At a dead end - help / encouragement needed

Hey guys,

It seems after 2 nights of utter confusion I've hit a bit of a morale/intelligence dead end with my Mendel build.

I think to summarise, the issue is that I just don't understand enough about the Arduino > board > hardware chain to even BEGIN troubleshooting things not working.

When I bought this thing I assumed (incorrectly it seems) that it would involve me building something, installing something then spending time calibrating it.
(i should note that i'm cluey, but i'm in no way a software/mechanical engineer.. i'm an industrial designer)

* see below for less angry description of my current setup / results *

Is anyone out there confident enough with Arduino / Windows / Mendels to want to offer to come over one night / day and see if you can problem solve a little of this? I'm happy to pay an hourly rate, or a slab of beer, or both.

I'm in Yarraville, 3013. You can email me at steve (at) noonanstudios.com if you want me to be more specific as to what stage i'm at.

Cheers all,

Steve

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 09:23AM by noonan.

I bought the kit complete from Techzone, so as far as I know its the "Gen3 electronics / Techzone remix"

Pretty much all the bits I have are listed here > [techzonecom.com]

(I see that they now have their 'monolithic' set up there now, so if what I have is particularly awkward
or outdated, I'll just buy that and hope it rules out any shorting wires etc that could be the problem in my multi-board setup.)

I have a feeling I cooked something on the extruder board tonight anyway, so i'd be happy to go in another
direction electronics wise if that's what anyone suggests... I'm more comfortable with construction than with soldering etc.

Firmware at the moment is from the zip file at the bottom of this page > [reprap.org]
Uploaded with Arduino 0018... the newer builds all gave me upload failed errors.

At last test it was:
- giving a tip temp of "23" but that only refreshes once, not continually
- axis movement was there, but when I send Gcodes, it seems to shuttle back and forth, then stop
- after the shuttling i get "dud response" errors in the RepRap debug command line window and it stalls.
- trying to upload firmware is a nightmare as it only works maybe 1 in 5 times.

and as I mentioned the whole system also seems to short out when I connect the heat element to the -C+ terminals, but it's
ok if i use the A or B ones, not that I have tested the nichrome yet, dont want to cause a fire if it's unreliable.

I'm fine with spending some more cash to get it working, so if you think another electronics solution is better
i'd happily upgrade... I really wanted this thing working this month!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2011 09:25AM by noonan.

If you can get on IRC, have a chat to GregFrost (or he may appear in here), as he has a Techzone kit much like yours. He's in Adelaide though, so unlikely he can visit, but he can offer you some good advice.

Mine is just about running, though I'm using RAMPS electronics. I just rebuilt a whole heap of stuff (trying to solve some issues with my setup in the process), so I can't say I've got a working machine yet.

BTW: What software are you using to drive your machine, and do you know what firmware is on it? A number of things have changed recently (eg: SF40's volumetric flow), which means mix/matching of software versions could cause problems.

Hey Cefiar,

I'll keep noodling around with what I have here for the moment, and see if I can track down Greg when I have some set questions to ask... at the moment there may actually be nothing wrong with my setup, its just that there are so many variables that are new to me and concepts/software that i'm learning about 'on the go' that i can spend an hour on something firmware based and not be sure I really did anything of benefit, whereas tightening nuts or soldering something makes me sure I actually did what I set out to do.

Auzze also contacted me and said he is using a RAMPS setup, so if these boards prove to be cooked or too much effort i'll either go that direction, or get the Monolith board from Techzone and ask them a million questions when it arrives.

At the moment i'd be happy if it did anything other than hum and whistle, i'll worry about flow rates and temperature once I get it to actually extrude something!

Going to leave it for another day so i can start fresh with some new thoughts (and more coffee)

hey guys,

just thought i'd let you know that I have had some success getting back on track. Seems the Cat5 cable I was supplied with was wired wrong (brown inner wires were mixed up from the ones in the instructions - not something that is easy to spot) so I was short circuiting my extruder board and causing other problems here and there.
I have now cleared that up, and am hoping to update my firmware to use the fan power outputs (both heater ones are dead now), try some test printing and then ask TechZone for a replacement extruder board.

I'm glad it wasnt just me not understanding, but it was a real pain to have to spend so long trying things when it was a simple assembly error. Thanks for your help, and i'll see you at the meet up if all goes to plan.

Glad to hear you'd made some progress. Keep us informed in the lead-up to the meeting, especially if you still haven't got things working by then. Must be pretty frustrating to have a mechanically operational RepRap only to be held up by problems with the electronics.

If it helps any I've printed out the fourtrax pen holder (Thingiverse #3593) which I'd be happy to loan you or trade for a few beers. If nothing else it'd help you calibrate your machine and make sure the comms and Cartesian bot side of things are all working properly while you wait for your replacement extruder board.

If your electronics issues turn out to be a total show-stopper then we could always work out a way to get you one of my Repic boards (http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Repic). That's very much a worst-case-scenario though, I'd recommend doing everything possible to get your RAMPS electronics working first.