BackEMF's SmartRap 0.4.7 build

Guys, here are my first steps.



The mechanical build is ready. The build went pretty smoth so far. And I'm impressed how Serge manages to produce so many kit's already. I have the RAW kit, and i must say it was more work then expected. Though this makes me appreciate the machine much more. :-)

I wonder where Serge finds the time to source parts, print parts, produce kit's, test upgrades, write documentation, keep track of forumposts, packing, shipping, email, website. (and I'm sure I forget things...)

So Serge, THANK YOU!

Congrats on your Smartrap.

Really nice build Keep us posted with the progress.

Whats the lengh of Y axis rods? They are huge, comparing to mine

Yes, nice build, and no servo... Wish I had a Huxley hotend. I haven't been able to find one that the shipping alone cost more than a J-head light. Do you all have an "affordable" source for them? I think if your going to increase the capacity of a Smartrap, the X direction is the one to go hog wild on. Please keep us posted.

Mark

Thx thx,

Y axis is about 40 CM, I sacavenged them from an old XEROX copier. Closed hardware shall be opened!!

I'm not sure if I keep them on the SmartRap 40 CM takes op about 80 CM when printing. But I must say, dispite the lenght, is still feels very stable.

Wow... That's BIG!

That's really big one

[www.ebay.com]http://www.ebay.com/usr/ohpakron

Is the only source for J-head lite at this moment

hehehe, ok the X rods will have to stay now...

Quote
BackEMF
[www.ebay.com]http://www.ebay.com/usr/ohpakron

Is the only source for J-head lite at this moment

Yea, I'v got one, I was wondering if there was a "reasonable" source for the Huxley hotend.

I sent you a PM Mark...

BackEMF, You got a piece of glass for that thing? Can't wait to see it print!

lol.. I didn't try 40cm max was 30 , to make a good 20 printable.

Happy it works. maybe for the weight you should try aluminium tubes 8mm with printed bushes ? I'm experimenting again here and i get good results ( with some vaseline on the tube ) . Last try was not good but think my pinter bushings where too bad with the first smartrap proto .

---

the Smartrap project

[smartfriendz.com]
[www.thingiverse.com]
[reprap.org]
[github.com]
doc assemblage: [reprap.org]
NEW: Forum smartfriendz: [smartraptalk.smartfriendz.com]

Tomorrow i'll try to get the electronix all wired, the glassplate that will be extra weight hehe
And i have to order a good quality PLA... So i'm still at some distance to get printing.

BTW how should the steppers be jumpered?

Everything 1/16

or

X and Y 1/16
Z and E 1/8 ?

I'm all at 1/16.

Me too, all at 16th microstepping. motors run much smoother. I can see why you might think about taking the E to 1/8 step for a bit more torque, and I might even try that one my own self, but I can't see any reason for the Z to be at 1/8, it needs very little torque to move on the 0.8 mm pitch. Having the resolution on the Z can only help IMO.

Mark

Hmmm lets see how to get it configured.

I tried do configure Cura but it looks like i went a bit to fast.

Few things i noticed so far.

XandY are reversed
Fan doesn't turn
the Z stop 'bridge/hot end mount' is deforming (getting to warm)

I tested the fan and on 9 volt it works, i measured the wires and they are ok.
Tomorrow I'll try to patch the XY reverse and I'll try Repetier Host ....

The plastic hot end mount is something that might be a candidate for an upgrade. (Aluminium?)
I probably waited to long and generated to much heat due to the fan that didn't work. Though I assume more people might eventually overheat this area accidentially.



Any advice is welcome.

I have my fan connected to the 12v aux pins on the RAMP. Where it says Extruder Fan in this pic.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2014 07:32PM by madmike8.

I had a reversed Y. My configuration.h and pins.h is posted in my build thread.

YAY

first air print in session!!!

I'm so glad i couln't sleep, and went back to the bot hehehehe
I still need to get my head around the Y invert and y endstop logic..
It works now though i have the feeling the endstop logic is the other way around around. Or i just need some sleep... hehe

Once i truly understand the logic then i go to the finetuning stage :-)

Thanks!

And I must say, Serge did a GREAT job.

Try this

Quote
madmike8
I wanted to add this to my thread for future reference on my mirrored Y problem that was fixed.

