Anet A8 Axis Issues & Home Position

I have an Anet A8 and just flashed my system with Marlin 1.1.9
I booted up system and tried getting used to the difference in the LCD, which mine is the 2004. Upon moving each axis, I found that in one direction I could take it to the limit, but the other way, it would only go so far.
Z Axis: would go up as far as I wanted, but down, would only go down about 4" above hotbed and stop. Not even getting close to limit switch
X Axis: Facing the printer, would go all the way to the right, but just shy of the limit switch to the left by about 1/2"
Y Axis: would come all the way forward, but about 3 1/2" short of hitting limit switch in rear

Why is this, and how do I fix it New to Marlin, so not sure what I am going to also have to do, to get everything back to working. According to the lcd, it shows a ? where the sd card is on the screen , and weird 0 & ? for the axis #'s

Also is there any documentation or videos on what the screen operations are on the 2004 lcd that comes stock on the A8's. Very confusing compared to the original way.

You have not homed the printer. Without homing the printer it cannot move in the -v direction past the power on point.

On power on the axis is set to 0 and you cannot move -ve past that point

the ? is telling you you need to home the axis to tell it where 0 really is

And step by step instructions can be found where?

I don't know if the following will help out or not but it seems like it might be a good place to start.

[www.instructables.com]

Thank you, but no that doesn't delve into Marlin upgrading, just the basics. Need to know all the things that you have to do to the Anet A8 once you have flashed Marlin onto your board, like axis adjusting for home position etc. I have checked YouTube, but most videos are on the process of how to download Arduino & Marlin, and how to flash your board and nothing on the things that you have to do once it is loaded.

Have you looked at the Marlin configuration docs? They show most things that need to be customized but don't necessarily go into the details of how to do the changes, etc. For installation info just switch to that tab.

[marlinfw.org]

Quote
3D Printer Dude
I have an Anet A8 and just flashed my system with Marlin 1.1.9
I booted up system and tried getting used to the difference in the LCD, which mine is the 2004. Upon moving each axis, I found that in one direction I could take it to the limit, but the other way, it would only go so far.
Z Axis: would go up as far as I wanted, but down, would only go down about 4" above hotbed and stop. Not even getting close to limit switch
X Axis: Facing the printer, would go all the way to the right, but just shy of the limit switch to the left by about 1/2"
Y Axis: would come all the way forward, but about 3 1/2" short of hitting limit switch in rear

Why is this, and how do I fix it New to Marlin, so not sure what I am going to also have to do, to get everything back to working. According to the lcd, it shows a ? where the sd card is on the screen , and weird 0 & ? for the axis #'s

Also is there any documentation or videos on what the screen operations are on the 2004 lcd that comes stock on the A8's. Very confusing compared to the original way.

Grab the Marlin 1.1.9 "bugfix", rather than 1.1.9, I hear that fixes some important bugs found in 1.1.9.
When you do get that Marlin download, look in the Marlin\example_configurations\Anet\A8 folder for the Configuration.h and Configuration_adv.h files. Copy these to your Marlin source code folder. This will complete 99% of your tuning of Marlin to your Anet A8. The last little bit is the tuning of the offset from "home" position to X=0 and Y=0 point on your print bed.
So...
Home the printer. Pronterface is probably still the easiest program to use to tune a printer. Use that.
If you cannot home because your steppers go the wrong way, then swap any paired windings in your connector to reverse direction. You could change the stepper code in Configuration.h, but it is more "universal" to simply swap the stepper wires. An individual winding is two wires that you read some value of ohms on with your DVM.

After you home, use the program to jog the print head to where you want to define X and Y to be 0/0. Read from the display how many mm you had to move to get it there. Don't be too finicky, just pick integer mm values (My custom E3Dv6 carriage was 33/10). Make those value negative and put them into the
X_MIN_POS and Y_MIN_POS values in Configuration.h. So, in my case, I set X_MIN_POS -33 and Y_MIN_POS -10.

You are now done with the basic mechanical setup in code, you just need to tweak your end stops (mostly Z) to zero your bed.

