Extruder stepper freeze when hitting extrude in pronterface

Hi all my first post.

So i have two prusaI3 printers. One for plastic and one for experimenting with mig welding.

prusaI3 greg/wade Extruder Marlin ramps1.4

So while i was experimenting with mig welding i ran my extrude stepper really hard.
+#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {64, 64, 4680, 1100}
+#define DEFAULT_MAX_FEEDRATE {500, 500, 2, 178} // (mm/sec)
At one point i had the steps up to over 3000:
+#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {64, 64, 4680, 3000}

After playing around with that I set things back to normal and things ran fine for a while.
Then I set some different settings in slicer for different size filament
Next I tried printing with new filament and the extruder wasnt feeding.
So I pulled out the filament and tried to run the extruder empty.
I could turn the extruder gear by hand. I ran G1 E5 and the extruder turned normally, but when I hit extrude in pronterface it vibrates and barely moves.
I disconect reconnect the printer in pronterface, and I repeat the same scenaro with the same results.

Test:
I swap the ramps1.4 connections between x-axis and e0 extruder.
Result:
x-axis now behaves the same as extruder did freezing.
extruder now operates fine as the x-axis did

Test:
I swap the stepper driver between x-axis and extruder e0
Result:
The e0 extruder connection stepper still freezes
The x-axis connection stepper still operates fine
Test:
I measured resistance of capacitor and resistors under the stepper driver
Result:
They match resistors and capacitor readings under other steppers

Test:
I swap out ramps1.4 with my plastic printer
Result
The E0 extruder still freeezes same

Test:
I swaped out the Aurduino mega board with plastic printer
Result:
The E0 extruder still freezes same

Test:
I load working good marlin firmware from my working plastic printer.
Result:
The E0 extruder still freezes same

During all these test all other steppers perform normally.

I get frustrated and quit overnight.

I put my plastic printer back together.

Now my plastic printer extruder does the exact same thing both printers extruder freezes????????????

I'm lost
Please Help

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2014 02:17PM by aunueget.

I'd want to test in when I got home, but isn't the E parameter absolute and multiple G1 E5 commands would just tell the printer to try to extrude filament until it reached the 5mm point. Since it was already at 5mm, it would just remained locked. Try adding a G92 E0 to reset the position between calls to G1 E5.

Thanks for the quick reply cdru. You are totally right. So the real problem for me is when i press the extrude button in pronterface and it mostly does a very low vibrate and barely moves.(not feeding the 5mm). Both printers are doing it now after all the above testing.

Is there a way to see what commands pronterface is doing when i hit the extruder set to 5mm?

A

What speed (mm/min) are you trying to print at using the extrude button in pronterface?

cdru,
How do I check the speed(mm/min).
Is this a setting in my configuration.h in marlin or some gcode command in pronterface?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2014 02:15PM by aunueget.

It should be next to the buttons for extrude and reverse. In this example if you hit extrude it would spit out 5mm of filament at a rate of 300mm/min. The 300 value is what I was asking for.

Also, your e steps per unit I think is off significantly. For a geared extruder, the formula is e_steps_per_mm = (motor_steps_per_rev * driver_microstep) * (big_gear_teeth / small_gear_teeth) / (hob_effective_diameter * pi) For a 39:11 geared extruder, it would be (200 * 16) * (39 / 11) / (7 * 3.14159) = 515.91048. For a 51:11 gear ratio, it would be (200 * 16) * (51 / 11) / (7 * 3.14159) = 674.65217. It sounds to me like you're trying to push nearly twice the filament out the extruder in a very short time and it is just locking up for going too fast.

You say that you were running your extruder really hard and changed 1100 to 3000. Regardless of how "hard" you try to run your extruder, your steps per mm will always remain constant. You can adjust your max rates, acceleration, and jerk to squeak out more performance up to the limits the hardware will support, but steps/unit is a constant (unless you change gear ratio, microsteps, steppers, etc)

cdru,

That was it. I tried Repetier Host last night and everything was fine so I had narrowed it down to pronterface.

I'm not to smart. I thought that the 300 in the mm/min was how much it goes when you hit reverse because its directly next to the reverse button. I never understood why it was so high in reverse and it never seemed to go 300mm in reverse. I'm an idiot. I set that to 5 because I thought I would reverse the same as forwards. I don't know how I made it this far without realizing that. Thanks cdru. Sorry if I wasted your time.

Andrew

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2014 10:31AM by aunueget.