I'm using Marlin

To Change the motor direction in Configuration.h change the
const bool Y_MIN_ENDSTOP_INVERTING to true
const bool Y_MAX_ENDSTOP_INVERTING to false

#define INVERT_Y_DIR from true to false

Then you need to Change your Homing Direction by changing
#define Y_HOME_DIR from -1 to 1

Now if you try it, it might not home, so you need to remark (add //) to the beginning of this line
#define DISABLE_MAX_ENDSTOPS

Then in pins.h under the Arduino Mega pin assignment
There are 2 places to set the Y Pins one is under #if MOTHERBOARD == 77
But we are using the RAMPS Motherboard, so we need to change the ones under the #else statement.
change
#define Y_MIN_PIN change the 14 to 15
And
#define Y_MAX_PIN change the 15 to 14

Hopefully this fixes your Y Mirrored issues...

Hi backemf,

Reading your progress, congrats ! you all do a great job here. I'm sure it will be wonderful builds.

There's something didn't tell anywhere and you make me think about : the hot-end support (long thin bar ) is indeed very fragile about the temp. You need to heat the hot-end WITH fan running always.. or you will have what you already had i guess.. the support bending and even melting !
I will add a notice about that in the doc !

I had it too . Couldn't understand why my offset was always changing, until i saw the support like a U lol .

---

the Smartrap project

[smartfriendz.com]
[www.thingiverse.com]
[reprap.org]
[github.com]
doc assemblage: [reprap.org]
NEW: Forum smartfriendz: [smartraptalk.smartfriendz.com]

madmike:

i have hacked the mods and yes i see improvements

one thing i now find odd the bed moves to the start position but during the 'air print' the bed (x axis) doesn't move at all.
Before the changes the bed DID move. I checked for typo's and all seems ok, I'm trying to understand what is happening here.
EDIT: (this was probably a slicing issue, it now seems to work fine)


smartfriendz:

hehe yes the hot end support goes a bit wonky i'll try to find a peice of aluminium (or wood?)
Would be nice to have an "universal mount" so that it is easy to experiment with different print heads.
For now i turned down the temperature to 50C so there will not be more damage

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2014 05:53PM by BackEMF.

I fixed the hot end support wit some 10 x 10 mm Aluminuim U bar + a 35 x 10 x 2 mm strip
The bowden is now screwed in the support bar and this also gives a thermal air barrier (i hope this will turn out to be ok)
Feedback is welcome, anything more simple and with less parts is always a win.

10mm shaft 0.3 string:

3.1415*(10+0.3)=32.35745
200*16/32.35745=98.895308499 or 98.89

Configuration.h

#define motors1840 // version motors 1.8 degres, 40mm long . this one has a shaft adaptor and changes steps
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {98.89,98.89,4000,83} // smartrap : version 1.8degv{194,194,4000,85} robotdigg.shaft adaptor,fishline big

so this should be ok now, finetuning comes later


But now i need to configure Cura and set up autoleveling
And there is still some odd endstop behaviour, sometimes the firmware doesn't react to endstops. I measured the endstops and electrically they are still ok so what can still be wrong.

If the smartrap homes should it home @ the endstops or does home to an offset position?
and what are the correct commands to manually test this?

Mine homes to the endstops

G28 Homes All Axis
G28 X0 Y0 Homes the X and Y Axis.

G29 probes the bed for the auto level.

M119 reports the endstop status. Use it to diagnose your endstop issues.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2014 12:55AM by madmike8.

Quote
BackEMF
10mm shaft 0.3 string:

3.1415*(10+0.3)=32.35745
200*16/32.35745=98.895308499 or 98.89

Configuration.h

#define motors1840 // version motors 1.8 degres, 40mm long . this one has a shaft adaptor and changes steps
#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {98.89,98.89,4000,83} // smartrap : version 1.8degv{194,194,4000,85} robotdigg.shaft adaptor,fishline big

so this should be ok now, finetuning comes later


But now i need to configure Cura and set up autoleveling
And there is still some odd endstop behaviour, sometimes the firmware doesn't react to endstops. I measured the endstops and electrically they are still ok so what can still be wrong.

