Geeetech Rostock 301 first topic

Hi

I am new to this forum so I apologise is this is answered elsewhere. I have built my Geetech 301,
I am having problems with missing steps, i looked around and learned that is could be the stepper driver voltages out, I tested them by measuring across the pots to the USB cover, the readings on all 6 pots was 6.7 to 6.9 which i thought was correct.
I thought I would check with Geetech support and the answer I got confused me even more.

'' No,it's not that range(5.7-5.9).
It should be 0.8-1.2V between the pot and GND,and 3.3V or so between VDD and GND.
Regards, ''

Should I increase them to 8.0 ?

No, you are not correctly measuring the Vref from the stepper driver.

Not 8.0Volts, the correct value is 0.8Volt to 1.2Volt for extruders and 0.7Volt for mouvement steppe motor.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2017 08:21AM by L'ami René.

---

Un pour tous et tous pour un !
One for all and all for one !
Imprimante 3D : Geeetech Rostock 301 dysfonctionnelle modifiée
Aide pour la configuration d'une delta Geeetech Rostock 301

thanks for the reply, 5.7 - 5.9 should have read 0.57
so do you think if I set it to 0.7 it will improve the torque without overheating the steppers.
and is putting the probes on the pots directly and ground from usb cover on the board is ok. I got that from a couple of YouTube videos.

No, take the ground from the gnd of the stepper driver.
Vref to 0,8 will not over heat your motors.

Hi Steve.
Flintewn is right, I recommand you to set steppers vref to 0,85, and extruder VRef to the max possible (around 1,15 for me...)
No over heating for steppers with thoses values. they even don't get warm...
Those values were correct for me, and i stopped missing steps....
Think abour replacing your plastic extruders with good metallic ones, and remove the useless extruder fans!
:-)

thanks very helpful, i'll let you know how it goes, and I do have the metal extruders ready to fit, just trying to get motion sorted first.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2017 05:58PM by raoulito9.

Mine kept skipping - even with metal extruders - since the problem for me is really in the torque that the extruders can provide. Even with Vref cranked up to 1.xx.
Metal extruders improved a little bit, but not at all as it should: So I created my own Wades Extruder!
I should post it on ThingyVerse soon, for now here some pics - ask me if you're really interested and I'll speed up posting -- byt the way: they are set up in a generic way I think - so this way of working should be OK for any extruder mounted on 31x31mm square 4 bolts of 3mm.
There are no ballbearings and the new axle is simply a 5mm thick nail with cut out flat part to let the bolts on the gears snap firmly. They also do make sometimes a bit of noise (nice, crickets in da house...?) - but hey - better than buying 3 new motors for like 100$ (and wating for delivery like 6wks)
Here also some pics of printing 3DBenchy before and after mounting my WadesExtruders.
PS: my motors even now do not get warm, although they run 3times faster.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2017 07:27AM by MikaëlV.

Wow.
This is a clever design.
Someone else (extruder0), in a previous post showed how he replaced the extruders with a similar gearmotor system. The only problem was that is was quite expensive.
My prints are now corrects, i pushed the temp to 225 for PLA and kept the speed around 30 to 50 mm/sec.
Did you achieve good prints faster than that ?
Do you use PLA ?

My actual problem (no satisfying solution so far) is the retract, not efficient as it is with the diamond head.

Your solution is still very intersting, please share the links of your designs as soon as you'll have uploaded them on thingiverse !

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2017 02:14PM by raoulito9.

Having fun - see my updates: [www.youtube.com]
The fan is a bit tricky... Not sure if it will not melt or seriously deform in longer prints - it survived reasonably 2hrs this morning though

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2017 11:39AM by MikaëlV.

Quote
raoulito9
Wow.
This is a clever design.
Someone else (extruder0), in a previous post showed how he replaced the extruders with a similar gearmotor system. The only problem was that is was quite expensive.
My prints are now corrects, i pushed the temp to 225 for PLA and kept the speed around 30 to 50 mm/sec.
Did you achieve good prints faster than that ?
Do you use PLA ?

My actual problem (no satisfying solution so far) is the retract, not efficient as it is with the diamond head.

Your solution is still very intersting, please share the links of your designs as soon as you'll have uploaded them on thingiverse !

