3D noob with a Prusa i3 variant not working

Hi guys!

New to this 3d printing stuff and bought a cheap one from eBay see link below.

Ebay 3D printer

Was pretty easy to put together but the instructions were rubbish...

They were telling me to plug in connectors where they wouldn't fit but they had a pic of the board with what appeared to be the right labels on.

After putting it all together I plugged it in to test it and the lcd flashed and it went off, and seems to be utterly dead.

What sort of steps should I follow to see how to fix it and get it up and running??

Thanks!

if you have the GT2560 there is a updated PDF manuel online.
[www.geeetech.com]
Adrian

sorry for the delayed thanks!! was chatting to the seller and they've sent a new psu as i had it set to 110v when it shouldve been 220... oops...

also managed to fry the power cable itself... which is... interesting shall we say....

but now it's powered on the z axis has got about 3/4's down to the bottom and just ground to a halt... just makes a horrible noise...

any idea's how to sort that? is it just the belt tension?

also getting err: MINTEMP on the screen... does that mean i need to set a temp?

thanks in advance peeps!

MINTEMP means your extruder is reporting a temperature that is to low to let you extrude plastic so it disables extrusion

Z is up and down, this is normally driven by a drive screw (commonly a m5 rod)
Most people dry to drive this far to fast

find your max feed rates in your firmware settings

eg

/**
* Default Max Feed Rate (mm/s)
* Override with M203
* X, Y, Z, E0 [, E1[, E2[, E3[, E4]]]]
*/
#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE { 300, 300, 5, 25 }


the 3rd value the 5 is the max feed rate for the Z axis, it shouldn’t be any higher than 3, some machines need 2.

could it be cause i've got crappy rubber tubes insteat of the metal things connecting the threaded bar to the motor?

"Crappy rubber tubes" work better than those metal ones, as the metals ones compress in the Z axis

Presuming they are nice and tight and not slipping.

Really??? Damn... Wish I saw this earlier... As I just bought some.... Better leave them off then!

I'm going to try to take the top of the printer and reinstall the printer carriage and see if I can sort it out by reinstalling it.... I'm not sure how to get into the firmware to make any changes... But in the control it says the z axis max speed rate is 2.... I'm not sure but I think the threaded bars may be slightly bowed at one side....

When using the rubber things should the threaded bar be touching the shaft of the motor?

sooo... I haven't pulled it apart yet but i have found something about replacing the threaded rods for Lead screws.

as I can't print anything would it be worth changing to the lead screws or will they need new supports n stuff or could i do a swap until i can print better fitting supports?

lead screws are normally 8mm diameter so you would need to print new left and right X mounts and left and right upper z mounts

Stick with the threaded rods for now till you get used to printing stuff.
I would leave a small gap between the motor shaft and threaded rod to reduce vibration noise.

Someone on Facebook suggested I get some m8 nuts and run them up and down with a drill... Gonna give that a go and see what happens!

>get some m8 nuts and run them up and down with a drill

Instructions unclear.

But if talking about the Lead screws, you don't want to do that.

No... It was for the threaded bolts as the threads weren't completely clear....

I discovered what the issue was with my z axis... There is a small bolt holding the sides together that was catching the carriage... So that's solved that bit....

Now I just need to level everything properly and try to get the extruder set correctly!!