Gadgets 3D i3 Build, Loads of problems!

Hi all, This is my first post on this forum, and I'm a total newbie to 3D Printing.

I brought a Gadgets 3D Printer Gadgets 3D i3
Me and my brother have successfully assembled it, the instructions where wrong on a few things so had to make a bit of it up, and also was missing a couple of bolts that i had to find, no biggie.

Now once it was all built it looks great, powers on fine etc.

The first problem i ran across was that it wouldn't "auto home" to fix this issue i had to change their wiring diagram and install the motors in reverse ( swap the plug around), only had to do this on x and y axis. this seems to of fixed that problem.

Now when i set it to print something the first major problem is it doesn't stick to the bed, I used the supplied tape for the bed, no luck, i also used blue painters tape, again no luck. I did get it to start a print once on a piece of paper.

The hot end that was supplied with it also starts to leak above the nozzle, i have had this apart so many times now and with a load of PTFE that seems to be fixed, but still isn't quite right.

I am also having a problem feeding filament into the printer, sometimes when i send a print off it decides to reverse out the filament, sometimes it goes the right way...

Another problem that im not sure, but could be the cause of most of my headaches is that on the build manual it tells me to put Prusa i3 onto the arduino.
Within the downloaded files that they supply there is no Prusa i3 so i put the Marlin file onto the board instead?

I also cannot seem to get the bed flat atall, i can get 3 corners flat, ie just able to slip a piece of paper underneath the nozzle, then the 4th corner is about 2mm off the surface!


Has anyone else brought one of these printers and have they been having as many problems as i have? Any help would be great!

Thanks in advance!

First, what are you printing with, PLA or ABS?

Hotend - sounds like you either need to make sure your nozzle is on tight, or you need to tune your PID. What are you temps set at? Do you have a way to measure the hotend temperature so you can get a reference to see if the software is reading accurately?

Bed - probably needs to be leveled. Try loosening the leveling screws most of the way, then re-leveling. You don't want the screws to be so loose they fall off, but you want there to be enough room under the bed that you can make sufficient adjustments.

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Thanks for the reply, im using PLA as this machine doesnt have a hotbed, so cant do ABS.

i have a head gun so yes can use that to check the temp. i was using the default of 220, but have tried it at 215 and 230.

I've tried leveling the bed and cant for the life of me get it level, i get 3 corners level then the last corner s out by 2 mm (bigger clearance)

What do you mean by tune PID? sorry haha total newbie!

Hey

I took a look at the website and that looks like a really nice machine you have, well done!

I can't speak for the hot end but regarding the bed levelling, if you haven't already, it's probably a good idea to have a good read through this: [reprap.org]

If the motors were going the wrong way, this is all changeable in the firmware. I'm using Marlin at the moment which is working quite well, and the options are there to reverse the direction of the steppers which is quite handy.

Try the bed levelling approach of getting top left and top right level, then adjust the bottom two to be equal, then tighten them both up equally until they are level too. Bed levelling is really horrible and it can take a fair amount of time to get it right.

If you're having trouble getting the plastic to stick, I haven't used PLA yet but with ABS, I found that the most important thing to do is to get a very good squishy first layer. Make sure the endstop is adjusted so you get a really good squash on the first layer. Slic3r is particularly good for this, as you can adjust the Z offset to a high degree of precision.

Let me know how it goes!

Jordan

I've had a long chat with a few guys on the IRC, all of which were super helpful!

I've been advised to get Repetier host up and running with it so i can do a load of tweaks on the fly! so that is on my todo list for tomorrow!

I've managed to get the bed levelish now, it was hard work but it seems to be there!

Problems are slowly being worked out. ill do some more testing tomorrow and come back with good news (hopefully!)

I am building one now myself. I had to swap my Y axis plug around too. Also, their pin configuration and color diagram for the ends stops was off.

Have you had an issue with the speed of the extruder? That is my BIGGEST issue right now. I am using their software and the large gear on the extruder may move one click every minute or so! I can manually turn it and plastic comes right out, so I know the heating element is working. For some reason the motor is barely moving. I am sure it is a software/calibration issue, but I am still trying to gifure out how to fix it. I found a Reprap article using Pronterface to try to fix it... I'll give it a shot tonight.

I was just curious as to if you ran across this issue.

Hi, there everyone.

I'm close but not enough please see the attachaments.

I have problems with the second layer. The machine go wild!! And the speed is to high.

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

[dl.dropboxusercontent.com]

I've had some success with this printer, if it's any help, i can post my h.config so you can cross reference your settings.
I had some trouble with z and extruder scaling, but its just about sorted now, just a bit of tweaking to do.

From memory, I set the extruder steps/mm to around 1600 (thanks to some guy on reddit) I need to do a propper measure calibration, but it seems to be printing about right.

I'm still having the off filament feed issue, I think the reason is that the cold end cas a cut out for a j-head extruder, which means that the fillament has some free air to move through, allowing it to buckle. This should help [www.thingiverse.com]

LMColl.

I use the h.config posted by gadgets 3d. Can you post the h.config to cross reference and check.

Do you use repetier or cura? What parameters do you use?

Thanks

As far as the extruder, to calibrate, this is a really good guide, and it is a must to get good quality prints.

[richrap.blogspot.com]

Good Luck

Hay all, sorry for such a long time no reply thing!

Ive been busy working on it over the past couple of weeks and have come such a long way, been on IRC nearly everyday talking to people.

Some of the problems:

The Build manual is wrong on ALOT of parts, its more of a build "guide"

All of my motorsteps where wrong, changing them in the config file DOESNT work, the board has a EEPROM which you need to change as the EEPROM overrights the config.h file.

If any of you guys have problems with the G3D Build send me a message and ill help as much as i can.

Hi, Kayhem,

Don't worry ive been busy too.

Yes the manual is a crap! I have to unbuild an build again a few parts.

Which parameters do you use for the motorsteps? Can you post image of your config settings and EEPROM?

Thanks