Folger Prusa i3 Kit from ebay

dbrewski - Your motors are likely overheating. They should be warm but not burning to the touch - if they get very hot then you need to reduce the current from the stepper motors. I know mine are a bit high and the temps get pretty toasty - please check your currents, the motors WILL stop and not respond if they overheat. Everything else would remain "on" as well. The red flag is that you are cooling your motors, that is a bit unusual.

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Vanbot

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enzo1027

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dbrewski

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enzo1027
I need some assistance from anyone who feels like offering. I am experiencing some issues mid-print where it will just stop completely. Twice in the past week I've left Johnny5 printing, and come back to the extruder in some random spot in the print just sitting there. My LCD is back at its main screen, and the bed and extruder stay on. Has anyone else had any experience with this? I print from my SD card with my USB plugged into a 120 to 5V cell charger. Maybe power issues?

Today I also noticed that in the middle of the print, the machine slowed to a super crawl. I'd seen it once before, but just dismissed it the same. I happened to be sitting right next to it when it slowed down exponentially. The printer was still at 100% speed, but I was able to crank it up to 400% and it seemed to take me back to normal.

Well, any help would be great. Thanks everyone!


-Dave

P.S. Anybody located in Ohio?

Off the top of my head, below are a few things I would look at first.

Have you tried running it from a PC?
What does your wiring look like?
Could something be getting snagged at a certain z height?
How hot are your stepper motors getting?
Do you have any cooling on your ramps board?
Have you tried just wiggling wires around during a print to see if cuts out? (looking for a lose connection)

ARGHHHHH!!!! It has happened again! I just got my baby back up and running after a whole bunch of new bearings and fan mounts, etc. Again, a failed print. This time the display says 2 hours 40 minutes. It just stopped mid-print. My hot-end and bed are still on.

I've added a battery back up UPS, put a 60mm fan on my ramps board. All the wires have good continuity through all build ranges of motion. I'm on a new arduino and ramps(fried the 5v on the old one). This time, I was only running off of my 120 power supply, no USB. I've got a fan on my x-axis motor, which was the only one that got "hot" for me.

I'm losing my mind with this damn thing. It prints beautifully, while it is printing; which is apparently only for short periods of time...


HELP!

I wonder if it would help to cool your RAMPS with a fan.

He did! A 60 mm fan for Ramps

Hey Enzo,

Just thinking about it, it sounds like your controller is waiting for further commands and just times out. If you try another print, and it stops mid print, see if it stopped mid layer or if it finished the entire layer and then stopped. Also once it stops, put in a manual Z movement and see if anything happens. Actually, I don't think that would do anything because you LCD shows goes back to the home screen? Have you ever caught it stop printing? Have you looked at the code being sent to the printer?

It just sounds like something somewhere is stopping the commands being sent. How new is your USB cable? I wish I could help more, but I'm a mech engineer and I leave the 1's and 0's to the electrical guy.

I've had a printer stop mid print as well. Mine was pretty easy to diagnose because I was able to see that my hotend was not giving me a temperature reading.

Can you attach a picture of your set up? Another pair of eyes might spot something you're overlooking.

My clicking issues went away when I bumped up the vref on my extruder stepper. Keeping moisture out of the filament is also very important. Before these two things I had to print at 265 on ABS and reduce all speeds to 30mm to not get constant clicking.

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Bobyni

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Vanbot

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enzo1027

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dbrewski

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enzo1027
I need some assistance from anyone who feels like offering. I am experiencing some issues mid-print where it will just stop completely. Twice in the past week I've left Johnny5 printing, and come back to the extruder in some random spot in the print just sitting there. My LCD is back at its main screen, and the bed and extruder stay on. Has anyone else had any experience with this? I print from my SD card with my USB plugged into a 120 to 5V cell charger. Maybe power issues?

Today I also noticed that in the middle of the print, the machine slowed to a super crawl. I'd seen it once before, but just dismissed it the same. I happened to be sitting right next to it when it slowed down exponentially. The printer was still at 100% speed, but I was able to crank it up to 400% and it seemed to take me back to normal.

