thereprapkitstore.com Prusa Mendel construction Notes/Discussions

Hi all,

I was considering ordering a kit from reprapkitstore but after reading this thread, I dont feel confident buying from them

Does anyone have experience with nextdayreprap.co.uk? £50 more but the instructions look complete and I havent been able to find any negative feedback about them (though I cant find anything positive either). Plus, hopefully it really is next day! Contacted them on Friday & havent had any reply yet though. If ndrr contact me back & I dont hear anything bad about them, I'll probably be ordering a kit from them later!

Cheers,
Nick

Still can't get the x motor working right any body no
What it colud be .
Stop end for the x does work now tho

Never get one off the reprap kit store mate
Still never got bk to me about a refund and now
Going to paypal about it mate

Ok x motor still not working I put y in x on the Borad and y works in x but x don't work in y .
X
It's the same colour set up as y so I just don't get why x motor don't work in x on the board
Helps Ples
The board is ramps 1.4

Sounds like dud motor or loose writing to me if the y motor works in the x slot and not voice versa

Thxs clem you was right got an new motor works fine
Now when I got to print it just buzzes
Do u think is not getting enuff power it's got 12 v
Power pack on it .
It's like only one motor can movie at a time ???

( if its not one thing it's a other )

All working now thxs to all that helped
Me

Looks like the reprapkitstore will soon be no more.

Following the install instructions for the kit from this site, my smooth rods for the Y axis sit above the cross member threaded rods but looking at a few images of similar models on the web, some people have fitted the smooth rods below.
There does seem to be a bit of wasted space there, I could claim back 20 -30 mm of Z height if I put the rods below. Has anyone built the kit this way round? Any pitfalls?

Thanks
Phil

added a new section to the little wiki page: http://reprap.org/wiki/Prusa_Mendel_thereprapkitstore#installing_a_new_firmware

Did cost me half a day. I pity you that you do not share your know how.

roland
the born loser
losing liberates..

did extend to footprint from 200x200 to 240x230

by the way... would be nice if someone would share how to disable this initial outline print. it takes 1cm on evey side and if this outline gets cut, a bug in the firmware crashes the y-position and the y-stepper will heavily run the print bed into the construction frame :-(

okay, found it myself.. slic3r/config.ini :

skirt_distance = 6
skirt_height = 1
skirts = 1

setting skirt = 0 will disable the outline, skirt_distance = -20 will place the outline into the inside..

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2012 11:42AM by roland.

> the rods below. Has anyone built the kit this way
> round? Any pitfalls?

the printbed has to go over the cross member threaded rods. If you place the smooth rods below, you will have to add some z-spacers on the linear y-bearings to bring the printbed to exactly the same height as it now already is.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/05/2012 12:44PM by roland.

pawaller Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Looks like the reprapkitstore will soon be no
> more.
>

Sorry to see them go. Yes, I know communication may not have been their strong point and the deliveries might not have been all when promised but I had no problems with the quality of the parts supplied and their price was what got me into reprap. I guess we'll never know why they've shut up shop. I hope everyone got their ordered kits and no one, especially thereprapkitstore.co.uk have ended up out of pocket.

Thankyou thereprapkitstore.co.uk. Without you, this person would never have had the nerve to build his own reprap.

Hopefully, you can fix what ever caused to stop trading, learn from the advice offered and come back fighting fit, bright eyed and bushy tailed some time in the new year.

---

Using ABSPrusa Mendel Zaphod with Pronterface and slic3r 1.3.0. Printing well with 3mm PLA and ABS through 2 x J Head Mk IV b and Wade Geared Exruders. Controlled using RAMPS1.4 board running Marlin_v1.1.9

Hello,

We have recently bought a kit from thereprapstore (I think we were the last one, hardware only kit).

Construction went ok and we've arrived at the electronics part now.
The wiring is going well but we're having trouble with the thermistors.
We've soldered wires to the leads and installed them in both the hot-end and the heatbed but when we read the values using Pronterface, it gives really weird values (290 for the extruder and 130 for the heatbed) when they aren't even on.

We have the Melzi board (with 664 atmega) and we're using Sprinter.

Any help is appreciated because we're kinda stuck with this. We've measured the other thermistors (we got 4) using Pronterface, but those also give weird values.

Thanks in advance,

Max

Check your thermistors table in the firmware.
And out of curiousity, any other issue with this kit, like missing parts, communication with supplier, or else?

We've already tried changing the table, they still give weird values.

Some parts were missing like a few bolts etc. and communication with james is pretty poor.

Bump

If your thermistor readings are too high, it means the resistance is too low. Either the thermistors are the wrong value, or there is a short. Measure the thermistors (disconnected from the board) and at room temperature they should be around 100 kOhms. If this looks ok, measure the voltage across the thermistor at the Melzi. It should be above 4.5V I think.

Well, I've figured it out..

Apparently all 4 thermistors that came with the kit were defect...

So I bought some new ones and they seem to work fine.

I'm having another problem though, I heated up the hot-end to 185 (pla in pronterface) and it started smoking a bit.

The wires weren't hot or anything so I think it's the kapton tape, is this normal for the first time? I poked another piece of tape with my soldering iron and it smoked a little bit in some places.