Hi Serge,

I've seen those expensive motors indeed and didn't wanted to spend that amount of money on enchancements for my first printer.
Is pushing your temp that high not giving you very brittle parts (très fragile)?
I will now start to play with the retract - and am currently using Cura 2.4. I want to try the Coasting option.
My speed is currently 25mm/s and travel up to 35. When I go higher I get shifted layers.
For this I am planning to increase my Vref on XYZtower stepper - they are still at +-0V6.
Yep, using PLA!
I've also reduced the Acceleration and Jerk settings in the printer in order to reduce risk for layer shift at higher speeds (I think the Gcodes for doing this from within your SD card are not working)

Greetz!
Mikael

PS: do you know about the code G4 - to insert a pause? Like when you want to put a nut inside your print? -- don't use the "Lift head" option in Cura - it stalls your printer with cmd G4)
PPS: my current CuraSettings as a gift
PPPS: I've found this a nice page and picture wondering "What is on Jerk??" - but I am not sure if it will bring me any gain - [en.wikipedia.org]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2017 11:54AM by MikaëlV.

Hi guys,
After years of watching I am looking at buying my first printer. The Geeetech Rostock 301 is bit pricey compared with the entry level single filament ones but I thought the extra money was probably worth it. However I see people have made quite a few mods before they got good prints. From what I have read mods and mucking around are often need with FDM printers so I was not sure if the amount of changes needed for the Rostock 301 is likely with any printer I buy, or if I should start with something different? I was also considering the Geeetech Prusa I3 M201 which is the same price, but the delta printers look like a 'cleaner' design.

I would welcome your thoughts on where to start? I am in New Zealand so Banggood is my most likely supplier.

Being a fresh newbie myself, here what I learned in the last 3 months = my first 3 months in 3D world.
Lesson 1: Delta printers are pretty hard to level.
Lesson 2: pretty much nobody has multi color. why? because nobody masters it. All masters agree: each filament has it's own printsettings (flow, temp) - how to do that with a mix of filaments?
Lesson 3: want to print something fast: go as lightweighted with the moving parts = no Rostock 301

When you spend under 500$ you should take into account months of pleasure to finetune and tweek.
Spend up to 1000$ and you should be able to print out of the box.
Spend more: expect full support of your vendor and somtimes customized features.
Ref: [www.youtube.com]

If I would not be a doubtful guy I bought an original Prusa i3 MK2 (long waitlist has a reason!!), but a friend of mine is perfectly happy also with a Velleman 8400 - and there are many good ones out there: just find out what's a very common name in 3D print services or what printer is often used on Thingiverse etc...
Ref: [www.youtube.com]

Of course there is also much fun in multicolor - even if it is not tweeked to the full!
None of my friends can print a dragon with a skintone like a Rostock 301!! And in those 3 months I was not yet able to go into the 3mf/amf world (what was it again) = really print objects with 3 colors, so one step further than dual extrusion.
And then I also hope and pray that Geeetech makes me happy one day - and releases new SW with Gcode support for the mixer - then all hell breaks loose and we can make any color at any moment in the print - but some coding will be required to find the right places in the standard generated Gcode - again some fun!

So, summary: just remember: make a pick, don't waist your time in doubts and HAVE FUN!

Hello UKODA,
Bonjour UKODA,

You can find the original text translated into English following this original French text.

Vous trouverez le texte original traduit en anglais à la suite du présent texte originale en français.

Je déconseille vivement tous les produits de la compagne Geeetech et je déconseille doublement l'imprimante 3D Rostock 301 qui ne fonctionne pas tel que livré et qui après plusieurs modifications couteuses ne fonctionnera que sporadiquement qu'avec des vitesses très lentes et des températures très élevées. Les pièces imprimées seront toujours de très mauvaise qualité. Il y a plusieurs problèmes de conception sur cette imprimante don la pointe chauffante diamant.

Je déconseille tous les produits de cette compagne du fait qu'elle ne respecte pas les droits d'auteur des licences Open Source de Marlin et ses produits sont faussement annoncés comme Open Source.

Cette entreprise se comporte comme un voyou et considère ses clients comme des personnes stupides à plumer sans gène. Ils ne répondent pas aux demandes d'aide ou d'information dans 75% des cas. Etc. leur service après-vente est toujours en sous-effectif et de compte mondialement qu’une ou deux personnes qui utilise de multiples pseudonymes pour communiquent avec ses clients.