Well, any help would be great. Thanks everyone!


-Dave

P.S. Anybody located in Ohio?

Off the top of my head, below are a few things I would look at first.

Have you tried running it from a PC?
What does your wiring look like?
Could something be getting snagged at a certain z height?
How hot are your stepper motors getting?
Do you have any cooling on your ramps board?
Have you tried just wiggling wires around during a print to see if cuts out? (looking for a lose connection)

ARGHHHHH!!!! It has happened again! I just got my baby back up and running after a whole bunch of new bearings and fan mounts, etc. Again, a failed print. This time the display says 2 hours 40 minutes. It just stopped mid-print. My hot-end and bed are still on.

I've added a battery back up UPS, put a 60mm fan on my ramps board. All the wires have good continuity through all build ranges of motion. I'm on a new arduino and ramps(fried the 5v on the old one). This time, I was only running off of my 120 power supply, no USB. I've got a fan on my x-axis motor, which was the only one that got "hot" for me.

I'm losing my mind with this damn thing. It prints beautifully, while it is printing; which is apparently only for short periods of time...


HELP!

I wonder if it would help to cool your RAMPS with a fan.

He did! A 60 mm fan for Ramps

Oops. Totally missed that, Guess I was up past my bedtime.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2015 12:40PM by Vanbot.

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Chris Rap
Vanbot - I didn't modify any the firmware settings and I didn't have any issue - the manual from Folger Tech gives what sounds like contradictory information, but a picture shows how to configure it to the Ramps and the text (no picture) says to set it up as such.

Printing at .4 layers at 60 mm/s + extrusion speed results in clicking do to improper filament melting. This is the Achilles heel of the Folger Tech machines - at high speeds you need higher temps because the extruder cannot melt the filament at the required speeds. I use 1.75 mm - which is better than 3 mm for this, but it is something you need to tweak with. In a week - I've almost run out of my 1 kg roll and I printed a bunch of the 1:200 scale tanks, jeeps and stuff from thingiverse at .1 mm. I've gotten a bunch of calibration stuff out, a 3D benchy, a big SD card reader, two DS game holders, a pile of toys and tanks, a chunky bracelet, Gnomedozer - Oh so much more to print. Right now my machine has run for probably 12+ hours today, still tweaking - still improving.

Also, I am still using a piece of paper on top of my heated glass bed - no warping no issues with the PLA. Just a little double sided tape and I can swap it out if need be. It also works directly on the heated bed, but its a pain to clean double sided tape off the heatbed. Seriously resolved the print adhesion issues.

The fellow who wrote the Folger config manual was here last week and admitted the settings in Slicer for those bed shape settings were wrong. So if you followed those incorrect directions and somehow got a functional printer it's some kind of minor miracle. ;-) For me and others it led to our extruders zooming off the bed and dumping plastic on our desks.

My layer heights are .2 mm and the fastest speed on any of my settings is 50 mm/s and thats on infill. Would that cause clicking? I ahve tried and failed to correlate the clicking with something that is happening at the time. But it's really inconsistent. Sometimes it happens on the first layer, sometimes way up at layer 120. Sometimes it only happens when it's drawing lines along the Y axis, other times the Y axis works perfectly but it clicks like crazy when it does diagonal lines. I am printing things, mostly calibration tools and i3 upgrades, but they're not always pretty and the clicking is annoying. And yep I hear ya...I've got a long list of goodies to get to too. Girlfriend wants a chunky ring, I want a cooled enclosure for RAMPS, need a tensioner for my x ais, etc etc.

I made this filament spool. (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:685583) I like the design because it keep the mass of the filament close to the frame so there's less chance of it bouncing back and forth way up in the air.

I had a spool with a broken hole which made it catch whenever the jagged edge of the broken bit caught on the spool holder so I printed a short velocity stack sort of shaped fan shroud and screwed that onto the side of the spool and now it works great.


