i have a mendel printer and just got it together and when i do a test pring (no Filiment) it wants to start printing 5-6 inches abaove the pring surface for a 2 inch tall test item.

how can i fix this?

Start by homing all axes. This teaches the printer where 0,0,0 is...

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-David

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Has it been calibrated? You need to specify in the firmware how many steps it takes to move a millimeter for all 3 axes. Plus, it sounds like you might have a homing issue. Do you have endstops on at least your Z axis, and are you doing a home at the start of your G Code.

These things are NOT turn-key devices. You can't just plug one in and expect it to print. It has to be configured just right and, at least for the short term, you will be tweaking your settings a lot. Sounds like you need to learn a lot about how these things operate. When I was getting started, I found nophead's blog to be very useful. Also richrap's blog. Start with these, and of course the wiki here is filled with a lot of good information.

thanks for the help. i found the problem in the gcode. for some reason it was telling the printer to start printing at a higher level. i deleted that line and it seems to do what its suppose to now..