J'ai acheté une imprimante 3D Geeetech Rostock 301 en septembre 2016 et à ce jour, je n'ai réussi aucune impression, malgré le remplacement à mes frais de plusieurs pièces de l'imprimante. Tous les acheteurs de cette imprimante ont les mêmes problèmes.

Voir l’ensemble de mes demandes d'aides et d'information et les réponses de Geeetech sur leur forum :

http://www.geeetech.com/forum/search.php?search_id=egosearch

Cordialement,

L'ami René
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hello UKODA,

Excuse me, I am unilingual francophone and I use Google translator to translate the texts of the forum in French and to write to you in English. Thank you for your understanding and your indulgence for these texts translated mechanically!

I strongly discourage all the products of the Geeetech companion and I do not recommend double the 3D Rostock 301 which does not work as delivered and which after several expensive modifications will only work sporadically only with very slow speeds and very high temperatures. The printed parts will always be of very poor quality. There are several design problems on this printer giving the diamond heated tip.

I disadvise all the products of this companion because it does not respect the copyrights of Marlin's open source licenses and its products are falsely advertised as Open Source.

This company behaves like a thug and considers its customers as stupid people to pluck without discomfort. They do not respond to requests for help or information in 75% of cases. Etc. Their after-sales service is still understaffed and globally counted as one or two people who uses multiple pseudonyms to communicate with customers.

I bought a Geeetech Rostock 301 3D printer in September 2016 and to date I have not succeeded in printing, despite the replacement of several parts of the printer at my expense. All buyers of this printer have the same problems.

See all my requests for help and information and Geeetech's answers on their forum:

http://www.geeetech.com/forum/search.php?search_id=egosearch

Cordially,

Friend René

---

Un pour tous et tous pour un !
One for all and all for one !
Imprimante 3D : Geeetech Rostock 301 dysfonctionnelle modifiée
Aide pour la configuration d'une delta Geeetech Rostock 301

Thanks MikaëlV, merci L'ami René,
My wife is learning French so maybe I will test her translation skills ;-)

I don't mind doing a bit of set up work, as I know it goes with territory for the lower cost printers. However I did actually have real world things I want to print as part of other projects so I have decided to go with a simpler single colour Prusa i3 from a local supplier who can offer local support and leave the multi colour stuff for the future when I know more.

Thanks guys for the advice, much appreciated!

Hi Ukoda.

Here is my point of view.
Multicolor is useless with 301, because of the lack of correct gcode, and another problem with that printer is the retract that leaves your prints "hairy".
The delta printer is a little trick to calibrate, but if you follow the procedure step by step, this is ok.
The 301 needs the metal extruders to run correctly, this is a complementary expense around 30$... Not really a big deal. This should be stock but...Ok.
I saw you prefered a Prusa from local dealer, good choice.
But if never you wanted a delta, I previouly owned a geetech G2S, wich worked very well, and its software was open source.
Its problem was the dual extruder tricky to calibrate... so, i would have recommanded to you the mono extruder one :
[www.banggood.com]

I think René is a bit to severe, because geeetech is a small company, trying to sell cheap Kits ... wich finally work !!!
I had a lot of pleasure in building, tunig, and finally printing with those printers.
You want an out of the box perfectly working printer ?
Just give 1220 or 1500 $, and you will got one...
With 340$, geetech sells you a nice little delta machine, and you will have fun getting it to work !

Have pleasure with your prints !

My Geeetech Rostock 301, after replacing a burned stepper controller, gives me both the extruder and the bed temperature, 301/0. Thermistors are OK. Have the two analog inputs of the card burned?
Has anyone replaced the closed source electronics with an open source type Megatronics?
Sorry my bad English but I'm using the translator.
Thanks in advance.

Giuseppe

I've had a lot of problems with this damn Rostock 301 "printer" and am still having some, but one of them I was able to fix and it hasn't yet been addressed in this topic.
The problem is the inability of the device to actually heat the heated bed to the set temperature. Even at maximum 120C setting the actual bed top temperature was about 65 degrees.
This made the printer useless for ABS plastic as it wouldn't stick to the table at all.