I started mine up at 6:30 this morning and it hasn't stopped yet. And people say they can't think of what they'd print if they got a 3D printer. Lol.

I've printed the chunky bracelet - you will need to scale it up. My wife could not wear the default configuration one because it was too small. I printed some corners, and other stuff today. Gonna make the Fishing Rod Rack by tonay88 from Thingiverse next. It is fishing season after all.

To get to the questions you asked, I assembled it as directed. The origin I have on my machine is closest to where the ramps mounts. It works well for me and the text said to set it up like that. I know they fixed the suggestions to match, but I was aware the position was different from most users and the set up worked, but seemed odd at first.

Watch your extruder for a bit. It never happens on my small and complicated to travel prints - only the large ones with lots and lots of plastic to extrude and next to no movement. So it doesn't occur on calibration cubes and such - but a solid infill box 5 inches by 3 inches will certainly go fine for about 20 secs then I hear "click click" wait 10 secs "click" wait 5 secs "click". Upping the temperature resolves it, but it also is bad if you need less filament run through. This is why the E3D is so popular - it is just a better construction and they have a set for my specific uses.

Just so we can compare:

I print structural stuff at .4 mm layers and at 60 mm/s print speeds with 150 mm/s travel speeds.This means I chug out a lot more plastic then you to boot. For these prints I run PLA at 190-195 C and when I do detail work (.2 and .1 mm layer) I run at 185 and this is "no click" unless its a thick block in excess of 20 cubic inches with minimal travel. My spool moves about every 10 seconds - spiraling around and sending the 1.75mm filament into the feeder with good speed. Folger Tech may not have provided the Cadillac version for an extruder - but I can spit out a meters worth of filament in under 4 minutes. I'd like to think that my machine is pushing it out faster than yours - and maybe that's why I noticed the issue because I did used to have it click a lot more frequently.

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Chris Rap
I've printed the chunky bracelet - you will need to scale it up. My wife could not wear the default configuration one because it was too small. I printed some corners, and other stuff today. Gonna make the Fishing Rod Rack by tonay88 from Thingiverse next. It is fishing season after all.

To get to the questions you asked, I assembled it as directed. The origin I have on my machine is closest to where the ramps mounts. It works well for me and the text said to set it up like that. I know they fixed the suggestions to match, but I was aware the position was different from most users and the set up worked, but seemed odd at first.

Watch your extruder for a bit. It never happens on my small and complicated to travel prints - only the large ones with lots and lots of plastic to extrude and next to no movement. So it doesn't occur on calibration cubes and such - but a solid infill box 5 inches by 3 inches will certainly go fine for about 20 secs then I hear "click click" wait 10 secs "click" wait 5 secs "click". Upping the temperature resolves it, but it also is bad if you need less filament run through. This is why the E3D is so popular - it is just a better construction and they have a set for my specific uses.

Just so we can compare:

I print structural stuff at .4 mm layers and at 60 mm/s print speeds with 150 mm/s travel speeds.This means I chug out a lot more plastic then you to boot. For these prints I run PLA at 190-195 C and when I do detail work (.2 and .1 mm layer) I run at 185 and this is "no click" unless its a thick block in excess of 20 cubic inches with minimal travel. My spool moves about every 10 seconds - spiraling around and sending the 1.75mm filament into the feeder with good speed. Folger Tech may not have provided the Cadillac version for an extruder - but I can spit out a meters worth of filament in under 4 minutes. I'd like to think that my machine is pushing it out faster than yours - and maybe that's why I noticed the issue because I did used to have it click a lot more frequently.

Thanks Chris. That was very helpful. I'll try out your settings and see how that affects the click issue.

Anyone else notice bed temp issues after updating to the latest Marlin? My bed used to get up to temp pretty quick, with or without corkboard on top. Now it is pitiful, very slowly gets up to 80ish and then stalls and even heads back down a couple degrees. Finally makes it there but is taking much much longer... Is this a setting that may be off? My configuration.h file is modified to match those posted here.