NEXT
You will want to select the correct thermistor and do a PID tune on your hot end. Google that, it is pretty simple. You can use those values to set your Kp, Ki and Kd values for the hot end. Thoser are NEVER correct in the default firmware.
TURN OFF THE EEPROM BEFORE DOING THIS by commenting #define EEPROM_SETTINGS out. I never turn on EEPROM, just sayin'.

NOW
Get yourself a dial indicator or print some calibration cubes to tune in your steps/mm so your prints are basically dimensionally accurate. These will be pretty close to start with if you have a stock Anet A8.
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT { 100, 100, 400, 100 } -> X, Y, Z, Extruder

This should get you printing.

have fun,
DLC

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Kits: Folgertech Kossel 2020 upgraded E3Dv6, Anet A8 upgraded E3Dv6, Tevo Tarantula enhanced parts and dual-head, TronXY X5SA Pro(E3DHemera).
Scratch: Large bed Cartesian, exchangeable heads, Linear slide Delta, Maker-Beam XL Micro Delta, 220x220CoreXY.

You might give this a look.
Marlin/example_configurations/Anet/A8/

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2019 03:49PM by Roberts_Clif.

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Computer Programmer / Electronics Technician

Quote
Roberts_Clif
You might give this a look.
Marlin/example_configurations/Anet/A8/

Yea, I have already done the config h, and config.adv from the Marlin parckage for the Anet A8. And the ones from GitHub

I actually found documentation at the Marlin site, but not specific to the Anet A8. Also, can someone tell me when I am compiling, I get two errors that show while compiling, but finishes compiling with a done compiling finish. The upload also goes through with no problems. The following is the two strings of text I get. While compiling they show as yellow or amber text, not red.

Error while detecting libraries included by C:\users\bel\AppData\local\Temp\Arduino_build_798526\sketch\temperature\ccp

Error while detecting libraries included by C:\users\bel\AppData\local\Temp\Arduino_build_798526\sketch\Sd2Card\ccp

I have searched for the string or path on computer that has Arduino/Marlin, and computer tells me it doesn't exsist.

Is there a way to print out my compilation to the printer (paper printer)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2019 01:24AM by 3D Printer Dude.

Quote
3D Printer Dude
I actually found documentation at the Marlin site, but not specific to the Anet A8. Also, can someone tell me when I am compiling, I get two errors that show while compiling, but finishes compiling with a done compiling finish. The upload also goes through with no problems. The following is the two strings of text I get. While compiling they show as yellow or amber text, not red.

Error while detecting libraries included by C:\users\bel\AppData\local\Temp\Arduino_build_798526\sketch\temperature\ccp

Error while detecting libraries included by C:\users\bel\AppData\local\Temp\Arduino_build_798526\sketch\Sd2Card\ccp

I have searched for the string or path on computer that has Arduino/Marlin, and computer tells me it doesn't exsist.

Is there a way to print out my compilation to the printer (paper printer)

Weird errors almost always come from using a earlier version of the Arduino compiler than the code expects. Get the latest Arduino compiler.

What program are you using to test your printer? I recommend Pronterface, it is the easiest and simplest to use.

Have you "homed" your printer? Pronterface allows you to home each axis individually or all together. What happens when you home your printer?
The '?' in the X and Y and Z fields of the display mean you have not homed the printer.

NOTE: The Anet A8 traditionally uses a bit rate of 115200, not the 250000 that most printers use.

I built an Anet A8 a year or so ago and used the 1.1.8 Marlin github code. I used the example_configurations config files for the A8. I then modified the X and Y home positions (as I noted above) to use a custom carriage with a E3Dv6 hot end. It works fine.

After you have done all those steps in my prior post and this one, let us know how it went. We need to start from a known point - guessing isn't useful.

DLC

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Kits: Folgertech Kossel 2020 upgraded E3Dv6, Anet A8 upgraded E3Dv6, Tevo Tarantula enhanced parts and dual-head, TronXY X5SA Pro(E3DHemera).
Scratch: Large bed Cartesian, exchangeable heads, Linear slide Delta, Maker-Beam XL Micro Delta, 220x220CoreXY.