First test

Hello everyone, and I apologize in advance because I'm a rank newbie. I just completed my build of a Prusa with RAMPS 1.4 and started testing yesterday. All the mechanical movements seemed correct, the nozzle was heating properly, and the thermistor monitoring its temperature. I turned off at that point, because if I started trying to print I knew I'd go all night long, and I had to be somewhat conscious in the morning for work.

Tonight I'm back, and quickly ran through the same tests. Mechanical movements are still fine, but the heat core won't heat, and the thermistor doesn't indicate temperature (yesterday I was reading room temperature before heating, and then could see temp going up and down in tests). I have checked all the wiring, checked that there isn't any voltage applied when I send the command to heat, re-installed the firmware, rebooted the printer and the laptop, but these two related functions just seem to be dead. If anyone has any idea at all what to try next, I'd really and truly appreciate it!


Thanks,

Alec

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2012 01:00AM by Alec.

OK, problem fixed. The thermistor was noting but a bad contact (that was a good one the night before, ugh), but the heater coil was... magic. I still don't know what fixed that one, but after about a dozen attempts it just started working.

I've extruded my first few inches, with the nozzle about 20mm above the bed. Instead of a nice even strand of extruded material, what I'm getting is globbing at the nozzle itself. The plastic accumulates, still in contact with the nozzle, and then the glob eventually detaches, so the end result on the bed looks like a pile of miniature grapes. I tried varying a Pronterface parameter called "e_feedrate", varying from 2 to 20, but there really wasn't any observable change in this globbing pattern.

First the heater will not heat unless it reads a temp of any kind meaning that the temp probe at least has to be plugged in. Your bad connection likely was the cause of the not heating. As far as the printing goes I can offer much as I am pretty mew myself at this but are you using the proper tape or ABS Juice?

~Mike

P.S. We can always use a bit of magic with these rigs.

Sorry for the typing my keyboard needs to be eCycled. And my nozzle kinda does that too but when I print it works fine. I think it has to do with how it was drilled.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2012 03:35AM by EMH Studios.

At 20mm above the bed it will do that, if it does it while printing then you have an issue.

As for the pins (connections) Simply bend each pin the opposite way (1 back 1 forth) This will ensure a good connection and help to hold the plug on the board, I also twist all my wires, this helps put a sort of torque on the plug to keep it tight, and depending on the wiring it's acts as shileding (good for communicaion)