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DriftyDave
Anyone else notice bed temp issues after updating to the latest Marlin? My bed used to get up to temp pretty quick, with or without corkboard on top. Now it is pitiful, very slowly gets up to 80ish and then stalls and even heads back down a couple degrees. Finally makes it there but is taking much much longer... Is this a setting that may be off? My configuration.h file is modified to match those posted here.

I had the same issue but have used 1.0.2 from day one so I have no idea if its worse than the older version. I have since eliminated any heatbed issues but keeping my hotbed wired for 12 volt but using a 24v PS with a 3-32VDC 25A DD 5-60VDC output SSR (with heatsink). I turned the voltage down to 20v and all heatbed issues went out the window. 110C in 8 minutes. No issues staying wherever I set it.

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Chris Rap
I print structural stuff at .4 mm layers and at 60 mm/s print speeds with 150 mm/s travel speeds.This means I chug out a lot more plastic then you to boot. For these prints I run PLA at 190-195 C and when I do detail work (.2 and .1 mm layer) I run at 185 and this is "no click" unless its a thick block in excess of 20 cubic inches with minimal travel. My spool moves about every 10 seconds - spiraling around and sending the 1.75mm filament into the feeder with good speed. Folger Tech may not have provided the Cadillac version for an extruder - but I can spit out a meters worth of filament in under 4 minutes. I'd like to think that my machine is pushing it out faster than yours - and maybe that's why I noticed the issue because I did used to have it click a lot more frequently.

What!?

My fastest speed is 20mm/s Anything faster than that... Click, click, click, click, and guess what? More click, click, click.... I'm just waiting for it to go "click, click, boom!"
And I still get delamination on PLA at anything under 210*c

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Hephaestus0000

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Chris Rap
I print structural stuff at .4 mm layers and at 60 mm/s print speeds with 150 mm/s travel speeds.This means I chug out a lot more plastic then you to boot. For these prints I run PLA at 190-195 C and when I do detail work (.2 and .1 mm layer) I run at 185 and this is "no click" unless its a thick block in excess of 20 cubic inches with minimal travel. My spool moves about every 10 seconds - spiraling around and sending the 1.75mm filament into the feeder with good speed. Folger Tech may not have provided the Cadillac version for an extruder - but I can spit out a meters worth of filament in under 4 minutes. I'd like to think that my machine is pushing it out faster than yours - and maybe that's why I noticed the issue because I did used to have it click a lot more frequently.

What!?

My fastest speed is 20mm/s Anything faster than that... Click, click, click, click, and guess what? More click, click, click.... I'm just waiting for it to go "click, click, boom!"
And I still get delamination on PLA at anything under 210*c

Unless you are running a soft PLA form you are looking at several problems - most likely bad thermistor readings. Check your thermistor to your indoor house temps and if possible use a heat checker to see if your temps are accurate. Something is very very off because 180-185 is the sweet spot for most PLA filaments and it drops lower with natural PLA. At 210 C you are going to see scorching and discoloration in most dyes. I do recall that a Blue PLA I had required 205 but this was from years back and it was unwieldy and stiff as a brick. Are you using 1.75mm or 3mm filament? No matter the type 20 mm/s is really slow....

Thank you for the responses krwynn and dbrewski. I printed one of those extruders, now just waiting on the mail to run.

Does anyone know where to get the files for the frame pieces that Folgertech used?
We have a CNC at work and I would like to upgrade to a solid wood frame or possibly aluminum.
I have found plenty, but none have the Z motor mounts or top Z rod stabilizers.

try these for the motor mounts Printable Prusa i3 Frame Parts for Laser-cut (6mm) Frames . Make sure to file them to fit before making a dupe out of something else.

Here is a dfx file for cutting pieces from another material prusa i3 aluminum frame w/ aluminum upgrades

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Tardisrepair
Thank you for the responses krwynn and dbrewski. I printed one of those extruders, now just waiting on the mail to run.

