Marlin start of a print?

Hi I have just finished building my prusa v2 with ramps 1.4 running the latest marlin firmware from [github.com]

I am wondering what the procedure is when I send a print to the printer. I'm using pronterface and slicer to control it.

What I see is
all axis home, hit home limits and come off it by 5mm or so and back onto home limit
Then my print waits for hbp and extruded temp to come up to desired temps
Z axis now lifts about 5mm up and a countdown begins in pronterface
Once it finishes the count down the z axis drives back down to home position
x and y axis now drive to the centre and the print starts.

The reason I ask this is I am in sure why my z axis lifts up and drops back down then prints, it would make sense if it lifted up 5mm then moved to where the print starts and dropped back down to desired first layer height.

Is this what should be happening?

Cheers Ash.

You mention that you're using slicer, which is a generic term. I assume you mean slic3r.

I have never seen slic3r put in a lift and pause on the front of a print job by default. All the other observations seem in line with my experience. I actually used to have start up code like you describe to give me a chance to manually wipe the print head at the last second before the print start, but this was only because I had added that code to my start gcode. It didn't happen by default.

What, if anything, do you have set as your start gcode? It's on the printer page of slic3r, under the custom g code tab

If you could paste as jbernardis suggests, your start code as well as the first few lines of your parts' gcode. THis would help interpreting you situation