Problem with z-axis motor and Extruder Motor

I can't seem to get my Prusa Mendel up and running correctly. Here is some of my info and what I have tried. The remaining problems that I have are that my z and extruder positions on my moter board are not working, and I can't move the x and Y motors in the NEG direction.

I have a windows 7 64 bit system
Am using a sanguioluno 1.3 version board
Sprinter Firmware
Went through the beginning steps of placing Sanguionlulo file in the adreino folder so it can recognize my board.
Tried functinality on both the new stable versions of replicator G and repsnapper.


Originally I had the 1.1 version of the mother board, but when I ran into these problems I thought the board was damaged, so I got a new 1.3 version and the only thing that helped was that now my heat works.

Here is where I am at.

I moved the processor chip from the version 1.1 to my 1.3 board

I plugged in and connected to repsnapper.

At this point I had the exact same function as before. The X and Y worked in the positive direction. Z motor and extruder motor didn't work at all. Also there was no heat being generated.

I opened the old sprinter software and changed the board type from type 6 to type 62 which is for the updated board. and rehooked up.
Now the heat worked just fine, which is a first, but I still have no negative function, and my z and Extruder motor don't move.

I played around trying to find the problem, and here is what I did:

One at a time I plugged all 4 different motor leads into the x motor input on the board and was able to get all 4 motors moving. Positive direction only tho. Repeated this with the y motor and all was fine minus neg movement.

Tried the same with the z input on the board, and I wasn't able to get anything to move, same results with the extruder motor.

So I moved removed the z and extruder pululo, and moved the Y motor pululo(which i know works) to the z position. Once again nothing was able to work.


So knowing that all the pululos are good I can stop looking there, It seems that I have no power to the z and extruder portion on the mother board. What can all Cause this?


The only other item I would note is that the z motor connecting prong wasn't soldered when I received it, So I soldered it myself and it looks very similar to your soldering, so I am assuming this is not a problem.

Any help on this problem would be greatly appreciated! I attached a few pictures please let me know if you would like to know more.

have you plugged in your endstops? From what I have found is that the Sanguinololu board needs the endstops connected in order to work, Or you have to turn them off in Sprinter.

Roy

That is interesting. No I do not have my endstops in, or have them period. I had someone who has done this before make my machine/board for me and says that he had it up and running before he sent it out. To shut them off in the sprinter firmware would I just have to change this in one spot, probally the configuration file? Or are there multiply stops where I need to change this?

Thanks for the help!

Yes I think you would only have to change it in the configuration.h file and thee are instructions there on how to do it.

This did the trick. I can now move all three axises in both direction. Now I just need to figure out how to manually set the end stops in the software, or define the home position in the code. As of right now when I try and home the head it just keeps going.

Thanks for the help.

Cool, I am glad it worked. It also show that an old fart like me is actually learning from this forum.

Roy

I can't seem to find a forum that explains how to set my endstops in the code. Because I don't have physical end stops I need to make sure I tell the machine how far it can go. Is there a way to do this?

If you have no endstops you need to do the following steps:
1. Remove all G28 commands from output. This is homing and homing needs endstops.
2. Move manually to a known position
3. G92 X[xpos] Y[ypos] Z[zpos]
For center use
G92 X100 Y100 Z0
This defines the current position for the printer. Thats the same G28 does.
4. Start your print

For x and y this is easy. The problem is the Z-axis, where precision really matters. I hope you have leveled your print bed before. You can try landing you head on a sheet of paper then. If you need moderate force to pull it out you have a defined height. Make sure the nozzle is hot, so no hard filament nose hits the paper first.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2011 03:25AM by repetier.

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Thanks again, this seems to work. I see in the start gcode there is an item that says go to extruder home. What does this do, do I need to remove this also? I am now able to make the printer move correct and it begins to print the part, the only problem is the extruder motor does run. Is it possible that this has something to do with the positioning also?

Please quote the code you mean, so I can explain it.

The extruder has nothing to do with homing, so you don't have problems with no end stops.

I don't understand what the problem is, if the motor does run. How do you print without running extruder motor? I'm sure mean something different, but I don't see what you mean.

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I mis-spoke before you can diregaurd my last message. Printer is able to move correclty and acts like it printing, exept my extruder never starts. I can manually start the extruder from the control plane and can get it to extrude materail, exept I have to physicly push down on the plasstic to get the extruder to put out a steady stream of plastic. I tried 200 220 and 240 for temp, but it didn't seem to mater. I am thnking it has something to do with my start code, does this look correct bellow for a prusa mendel with sanguioulo controls? Once other note is that I don't have a thermocouple attached to my headed bed yet, so the temp will always look like 0 to the comtrols. Could this be why the extruder wont start?

ALso I am not sure if you use replicator G, but what Gcode type is most compadiple with the medel as there is no option for the mendel. For this code you can see that I used the Cupcake ABS with heated build platform.

Any help on this would be great!

