Pronterface won't go home

Hi, everyone ... hoping someone can help: I'm using Pronterface, but when I click any of the HOME buttons, nothing happens, and when I start (dry) printing, it seems to deliberately move away from home.

My Orca V.03 is all built, cabled up, powered up. X, Y, and Z all seem to move in the right directions (after quite a lot of fiddling about).

I am using "ErikZalm-Marlin-0-9-3_Orca_030_new_opto-4G-acc firmware"
Arduino 0018, Sanguino 0018 (Sanguino-0018r2_1_4)

I am on Windows XP (quaint old fashioned thing that I am ... it's a very old laptop!)
Using Pronterface.

I have compiled the firmware, with these settings:

//// ENDSTOP SETTINGS:
// Sets direction of endstops when homing; 1=MAX, -1=MIN
#define X_HOME_DIR 1
#define Y_HOME_DIR 1
#define Z_HOME_DIR 1

-------------------
These settings are changed from those shipped with Marlin, which were:

#define X_HOME_DIR -1
#define Y_HOME_DIR -1
#define Z_HOME_DIR -1

(until I changed those, the optos only worked if the carriage was moving away from them)

-------------------------------------------------

X+ moves right (away from opto)
X- moves left (towards opto, and stops at the opto)

Y+ moves backwards (towards opto, and stops at opto)
Y- moves to the front

Z+ moves down
Z- moves up, towards opto, and stops when it gets there.

The extruder motor runs in the right directions

The hot end heats up and reaches target temperature.

BUT. "HOME" doesn't seem to do anything, nor does HOME X, HOME Y or HOME Z.

And ... if I manually home the machine (move all axes to the optos) and start a print, the first thing it does is very slowly move away from that position before starting to print (this is a dry print: no filament).

What am I doing wrong? I am being driven nuts, and Camiel isn't reply (again! Even to ME!)

So if anyone can help, I'd be really grateful.

James

I have not tried marlin myself, and please correct me if I'm wrong here; but the last thing I heard about marlin was it was pretty experimental and had stability problems, specifically about endstops not working properly?

If there is no answers coming here, your best bet is probably to join IRC and get some pointers from marlin users there.

Other things to check is if you have centered the object on the build platform (sfact -> multiply), so the printer starts at the right spot. You could also try out sprinter, though it might need some tweaking to work properly with orca it should get you up and running.

On my prusa with sprinter, endstops home_dir is set to -1, so that should be right. You could also try to turn off endstops and home manually (remember to remove homing from gcode in that case).

Best of luck!

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-Nudel
Blog with RepRap Comic

First make sure the machine does not already think it is home. To do this, move the axes to the middle by hand with the power off. Power up the machine, and try to move +10 and -10 from the starting positions on each axis (+10mm, -20mm if it helps to think of it that way). If any axis cannot make these moves (both directions), the endstop is inverted (the machine thinks the flag is blocking). Change the inversion in the firmware.

If there is not problem with the above steps, home each axis using the GUI. If any axis does not move to the home position, the above may also apply because when the machine powers up, the axes positions are all zero, but home is not defined, so the firmware will allow movement into negative territory until it sees a home flag signal.

If your endstops are wired to MAX, you probably need to specify the home direction to MAX also. I don;t know if this is done for you. I use MIN hardware endstops, and MAX software endstops.

Have you solved this issue ?

I had this problem yesterday! I fixed it though, let me check my code when I get home today. I think I know the problem though.

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Ryan
Quality Engineer & Hobbyist
thingsandtrains.blogspot.com

On my Marlin setup I had to set the following:
bool X_ENDSTOP_INVERTING=false
bool Y_ENDSTOP_INVERTING=false
bool Z_ENDSTOP_INVERTING=false

Run M119 and see what states the Endstops return.

Should see something like:
Xmin: L Xmax: H Ymin: L Ymax:H Zmin: L Zmax: H

If the min values are 'H' the axis will not move towards the endstops beause it believes it is already there. and tries to move away from them.

How did you attach your endstops? When I used super glue to attach mine, I found that the switches no longer functioned reliably. If you have screwed them down, make sure the screws aren't too tight.

I just checked my code, yes this is correct

Quote
jakowisp
bool X_ENDSTOP_INVERTING=false
bool Y_ENDSTOP_INVERTING=false
bool Z_ENDSTOP_INVERTING=false

but also

//// ENDSTOP SETTINGS:
// Sets direction of endstops when homing; 1=MAX, -1=MIN
#define X_HOME_DIR -1
#define Y_HOME_DIR -1
#define Z_HOME_DIR -1

You mentioned it was changed to 1. When I did that the homing stopped. Try going back to -1.For me the problem was just the ENDSTOP_INVERTING T/F statements

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2012 06:36PM by banthafodder7400.

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Ryan
Quality Engineer & Hobbyist
thingsandtrains.blogspot.com

Don't shoot me for this, but I use marlin with pronterface but scraped the idea of using endstops. Works fine, even homes perfectly. ^.^

uhm...Ollie...You can't home perfectly without endstops. The homing action will attempt to move towards home unil it hits an endstop then back away and slowly move to the endstop. Without endstops, the homing mechanism will assume the switches are always active "open", the homing action will just move away from the minimum point, won't see the switch open some won't try to slowly move back.
The zero point gets reset.

Thats what i thought, but dont worry, its only temporary i swear, ill print a new prusa and make that my nice new "perfect" one. Until then, i only home, or what passes for homing at my house at the start of a print, so not too much of a problem, for now...

I recently had a similar issue when I switched to Marlin from Sprinter. I got it mostly working by disabling the software end stops. It still doesn’t completely work but it works enough to print.