Bed leveling issue - how is this even possible?

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Dark Alchemist

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Sardi
It seems to me that this printer is a lot of work. Ive bought it for home fun, but must admit Ive spent more time tuning it then printing. I already have DC42s sensor, modified heat sinks, Z rod gears, extruder gears.. and now I need an aluminium bed plane and maybe aluminium X rib... Does this ever end?

I know this is a kit, but when you need to purchase and print a bunch of additional parts for it to work properly, than it just isnt worth the money or the time. Will think about daveks aluminium plate, but then I can just hope that this is the last update Ill need.

Ive literllay spent more time fixing this machine than enjoying the prints.

OT:
I have zeroed the Z in the middle (x100 y100) and it seems to do just fine. For now at least.

Same here and I have tried everything but after 1.5 years and thousands of hours to get this thing to work I give it up today. Just too many issues to have fun with it imo and I don't care if it is PEBKAC or there really are issues in the printer I haven't printed enough to actually have fun. All aluminum I3 Rework with mods galore and nothing fixed the 4 corner ball buster so it isn't just the Ormerod that has these issues.

Hi Dark Alchemist,

Ormerod it's my best caliper for the bed leveling ....... [www.dropbox.com] a visual evaluation is always very easy.... not clear for me your dark vision... but OK I'm a simple user. (with a happy printing experience...[www.3dhubs.com])

Dario

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/15/2015 04:01AM by Ormerod187.

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Ormerod 187
Firmware Electronics: Duet 0.6
Firmware Version:1.18.1 (2017-04-07)
Web Interface Version:1.15a
Slic3r 1.2.9a and Simplify3D 4.0.0
[www.dropbox.com]

Quote
Dark Alchemist

Quote
Sardi
It seems to me that this printer is a lot of work. Ive bought it for home fun, but must admit Ive spent more time tuning it then printing. I already have DC42s sensor, modified heat sinks, Z rod gears, extruder gears.. and now I need an aluminium bed plane and maybe aluminium X rib... Does this ever end?

I know this is a kit, but when you need to purchase and print a bunch of additional parts for it to work properly, than it just isnt worth the money or the time. Will think about daveks aluminium plate, but then I can just hope that this is the last update Ill need.

Ive literllay spent more time fixing this machine than enjoying the prints.

OT:
I have zeroed the Z in the middle (x100 y100) and it seems to do just fine. For now at least.

Same here and I have tried everything but after 1.5 years and thousands of hours to get this thing to work I give it up today. Just too many issues to have fun with it imo and I don't care if it is PEBKAC or there really are issues in the printer I haven't printed enough to actually have fun. All aluminum I3 Rework with mods galore and nothing fixed the 4 corner ball buster so it isn't just the Ormerod that has these issues.

If you want to get it perfect, then you will indeed have a really frustrating job. But I was able to get it adjusted well enough to print perfectly acceptable parts after a couple of months of fiddling and upgrading. The imperfections can be compensated for. I have never liked using bed compensation with the Z screw grinding back and forth thousands of times over a print, so I adjusted the bed to be as level as it needs to be - which is not 100% level. I make the Z zero position to favour the lowest bed position, if necessary set a bigger 1st layer height (and slow first layer print speed), and it prints perfectly acceptably, albeit with a small 1st layer "skirt" that is easily filed off. I design my own parts so that they are unaffected by the known limitations of both my Ormerod and FFF printing - I frequently chop parts into multiple parts that I can print in the most favourable orientation, then I glue then together (I use acetone to chemically bond my ABS prints).

My advice is to not try for perfection, just start printing what you want to print and compensate for the limitations of the tool as I do, and you will start having fun again. My house is now full of all sorts of Ormerod printed items, including a quadcopter and several VHF aerial designs.

Dave

As an aside, I don't like using bed compensation because of the wear on the Z nut and gears. A while back I suggested that the bed compensation could be applied to the first layer as at present but then progressively reduced over the following 3 or 4 layers so that the bulk of the print was achieved with no Z screw grinding. At the time the feeling was that it was be a reasonable idea, but there were bigger fish to fry wrt firmware changes at the time. I'm wondering whether it is still considered a good idea, and if so whether DC42 or Zombie might be interested in trying an implementation.

