Extruder issue - extruder motor way too slow.

I have a prusa mendel I assembled from 3dstuffmaker.com. Using gen6 electronics and Repetier-Host-Mac to control the printer. I don't know what firmware is on the board, Reptier says "Unknown printer firmware".

Issue

The extruder moves the filament too slowly. If I tell the extruder to move 1000mm, it will move something closer to 100mm. It's off by an order of magnitude. It also makes it seem like the issue it that the motor is super slow.

What is the right way to go about fixing this? I tried messing with the potentiometer, and that made it worse.

Is this a firmware issue? If so, I don't know what firmware I have (it came pre-laoded) and I don't know how to upload new firmware to the gen6 board. I saw some forums mentioning the configuration.h file and callibratiing there. Is this the solution?

What other potential nobs could I adjust?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2012 07:16PM by quantize.

yes this is an firmware issue and if your extruder is off then youre other axes are aswell.

if you try google "upload firmware" you will find enough hits to get you started or else probably others can help you. I have a sanga board myself but it should be pretty good to do.

Thanks weedz.

I've got the Repetier firmware compiling in my Arduino IDE, but I'm getting the following error:

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding

For Tools->Board, I selected Sanguino w/ ATMega644P (is that what Gen6 is? I just have the gen6 board plugged into my macbook via USB, is that the correct setup?)
For Tools->Programmer, I tried AVR ISP and Arduino as ISP. (not sure which one I'm supposed to choose?)
For Tools->Serial Port, I have the USB one selected.

I tried resetting the board while uploading and all that as well.

Any tips?
Thanks!

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2012 11:45PM by quantize.

Be aware that in repetier, changing values in the firmware source will only take effect the first time you upload the firmware. After that, the values are stored in the reprimand, and can only be changed withinn the host application.

You need to bump up the extruder steps per mm. Also, turn down your pitentiometers before you fry the driver chips.

Thanks for the information.

I'm still struggling with getting the firmware on in the first place though. See my post above.

I guess you are using Arduino 1.0.1? The problem with Sanguino is, that the latest version I saw was not completely compatible. See in the repetier-firmware in the boards folder. There you see a boards.txt for Sanguino (Sanguino 1.0+ folder then your sanguino version) that you need to replace the one in the original Sanguino with. It has a different entry for the uploader as the new Arduino also has a new version of the uploading programm and needs a different uploading type. Also make sure to replace the Arduino.h and wiring.c file.

BTW: You don't use a programmer for uploading, you don't have one I think. You need the normal Upload which uses the serial port.

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