first I want to tell you that I got my printer working at last, but I have to finetune it in order to get better results.
Second it was no walk in the park so to speak…
It took nearly 8 days (parttime) to get it going. 3 to assamble it, 3 for software problems and 2 in order to get something reasonably printed.
It’s late now so I just give you some hints.
Y-sensor problems: solved by adding some hardpaper-strip glued to the y-sensor contra-plasticpart.
Now I “loose” 2 cm of y-space but there are no mor ruttling and jumping as there seems to be serious problems in the last 2 cm to the back.
X-belt too loose. Any of the belt is rather tight (you can here a sound when letting it snap as a guitar string) but the one in the back was too loose.
Solved by adding some DIY-tightner = some 300g weight with a roll to tighten the belt. @Velleman: Why didn’t you use adjustable tighteners for the belt beside the belt attachement?
3.Softwareproblems 1: Baudrate 230000 too high. Solution: Had to alter the arduino code of the marlin firmware. 115200 is fine. After upload of the new firmware communication was no problem anymore.
Repetier-Host exited with some errors after loading any stl-file (file length problems)
I tested repsnapper, then Cura. Cura is working so far.
Z-rod is very noisy! There is a lot of resonance because the rod is not very straight. But if you just hold something at the top of the rod its nearly quiet. So perhaps someone might construct some bearing for the loose tip of the rod in order to get rid of this problem. @Velleman: Why is the tip of the rod loose? Didn’t you get resonance problems or did you use A-grade quality rods instead of the shipped ones ?
See you soon and good luck with building your printer!
P.S. Just a good advide: “After firm comes broken” so be careful with all the bolts, nuts and screws. I was very cautous with the pulleyscrews but they seem to be extra-sensitive…
The X belt sounds like the rods are not properly aligned.
The Z axis sounds lime something is not straight or needs some oil.
Since I can’t see it these are just guesses
@WrongWay:
z-rod: It is not straight (as I wrote above). And yes, I lubricated it with oil but this is not the cause for the very noisy resonance. It sounds like the whole table is vibrating! But as I said it: just holding the tip with your finger while it is turning makes the noise disappear completely.
The very noisy sound only appears on moving bigger distances (>5mm). On normal operation it sounds ok.
I am not good enough yet for constructing some bearing that would “hold” the tip of the rod in place.
Perhaps this will be one of my next projects. But if anyone of you feels free to construct something I would be more than happy to use it
x-rod: My digital clipper says they are aligned (Delta <0,5 mm)
My guess after reading the postings in this forum is that the bearing inside of the printhead might not be perfectly aligned although I didnt manage to move it anymore better on assambling it.
This happened to me and several others as well. Alignment to motor is good, and the resonance happens when moving the table continuously. It goes away when holding the upper end of the rod, so many have concluded that an upper bearing is required. However I got rid of my resonance with lithium grease instead of light oil (this is OK for slow movement). I also read later that the coupler at the bottom has to have a GAP below the rod to properly do its coupling job. This alone may solve the resonance.
@I_go_3D:
How did you measure the aligment of the xy-axis? On the ‘frame-to-rod’ or ‘rod-to-rod’?
I found out that the alignment is very critical. I would say go for <0.1mm… In stead of aligning the xy-rods to the frame as stated in the instructions, I aligned parallel them to the rods. After the first calibration, I printed the xy-alignment helpers (thingiverse.com/thing:606083) to perform the final alignment.
To get rid of the resonance/noise coming from the z-axis, I designed and printed a simple helper (thingiverse.com/thing:635751).
It does make it run more silent (for my printer).