What I did to fix that:

1. Turned the heater element upside down so that the heating side is now facing the aluminium table. I had to work the aluminium plate a bit with a Dremel tool to make room for the wires and soldering on the heater side.
2. Took the temperature sensor off and used the polyimide tape it was fixed with to isolate the soldering on the heater side from the aluminium plate.
3. Moved the temperature sensor on the other side and used two layers of double-sided adhesive foam tape (about 1mm thick, each layer) to offset the sensor readings enough to match the temperature of the table's top
4. Since moving the sensor destabilized bed PID regulator, I had to recalibrate it. I used the Ziegler-Nichols method and found that my PID coefficients should be 360.00;12.46;6931,20
5. I used `M304 P360 I12.46 D6931.2` command to set the coefficients and used the printers menu to 'Store memory' in order to save the settings

I couldn't achieve exact accuracy, but now when heated bed temperature is set to 105, the actual table's top temperature is exactly 100 C, which I consider almost perfect.

I hope this helps anyone.

I found that there is no need to replace the stock extruders if you're having problems with them. You can easily and free of charge fix them.
Just take a fine flat file and take off a bit of the moving part of the plastic extruder so that when there is no filament loaded the roller touches the gear and when the filament is loaded there is a gap between the moving and the stationary parts.
Please see the attached picture:



I did that and now my Rostock finally can print! Even with curaengine slicer, that is without adjusting the extrusion multiplier!

Now my problem is that the printout is slanted... Don't know what is wrong now. Any ideas?
This was supposed to be a cube:

Hello Alexander Amelkin,
Bonjour Alexander Amelkin,

You can find the original text translated into English following this original French text.

Vous trouverez le texte original traduit en anglais à la suite du présent texte originale en français.

Votre solution chez moi ça ne fonctionne pas, l'engrenage tourne, mais le filament n'avance pas dans le tube et l'engrenage fini par gruger le filament et le presque le sectionné.

Pour votre problème d'impression décalé en escalier, essayez en augmentant le voltage des moteurs des courroies qui déplace la tête d'impression.

Cordialement,

L'ami René
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hello Alexander Amelkin,

Excuse me, I am unilingual francophone and I use Google translator to translate the texts of the forum in French and to write to you in English. Thank you for your understanding and your indulgence for these texts translated mechanically!

Your solution at home does not work, the gear rotates, but the filament does not advance into the tube and the gear ends by grinding the filament and almost the sectioned.

For your staggered printing problem, try increasing the motor voltage of the belts that moves the printhead.

Cordially,

The friend René

---

Un pour tous et tous pour un !
One for all and all for one !
Imprimante 3D : Geeetech Rostock 301 dysfonctionnelle modifiée
Aide pour la configuration d'une delta Geeetech Rostock 301

Quote
L'ami René
Your solution at home does not work, the gear rotates, but the filament does not advance into the tube and the gear ends by grinding the filament and almost the sectioned.

Well, it does work for me, otherwise I wouldn't post it. The gear was indeed grinding the filament before I modified that moving part of the extruder. Now the filament is heavily and securely pushed towards the gear and with the high voltages on the steppers for the extruder motors that solved my problem. Before I modified the extruder, I wasn't able to print at all unless I set the extruder multiplier in slic3r to something huge like 25x.

As for the slanted printing, my voltages on the axis steppers are already at maximum and I suspect that I may need to lower them instead as overvoltage is listed on reprap wiki as one of the reasons for slanted prints (along with undervoltage though).

I agree with your solution Alexander - I have only realized very late that I could have tried this too - but didn't in the end - see elsewhere in this forum or look at [www.youtube.com] and [www.thingiverse.com].
I've not printed slanted myself - only layer schift - and that was due to too quick direction changes while printing at too high speeds. I've tweeked the accelleration and jerk down and am printing at 20-40mm/s, max travel 60mm/s to compensate for this.
Have fun!

Hi Michael.

I used metal extruders to get filament to advance, and that works well. i should have tried to remove some platic from stock ones.
You are right about speed (around 30 mm/s) and acell factor that needs to be drastically lowered on printer screen (I remember a real pain, to start from something like 3000 to reach the value of 100 with rotating button).

René should try extruders tricks ....

Hope that works well for you !
Serge

Hello Serge,
Bonjour Serge,

You can find the original text translated into English following this original French text.

Vous trouverez le texte original traduit en anglais à la suite du présent texte originale en français.

Est-ce que la pièce https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2253022 correspond à ton souhait ou attents-tu toujour que j'en produise une.

Comme le suis décourager avec cette Geeetech Rostock 301 et les délais de plusieurs mois pour avoir des pièces de remplacement qui sont en plus incomplet, j'ai abandonné le projet.

J'ai finalement tout remonté avec les pièces de remplacement il y a moins d'une semaine, mais je n'ai plus la motivation pour reprendre le projet et tester les nouvelles pièces.

