He3D 180 "almost" works. Please help.

TLDR - Manual controls almost work. Auto level is a bust. And Slicer no Slicing!

Verbose Mode... Engaged:
I picked up one of these kits on Craigslist for $100. Previous owner gave up in frustration, I can see why. It was 99% assembled, but a lot of the electrical connections were wrong and a few of the mechanical ones were as well. I stripped out all the wiring and started from scratch.

I've got it “somewhat” working but I don't have a ton of exp in this field myself . My first printer was a refurbed Di Vinci that I hacked to make usable. And a X-Carve CNC kit. So please bear with some ignorance on my behalf.

Current issues:
1. (fixed, see post below) Odd behavior when homing. The X and Y carriages will go up, hit the end stop and then go back down just a bit. The Z? It just goes down a bit, no up. Also when homing only one carriage moves at a time and if the whole thing is too far down it will pull the gantry up against the tower and "bottom out". Swapped wires on all three motors. No change. Swapped the actual Drivers. No Change. Swapped all three motors for each other. Whichever motor is wired as Z still only goes down when homed. Swap in a totally different Motor and wires. No change.

2. When using manual controls moving on the Z plane works just fine. All three motors move up and down perfectly! But movement on the X and Y plane is limited to one quadrant. In other words, X will move from center to the left and back but not past center to the right. Y will move from center to the front but not past center to the back.

3. When trying to run a job the print head will go straight through the "bottom" if you let it. Luckily I did not trust it and did not have the glass in place. I have run this with the auto level limit switch removed and also triggering it manually. The switch is bad, it takes a ridiculous amount of force to trigger it, which is why it was not installed yet. I also tried using two bare wire and then just touching them to simulate a result just to see what it would do. Same, it bottomed out. Is it worth it with this model to try and make the auto leveling feature work? I have seem several videos by people who gave up on it do to "wiggle" issues on the print head caused by pressure from the bowden tube.

4. Software issue: It came with a version of Repetier and Slic3r. I can load an STL but when I try to slice it I get an error and it does not generate the G code.

So...
- Should I just try an updated version of Marlin or maybe something else as opposed to what it shipped with? I would be nice to understand the comments in the code. (Mine are in Chinese) ((I don't speak Chinese)).
- Should I ditch the Mega Ramps? Is there some new gold standard for controllers on Delta bots?
- Lastly is there a good comprehensive beginners guide that someone could recommend. I find my biggest hurdle is not understanding much of the jargon that is used. I'm fairly tech savvy, 25 years in IT. But every time I dive into some new tech sub-culture it's the lack of vocabulary that is always the biggest hurdle for me.
- Yes, I know I have an issue with bullet points, no I will not do a twelve step program.



Sorry for the massive first post, but thanks for any help you can offer.
fwiw, I have spent quite a bit of time reading other posts on here. If I posted something that has already been covered its because either I tried the solutions in that post and they did not work, or I missed that post somehow. TY.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2016 11:38AM by redrex.

Your Z endstop is most likely triggered.

Use the M119 command to see the end stop status.

Quote
nebbian
Your Z endstop is most likely triggered.

Use the M119 command to see the end stop status.

Yep, Z Min says triggered at all times. I remember reading something about this. Need to dig into the config and look at the pull up setting I think.

Ok, I changed:
const bool Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING = false
to
const bool Z_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING = true;

All others are set to false. Homing now works smoothly.


Thanks for the help.