Dave

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dmould
As an aside, I don't like using bed compensation because of the wear on the Z nut and gears. A while back I suggested that the bed compensation could be applied to the first layer as at present but then progressively reduced over the following 3 or 4 layers so that the bulk of the print was achieved with no Z screw grinding. At the time the feeling was that it was be a reasonable idea, but there were bigger fish to fry wrt firmware changes at the time. I'm wondering whether it is still considered a good idea, and if so whether DC42 or Zombie might be interested in trying an implementation.

Dave

I had used ABL for a long while and it sucks for a cartesian printer. Wear, tear, and slow as hell. The fact is on my i3 rework it cannot be leveled and I have spent 1.5 years trying to get it to print reliably. Now it doesn't print at all but, I guess, if I went to a 1mm nozzle and print with 0.8mm layer height for the first layer maybe, just maybe, it would work. No one has been able to figure out where the issue is but the issue is in the printer itself as there is a bulge in the middle of the printbed no matter what you put on it. MK2B, bulge. MK2B+Aluminum Heat Spreader, bulge. MK2B+Boro glass, bulge. MK2B+Aluminum Heat Spreader+Boro Glass, bulge. Get all 4 corners to be the same distance from the nozzle and the center is bulged. Release all of the nuts (letting it free float) and I can getthe same reading front to back so it is not X bar sag in the middle.

This is a Prusa I3 Rework not an Omerod but my sentiment matched his exactly so I had to quote him and reply. Just no damn fun for thousands and thousands of hours of tweaking that I have done since Feb, 2014.

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I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

You cannot compare a Prusa with an Ormerod. ABL worked perfectly for me even with the original sensor from the MK1. It was far better then leveling by hand. It is not fair to compare two totally different printers with a completely other structure, controller and behavior. You compare apples with peas. The Ormerod is a totally enhancement to the Prusa.

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Slicer: Simplify3D 4.0; sometimes CraftWare 1.14 or Cura 2.7
Delta with Duet-WiFi, FW: 1.20.1RC2; mini-sensor board by dc42 for auto-leveling
Ormerod common modifications: Mini-sensor board by dc42, aluminum X-arm, 0.4 mm nozzle E3D like, 2nd fan, Z stepper nut M5 x 15, Herringbone gears, Z-axis bearing at top, spring loaded extruder with pneumatic fitting, Y belt axis tensioner
Ormerod 2: FW: 1.19-dc42 on Duet-WiFi. own build, modifications: GT2-belts, silicone heat-bed, different motors and so on. Printed parts: bed support, (PSU holder) and Y-feet.
Ormerod 1: FW: 1.15c-dc42 on 1k Duet-Board. Modifications: Aluminium bed-support, (nearly) all parts reprinted in PLA/ ABS, and so on.

Quote
Treito
You cannot compare a Prusa with an Ormerod. ABL worked perfectly for me even with the original sensor from the MK1. It was far better then leveling by hand. It is not fair to compare two totally different printers with a completely other structure, controller and behavior. You compare apples with peas. The Ormerod is a totally enhancement to the Prusa.

Who in the hell is comparing one printer on another? I am not I was agreeing with his sentiment which I have. His may be on another printert than mine but the sentiment was exactly the same. A freaking nightmare of hell trying to get a pea, or an apple, or a watermelon to print on a consistant basis.

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I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

I just purchased a new printer that has a 330x330 heated bed and uses extrusions (plus it is a Bowden so very little weight on X) and here we go again. I have never been able to print reliably in all of these years. I did tear down my Prusa to make room for this printer but when you even try 1 inch pillars at the three leveling points and the nozzle still hits the glass (regardless if flipped or not) then I have no idea why others have this magic in them to be able to print easily and I can't. Same problem across a CoreXY and a standard Cartesian Prusa I3 something is really screwy. Y skewed, X skewed, etc... goes out the window with this printer as does smooth rod droop. Since the heated bed has this bulge across the entire Y section in the middle (to the point it will jam my nozzle using 0.318mm first layer gap) but is fine on the rest of the bed then it isn't droop.

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I await Skynet and my last vision will be of a RepRap self replicating the robots that is destroying the human race.

This is pretty much similar to the problem I am having. But my printer is already mostly aluminium.
Therefore I am now persueing manual mesh bed leveling.