printing issues
Posted by heauxmbru
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Re: printing issues May 15, 2016 10:14PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 1,873 |
Well, you have a choice - you can see how far you can go without loading a new firmware onto the board, or you can install a new firmware. Sticking with what you already have is the lowest risk approach, as from your last updates it seems to be basically working. Loading a fresh firmware will give you the most control and freedom to configure the machine just the way you want it. If you put a new firmware on you can get the most up to date version available and try out different software to see which you prefer. Repetier-firmware has an easy to use online configuration tool, and it works well with the Reptier host software. It's not a bad choice.
The downside of installing a new firmware is that you need to know a lot of detail about how the machine is set-up, including which pins the heaters are connected to, where the endstops are and what sort they are. It's all stuff that you can work out with a bit of patience, but it can take a bit of time. You can't extract the existing firmware from the control board, so unless you have a copy provided by the vendor you won't be able to get back to the current state once you start installing a new firmware.
In the initial instance, the most likely thing you will need to do is tune the amount of plastic that's being extruded. There are lots of different ways of doing that, and it doesn't necessarily involve fiddling with the firmware. It's just that most of us tend to think of that first because we've got used to changing the firmware on a regular basis.
The easiest way to start testing different extrusion rates is via the lcd during the print. Like the "feed rate" setting which is a percentage multiplier for the overall speed of the print, there is also a "flow rate" setting, which is a percentage multiplier for the amount of plastic extruded. You could try reducing that in steps of 5% and see if the print looks better or worse. It's easiest to tell during solid layers. If there's not enough extrusion you'll see gaps between the lines. Too much and you get lumps and ridges. Once you get a value that looks about right, you can save it in the filament preset of the slicer. Slic3r's "extrusion multipler" setting is equivalent to the flow rate adjustment on the lcd, but expressed in the range 0 to 1 instead of as a %. So if you found that 78 on the lcd gave good results, you would put 0.78 into the extrusion multiplier in Slic3r and then every new gcode you produced would have that adjustment coded in.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2016 10:15PM by JamesK.
The downside of installing a new firmware is that you need to know a lot of detail about how the machine is set-up, including which pins the heaters are connected to, where the endstops are and what sort they are. It's all stuff that you can work out with a bit of patience, but it can take a bit of time. You can't extract the existing firmware from the control board, so unless you have a copy provided by the vendor you won't be able to get back to the current state once you start installing a new firmware.
In the initial instance, the most likely thing you will need to do is tune the amount of plastic that's being extruded. There are lots of different ways of doing that, and it doesn't necessarily involve fiddling with the firmware. It's just that most of us tend to think of that first because we've got used to changing the firmware on a regular basis.
The easiest way to start testing different extrusion rates is via the lcd during the print. Like the "feed rate" setting which is a percentage multiplier for the overall speed of the print, there is also a "flow rate" setting, which is a percentage multiplier for the amount of plastic extruded. You could try reducing that in steps of 5% and see if the print looks better or worse. It's easiest to tell during solid layers. If there's not enough extrusion you'll see gaps between the lines. Too much and you get lumps and ridges. Once you get a value that looks about right, you can save it in the filament preset of the slicer. Slic3r's "extrusion multipler" setting is equivalent to the flow rate adjustment on the lcd, but expressed in the range 0 to 1 instead of as a %. So if you found that 78 on the lcd gave good results, you would put 0.78 into the extrusion multiplier in Slic3r and then every new gcode you produced would have that adjustment coded in.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2016 10:15PM by JamesK.
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Re: printing issues May 17, 2016 09:17PM |
Registered: 7 years ago Posts: 25 |
Quote
Well, you have a choice - you can see how far you can go without loading a new firmware onto the board, or you can install a new firmware. Sticking with what you already have is the lowest risk approach, as from your last updates it seems to be basically working.
Sorry to take so long to get back, but, as you alluded to, I am printing and it is full steam ahead. As soon as I connected to the computer and started using Repetier, my printer has been operating correctly and constantly. I have been printing everything I can find. At this time I am going to forego flashing the firmware and get some printing experience under my belt. I have no doubt that eventually I'll have to flash it but I think I can wait for now.
I do want to thank all of you for sticking with me and helping me get this thing going. I wouldn't even be close without all of your help. So I'm off to happy printing-ville, but I'll be back. Thanks again.
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Re: printing issues May 17, 2016 09:27PM |
Registered: 9 years ago Posts: 1,873 |
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