Cordialement,

L'ami René
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hello Serge,

Excuse me, I am unilingual francophone and I use Google translator to translate the texts of the forum in French and to write to you in English. Thank you for your understanding and your indulgence for these texts translated mechanically!

Does the part https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2253022 match your wish or do you always expect I produce one.

As I am discouraged with this Geeetech Rostock 301 and the delay of several months to have replacement parts that are in addition incomplete, I abandoned the project.

I finally came up with replacement parts less than a week ago, but I no longer have the motivation to take over the project and test the new parts.

Cordially,

The friend René

---

Un pour tous et tous pour un !
One for all and all for one !
Imprimante 3D : Geeetech Rostock 301 dysfonctionnelle modifiée
Aide pour la configuration d'une delta Geeetech Rostock 301

Quote
raoulito9
I used metal extruders to get filament to advance, and that works well. i should have tried to remove some platic from stock ones.

I now realize that the modification I posted above may be insufficient. You also have to expand the spring. And keep in mind that the spring is actually too soft. If you push the lever on the extruder too hard when inserting/removing the filament, you will permanently collapse the spring, that is you will make it less "pushy". So be careful.

The metal extruders you use have one big advantage: they have an adjustment screw for the spring (and probably less soft springs as well).

Quote
raoulito9
You are right about speed (around 30 mm/s) and acell factor that needs to be drastically lowered on printer screen (I remember a real pain, to start from something like 3000 to reach the value of 100 with rotating button).

Could you and Michael please post your printer settings if that's not too much of a trouble for you?
I still can't get the damn device print straight. I am printing at about 15mm/s, but that doesn't help.

I verified all the belts and screws, I oiled the top pulleys and loosened their axis screws, I checked the tension and tried to make it identical on all axes.
By the way, after oiling the pulleys I found that the effector can now move as fast as "G0 F40000", from top to bottom in less than a second, and without skipping a single step.
I even lowered the voltage on the stepper drivers because RepRap wiki says overvoltage can also cause slanted prints. They are all at 0.9V now.
All in vain. Still slanted.

Does anyone, by the way, want/can trace back (reverse engineer) the schematics of the GMT32 Pro board?
As an embedded programmer I could then try to adapt some open-source firmware to this god damned device.

Will the Geeetech Rostock 301 work out of the box using just Thingaverse and CURA , and the SD Card only?

Quote
twwd
Will the Geeetech Rostock 301 work out of the box using just Thingaverse and CURA , and the SD Card only?

NO!!! Rostock 301 will NOT work. Not out of the box, not after 2 months of tuning and fiddling...
Read this topic. All the problems you WILL have with this piece of crap are described here.
Some of them can be fought, but I'm now sure it's not worth it. The 3-in-1 hotend in this printer is a hoax anyway.
You better buy a good cartesian printer like Prusa i3 with two or three separate extruders.
I implore you to not go for delta (especially for your first printer) and if you go, buy an flsun printer, not Geeetech.
And avoid Rostock 301 at all costs, mostly because of it's closed source firmware and proprietary control board, let alone the crippled mechanics.

Quote
Alexander Amelkin
I verified all the belts and screws, I oiled the top pulleys and loosened their axis screws, I checked the tension and tried to make it identical on all axes.
All in vain. Still slanted.

Mea culpa. I missed the motor pulleys and it turned out that one on the X axis was loose. I tightened it up and it now finally prints straight.
I now need to get a quality filament.

I also ordered the metal extruders because my el cheapo solution above is far from perfect.

Thank you everybody, you've been really helpful. I would also like to say thanks to people here: [groups.google.com]

I hope I will eventually make this piece of engineering genius work as advertised or at least somewhere near that.

OK! I feel like you guys on the forum really know a lot about the delta machines!

A little background if I may! I currently have three pursa i3 type printers that are working very well using ONLY thingaverse and Cura downloaded onto a SD card and right to printing.
That tells you I am far from being computer expert! But I am extremely good at the building and set up!

My question to you guys is! What Delta type printer would you recommend for me to build and use for my first delta style machine? I like the upright Delta designs and I really enjoy the mechanics of there build and how they operate. I am serious when I say I would really like an honest answer as to what Delta kit you would recommend! I take it you feel the Geeetech 301 is not a good starter machine and I do understand why!

Thank you for your advice!