If the smartrap homes should it home @ the endstops or does home to an offset position?
and what are the correct commands to manually test this?

98.89 or 98.90, the rest you can adjust with a few test cubes and setting the scale.

I've noticed that there are times when the end stops seem to get ignored but never when running Gcode. To test out the movements on my machine, i just wrote a simple little test.gcode in Kate and run it. it homes the X and Y, probes the bed and then runs around and up and down, stopping 1mm from the bed, or at least it should if everything is running correctly, Running it a few times, it should always stop in the same X/Y space as well.

Just copy and paste this into your favorite text editor (windows notepad is fine if that is all you have) and save as a .gcode file and run it on your machine. You can adjust the X, Y and Z values to your liking. I added the comments for those that don't know, what the Gcode commands are doing.

G21;Metric!
G28 X0 Y0 ;Home X and Y
G29 ;Probe bed
G90; Set absolute coordinates
G1 Z5 F3000; Lift Z and get out of the bed after probe
G1 X10 Y10 F3000 ; Move to front left corner
G1 X120 Y120 Z10 ;Move cross bed - Lift Z 5 mm more
G1 X10 Y120 Z20 ; Move along the back of the bed to the left - Move Z up 10 mm
G1 X70 Y10 Z5 ; Move ~center front - Z down 15 mm
G1 X70 Y70 Z1 ; Move ~ X/Y center and bring Z to 1 mm from bed.

Setting up Cura... I only use CuraEngine through a Python front end in FreeCAD so I will have only partial help for you there. Homing depended under what directions it receives along with the G28 command. If it's just G28 it will follow the firmware settings which is something like -

#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_X_POINT (X_MAX_LENGTH/2)    // X point for Z homing when homing all axis (G28)
#define Z_SAFE_HOMING_Y_POINT (Y_MAX_LENGTH/2)    // Y point for Z homing when homing all axis (G28)

Telling it to do a G28 X0 Y0 it will go to the end stops on X and Y.

Mark

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2014 12:57AM by markstephen.

Thanks Mark,

Hmmm weird, turns out that my X now is in reverse. Still when i do an 'air print' then everything seems to work fine.

This test gcode is a great way to do a first test. I wonder why cura doesnt have this included, or some kind of wizard.. test.gcode that homes to endstop, then moves to an offset 1 cm off the edge, then draws a 10cm line and homes again to the endstop or something like that
And this for every axis.

It's probably a silly thing, i've build the SmartRap to plan.

Cura Start code. I've copied the one from Verteez thread:

G21             ; metric is good!
G90             ; absolute positioning
T0              ; select new extruder
G28             ; go home
G29             ; auto bed level
G92 E0          ; set extruder home
M104 S195.0     ; set temperature to 195.0
G1 X20 Y20 F500 ; move away from 0.0, to use the same reset for each layer

I've looked into FreeCAD though i havn't made anything with it yet. This Python front end I must keep in mind, it sounds like I'm going to like that. :-)

I'm going to dive into the axis config now.....

Happy to here you found the test code useful.

If your planing on diving into FreeCAD, I would seriously suggest you sign up for the FreeCAD forum. There is a learning curve but it's not that hard, and once you get the basics down, you will find it to be quite powerful/ You'll probably find more than one person there that is here as well, including my own self, (quick61 there). We'll help you out and get you going in no time.

Good luck on the axis config. Madmike8 seems to have that stuff down. Check out his posts on the subject, he sure helped me get it right.

Mark

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2014 10:54AM by markstephen.

Mark, your link is missing an e in free... I just signed up over there. I've never used a CAD package in my life, but that's what I want to do, and part of the point of owning a printer... So expect lots of stupid questions over there.

Quote
madmike8
Mark, your link is missing an e in free... I just signed up over there. I've never used a CAD package in my life, but that's what I want to do, and part of the point of owning a printer... So expect lots of stupid questions over there.

Thanks - fixed the link - what I get for not checking - sorry!

Give me a heads up to your user name there and I'll keep a look out for you. First posts by new users are modded to prevent spammers (there have been a few), but after that, it's smooth sailing. Make sure you read the very first thread in the help section and follow it. It will save a lot of time.

There are no stupied questions except for the ones never asked.

Mark

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2014 11:02AM by markstephen.