Thanks in advance,

Max

I didnt notice any smoking with mine but as long as doesnt continue smoking forever I expect its just something burning off the resistor or hot end. If it continues to smoke I'd worry!

One note: I found that soldering the wires on the resistor didnt work, the hot end seemed to be hot enough to unsolder the joints and they kept periodically failing. The thermistor wires stay but I was forced to use screw clamps (harvested from an old choc block and covered in kapton) for the heater resistor.

And finally I found the glue on the kapton that came with the kit (and the one I got from RS to a lesser extent) to be a bit crap and not stick well under heat (defeating the whole point of kapton!). So I mostly wrapped the hot end up in lots of layers and hope for the best and try to avoid disturbing it and its done ok for me for months like this. Just to warn you that it might take a few goes to get a workable hotend.

Well, I added some more tape and tried again.
I adjusted the temperature to start at 100c and it didn't smoke so I set it to PLA, didn't smoke!
So I picked ABS and no smoke, so I think that's good

I pushed some ABS in and it actually worked!!

See here: my first 'print'

Well..

I have a new problem.
picture

as you can see, the filament goes ok at first but then the hobbed bolt 'grinds' it away too much and then it won't feed through because it can't grip it anymore.

I'm really confused about what to do, is this a software error or something with the hardware?

Thanks in advance,

Max

Ive had that happen when the nozzle gets blocked. Try getting the worst out of the top using anything that fits (I used a bike brake cable ... worked a treat) and poke through from the bottom once all thats clear (the only thing that fit for me was the leg of a thermistor ...). Make sure the pinch bolts are tight when you put it back together. I go for as tight as I can do it by hand.

Somewhere on here is a thread that says switching plastics causes blocking, I dont know if thats the case. I thought retractions (too much retraction on tight fine-detailed pieces) were causing the issues, but they seem to have gone away now without me ever really finding the solution.

@Clem

It's not really blocked at the moment I think, if I get a new piece and put that in it seems to work fine for a bit.

If I feed it in manually (I just move the gear) it works ok, the plastic melts and comes out fine but if I press the 'extrude' button in pronterface it grinds it away.

So I'm not sure what to do now because if I manually feed it it works 80% of the time I tried it but with the software it just doesn't work at all.

Thanks in advance,

Max

Try lowering the feed speed?

Max, from the picture it looks like you need to tighten the idler screws and get some good compression in the springs, but don't overtighten them. You should be getting deeper grooves in the filament when you come to inspect it once it has passed the hobbed bolt. As for the chip, I've never seen that but if the idler is too loose it will cause the hobbed bolt to rip the filament to shreds. I've never had any issues changing filament, just make sure you flush the old filament out by extruding until the previous colour can no longer be seen, then a bit more.

I'm back from a long break from printing and had some reasonable results at first. I then tried to fine tune my printer and now the first layer won't stick at all! I've come to the conclusion that the issue is with the bed not being level. The stand-offs supplied with the kit are inadequate for precise bed levelling because they assume that everything below the bed is perfectly level. To try to cure this issue I have ordered some springs from ebay on which the heated bed will sit, all being well they will arrive today. These should give me a few more mm in Z height too, once compressed. I'm also considering ordering some larger springs for the Z axis threaded rods to ensure there is no backlash.

I'm also considering printing some spacers to go between the bed bearing holders and the aluminium bed so that I can mount the whole bed lower, as mentioned a few posts back. I'm sure this could be achieved with a few washers and may actually be a bit more precise.

Last night I defeated the infamous nozzle wobble caused by the aluminium plate between the extruder and nozzle being too thin. I found some 0.7mm soft brass wire lying around and it just happened to fit perfectly between the gap. I wrapped it around the nozzle indentation a couple of times and the nozzle is now as sturdy as it could be. If anyone wants a 10cm length without buying a whole roll I'd be happy to post you some! It really did the trick for me and looks like a permanent fix.

WIll update once I get the bed springs on, I'm dying to print the RC truggy!

Hey all,

I'm having a few problems getting my printer to 'grip' the plastic. I'm not sure if I have my screw clap too tight or too loose....

Does anyone have any tips on how to set this bit properly?

Thanks,

Keukpa

Well, I've think I've fixed the issues a bit by adding a spring so it is a bit flexible.

The problem I'm having right now is that I think there's something wrong with my extruder or something because it doesn't melt the plastic right away... so when I press extrude it happens again.. (the nomming of the plastic as I showed in my picture...)

I've increased the temperature a bit but now I don't know what to do anymore..

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks again,

Max

We bought an ABSPrusa from thereprapkitstore.co.uk and take some time to build it (actually a lot of time ). After a huge pause I finally started to wire the electronics to realize that my wiki from thereprapkitstore is gone. There are some instructions on the reprap.org, but not that detailed.

Does anyone still has the original instructions or could someone provide some good pictures about the wiring (inkl. where to put the end-stops)?

Thanks for any help, we are now stucked with are 3D printer and can't get work it.

-- Martina

Ramps? If so, go here and scroll down..

[www.reprap.org]

Hi all,
Has anyone had any thoughts/experience regarding changing to a Bowden extruder to get more z height with this model of printer?

Or should I go the whole hog and convert to a Mendel 90? ;-)

Regards
Phil