. I thought this one was going to work out until the 2nd layer after the raft was done. It completed the raft well, then the first outline and layer of the cube. The second layer increased vastly how much plastic was flowing and it started overfilling. I stopped it when I realized there was a problem. A picture is here

With the firmware settings the way they are from print #4, I went back to pronterface. I hit the extrude button for 10mm and only 3.65mm extruded. I found that if I changed the extrude distance to 31mm in the software, then click extrude I extrude very close to 10mm of filament. My firmware for E seems to be off by about a factor of 3. If I increased the value 160 X 3.1 = 496. With this value in firmware, the test cube is completely overflowing with plastic.

If I calibrate to the GUI extrude button, where do I compensate for the change in skeinforge to get things balanced again?

You just keep making random changes instead of calibrating it as explained. No one will be able to help as long as you keep making random changes.

First using pronterface press x100+ and measure. Use [calculator.josefprusa.cz] to get it correct. And enter the new number in your firmware. Do this for Y and Z also. Do it over and over for all of them until you get them right.

Also calibrate E as mentioned [forums.reprap.org]

Once done you should not need to make any changes to the firmware again.

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My changes aren't exactly random. I found that a value of 496 in firmware for E extrudes very close to 10mm of filament when I click extrude expecting to get 10mm of filament. My x,y,x axis are pretty close as well when I click the xyz100+ buttons. For manual commands in the GUI it works pretty good, which is what the forum posts and wiki say to calibrate with.

What I'm not understanding is when I load a file and print after the calibration is complete, my results are completely different for the E axis during the print. E flows about 3 times too much plastic when printing, but the right amount when I manually extrude with the button. When I lower the value by about 1/3 in firmware, the print sortof works and the extrude button is off by 3 times too much.

This is very similar to the situation I was in that originated this post.

Which wiki page are you following? Is it one for Volumetric Skeinforge (40 and newer)? Or is is one for the official 5D reprap firmware and java host?

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P.s. I just want to confirm you understand we want 10mm of filament going into the extruder not out of. It should be about 300mm of extruded filament but that does not matter. Its just the input length of filament that matters.

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If you are out by a factor of 3, have you got SF set up for 1.75mm filament but are actually using 3mm? (3/1.75)^2 = ~3.

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Yeah. Into the extruder is what I'm calibrating. I have a pair of calipers and I have been measuring flush to the hole the filament enters (before the hot end, top of wades extruder) up 10mm along the filament and marking it with a ultra-fine sharpie. I click extrude and measure my line to flush with the hole again to get the difference of my original 10mm.

The first time it only really moved the filament 3.65mm into the hole when requesting 10mm. So i did the math, adjusted the value, and tried again. Next I got about 9mm for 10mm, adjusted again. I have gotten a fairly close number to where I now extrude 10mm +/- .25mm when I tell it to extrude 10mm. I thought it would be close enough to start doing test prints to see if my original problem of E being wacky during printing had been resolved.

Am I doing this wrong?

That sounds correct.

Did you fix this problem

Quote
Earlier
> feed rate mm/s 16
> flow rate setting 210 With SF 40 and newer this always needs to be the same as the one above
> orbital feed rate .5
> maximum z feed rate 1
> perimeter feed and flow rates .75 and .75
> travel feed rate 16


so for 16mm/s
> feed rate mm/s 16
> flow rate setting 16

For 30mm/s
> feed rate mm/s 30
> flow rate setting 30

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Where would I check to see if my filament is 1.75 or 3. I'm using 3mm filament so your suggestion could be the solution to my problem.

Under craft->dimension: my settings are

activated dimension checkbox
absolute extrusion distance
extruder retraction speed 13.3
filament diameter 2.8
filament packing density .85
minimum travel for retraction 1.0
unchecked retract within island checkbox
retraction distances 0.0 and 0.0

Are there any other settings in skeinforge that I should be looking at?

jeffwilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Where would I check to see if my filament is 1.75
> or 3. I'm using 3mm filament so your suggestion
> could be the solution to my problem.
>
> Under craft->dimension: my settings are
>
> activated dimension checkbox
> absolute extrusion distance
> extruder retraction speed 13.3
> filament diameter 2.8 This is the one and it is set to 2.8 which is what most 3mm filament measures
> filament packing density .85 This should be set to 1 when used with the same filament as used to calibrate. But if you use PLA to calibrate and then want to use ABS you will need to set this to .85 (and experiment)
> minimum travel for retraction 1.0
> unchecked retract within island checkbox
> retraction distances 0.0 and 0.0
>
> Are there any other settings in skeinforge that I
> should be looking at?

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+1 from me for Marlin too.

So I confirmed that my feedrate and flowrate are the same, both are 16.

I changed my packing density from .85 to 1.0 because I am using PLA for calibration and printing.

I confirmed and fine tuned my steps per unit in marlin to have 10mm of filament feed into the extruder assembly when asking for 10mm to feed in. When I select 60mm per minute feed rate it takes 10 seconds, when I select 30mm/min it takes 20 seconds. Everything until I load a file and hit print seems to work fine. I think skienforge must be the culprit, some setting somewhere, but I don't know for sure.

Reloading the STL in SF41 via pronterface gui, I tried to print again. Still roughly 3X more plastic is extruding than I want. I guess my question now is should I just put in a filament thickness of 2.8/3 = .933? Change the packing density to 1/3? Drop my steps per unit in firmware by 1/3? Just get it ball parked so I can tweak it to kind of work at least? I had already resorted to some of this guess/check stuff before starting this thread, which is why I started out so confused. I know this approach is all wrong and give up talk, but nothing I have done so far has gotten me any better off than I was a week or so ago.

Can you post your entire SF41 profile? It will be a folder full of .csv files.

Just zip it and attach it to a message.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2011 08:03PM by Sublime.

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