Thanks again,

(Cupcake ABS with heated build platform skeinforge profile)
(beginning of start.txt)
M104 S220 T0 (Extruder Temperature to 220 Celsius)
M109 S110 T0 (Heated Platform Temperature to 110 Celsius)
M107 (fan off)
G21 (Metric FTW)
G90 (Absolute Positioning)
G92 X0 Y0 Z0 (You are now at 0,0,0)
(You have failed me for the last time, MakerBot)
G0 Z15 (Move up for warmup)
M108 S255 (Extruder speed = max)
M6 T0 (Wait for tool to heat up)
G04 P5000 (Wait 5 seconds)
M101 (Extruder on, forward)
G04 P5000 (Wait 5 seconds)
M103 (Extruder off)
M01 (The heated build platform is heating up. Wait until after the lights have turned off for the first time, clear the test extrusion, and click yes.)
G0 Z0 (Go back to zero.)
(end of start.txt)
( skeinforge )
( 10.09.21 )
()

tncheck Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I mis-spoke before you can diregaurd my last
> message. Printer is able to move correclty and
> acts like it printing, exept my extruder never
> starts. I can manually start the extruder from
> the control plane and can get it to extrude
> materail, exept I have to physicly push down on
> the plasstic to get the extruder to put out a
> steady stream of plastic. I tried 200 220 and 240
> for temp, but it didn't seem to mater. I am
> thnking it has something to do with my start code,

Check if you have Absolute E positions enabled in Skeinforge (I think it was dimension tab)

> does this look correct bellow for a prusa mendel
> with sanguioulo controls? Once other note is that
> I don't have a thermocouple attached to my headed
> bed yet, so the temp will always look like 0 to
> the comtrols. Could this be why the extruder wont
> start?
>

No.

> ALso I am not sure if you use replicator G, but
> what Gcode type is most compadiple with the medel
> as there is no option for the mendel. For this
> code you can see that I used the Cupcake ABS with
> heated build platform.
>

Important is ithe firmware, which has to understand the commands. Commands are created from Skeinforge.

> Any help on this would be great!
>
> Thanks again,
>
> (Cupcake ABS with heated build platform skeinforge
> profile)
> (beginning of start.txt)
> M104 S220 T0 (Extruder Temperature to 220
> Celsius)
> M109 S110 T0 (Heated Platform Temperature to 110
> Celsius)

M109 sets extruder temp and wait to reach it, not heated bed! Set this to 230 (depends on plastic type)

> M107 (fan off)
> G21 (Metric FTW)
> G90 (Absolute Positioning)
> G92 X0 Y0 Z0 (You are now at 0,0,0)
> (You have failed me for the last time, MakerBot)
> G0 Z15 (Move up for warmup)

To late, is already warmed up to 110 °C

> M108 S255 (Extruder speed = max)

Ancient command not used any more. Only used internally from Skeinforge. Try
G92 E0 ; Reset extruder pos
G1 E4 F100 ; Extrude 4 mm

> M6 T0 (Wait for tool to heat up)

You mean M116
Dont set Heated bed temp if you have no thermocouple and wait for all temps. Could take forever.

> G04 P5000 (Wait 5 seconds)
> M101 (Extruder on, forward)
> G04 P5000 (Wait 5 seconds)
> M103 (Extruder off)
not supported/ignored
> M01 (The heated build platform is heating up. Wait
> until after the lights have turned off for the
> first time, clear the test extrusion, and click
> yes.)
ignored
> G0 Z0 (Go back to zero.)
> (end of start.txt)
> ( skeinforge )
> ( 10.09.21 )
> ()

---

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Repetier-Server - the solution to control your printer from everywhere.
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As said by Repetier, all extruder on/off etc commands are obsolete now that we use stepper motors for extruders.

Place a file named "replace.csv" in your .skeinforge/alterations/ folder with that content, it will comment out those obsolete codes (note this is TAB separated, don't use spaces) :

M108 S	;M108 S
M101	;M101
M103	;M103
M105	;M105

Also, did you activate the Dimension skeinforge plugin ? It's often not the case by default and will avoid the extruder working.

Edit : If you need to manually help the extruder when you tell it to push filament, you may be not giving enough current to its stepper motor. Did you set the motor drivers current - involves turning a tiny trimpot per motor on the pololu/stepstick 4 daughterboards.
Or it maybe that your extruder doesn't have enough grip on the filament - do you use springs there ?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2011 07:28AM by DeuxVis.

Hey guys,

I finally got through sorting out my positioning problems and the printer can read the gcode and follow the path. However I am not able to extrude. I have a waxes extruded with a nicam wire wrapped in a rock type surface like furnace cement. When trying to fix the errors the rock crumbled and fell apart. So I just put a few layers of kapton on the extruded shaft and then wrapped the micron wire evenly around the shaft. Then I wrapped another layer of heat resistant tap around the micron wire making sure my positive and neg wires arnt touching. Finished it up by putting the thermistor and a final layer of insulation. My problem is that I can't seem to get a heat out put greater than 150 reg C. That being said I broke my 1st thermistor so I am using a 10 ohm resister now, and ii know it isn't close to accurate. I am using a heat gun to monitor the temp right now, so I turn the temp to around 350 deg C and when I hit 300 deg the temp starts decreasing back down, mind you that when repsnapper shows 300 deg C I am only at around 150 on my laser heat gun.

So a few questions on the heating element.

Do I need to use the rock or furnace cement to run the heating element through?
This may be a problem with my resistor maxing out.
I messed with the sprinter temp charts and tried adjusting the 10 ohm one but this didn't seem to help much.
When you measure the temp do you take it directly from the nozzel tip, or do you keep it wrapped up under the insulation ?
Any other thoughts as to why I can't get higher than 150?

Thanks for the help