Does anyone know where to get the files for the frame pieces that Folgertech used?
We have a CNC at work and I would like to upgrade to a solid wood frame or possibly aluminum.
I have found plenty, but none have the Z motor mounts or top Z rod stabilizers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2015 01:22PM by krwynn.

Thanks Krwynn
Looked all over but never saw that one.

On another note that extruder for the E3D v6 dbrewski added a link to will not work with the stock folger extruder motor gear.
The current gear is too large.
Off to search for another one.

Just a quick update on my heat bed issues. Not sure why the troubles started after the firmware upgrade, but I put a piece of cork board under the bed, added larger springs, and longer M3 bolts to the bed. Now instead of the bed heater being full on for the entire print and struggling to keep 90, it is 30 seconds on and 30 seconds off and maintains 90 quite well. In addition I have more play when leveling the bed due to the larger springs and longer bolts.

NEED HELP !!! Assembled my recenlty received Prusa i3 from Folger Tech. When turned ON, everything seems to be OK. Start to set current on stepper drivers when I got 3 done, the Ramps switched off with no sign of life. Power supply works fine 12 V on both sides. Does anyone know what was wrong? Thank you in advance.

I had troubles with the green power terminals and had to replace them. They would get hot and power would cut randomly.

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SRM
NEED HELP !!! Assembled my recenlty received Prusa i3 from Folger Tech. When turned ON, everything seems to be OK. Start to set current on stepper drivers when I got 3 done, the Ramps switched off with no sign of life. Power supply works fine 12 V on both sides. Does anyone know what was wrong? Thank you in advance.

I'm using 1.75mm.
At 210*c I'm not getting scorching or discoloured prints (that I can visibly detect).
I can check with the house temps but that's about it. I've gone way over what I have allowed myself to spend on the printer just getting it to this point.

I physically cannot get it to print any faster than 20mm/s. Unless of course I wish to listen to the song of the extruder people...

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Chris Rap

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Hephaestus0000

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Chris Rap
I print structural stuff at .4 mm layers and at 60 mm/s print speeds with 150 mm/s travel speeds.This means I chug out a lot more plastic then you to boot. For these prints I run PLA at 190-195 C and when I do detail work (.2 and .1 mm layer) I run at 185 and this is "no click" unless its a thick block in excess of 20 cubic inches with minimal travel. My spool moves about every 10 seconds - spiraling around and sending the 1.75mm filament into the feeder with good speed. Folger Tech may not have provided the Cadillac version for an extruder - but I can spit out a meters worth of filament in under 4 minutes. I'd like to think that my machine is pushing it out faster than yours - and maybe that's why I noticed the issue because I did used to have it click a lot more frequently.

What!?

My fastest speed is 20mm/s Anything faster than that... Click, click, click, click, and guess what? More click, click, click.... I'm just waiting for it to go "click, click, boom!"
And I still get delamination on PLA at anything under 210*c

Unless you are running a soft PLA form you are looking at several problems - most likely bad thermistor readings. Check your thermistor to your indoor house temps and if possible use a heat checker to see if your temps are accurate. Something is very very off because 180-185 is the sweet spot for most PLA filaments and it drops lower with natural PLA. At 210 C you are going to see scorching and discoloration in most dyes. I do recall that a Blue PLA I had required 205 but this was from years back and it was unwieldy and stiff as a brick. Are you using 1.75mm or 3mm filament? No matter the type 20 mm/s is really slow....

Hi guys,

Got my new Folgertech i3 a few weeks ago and have been trying to get it running - kind of hard without a working power supply!

Now that I got the replacement and it seems to work, I can't get the arduino dialed in - the .ino file from the folger google drive is gone also. all in all a frustrating experience so far, coming from my old makerbot.

Does anyone have a copy or know where I can get one?

Get one here: Docs on google drive

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Tardisrepair
Thanks Krwynn
Looked all over but never saw that one.

On another note that extruder for the E3D v6 dbrewski added a link to will not work with the stock folger extruder motor gear.
The current gear is too large.
Off to search for another one.

Is the problem something that can be modified and made to work by editing the model? If its just opening a diameter, I think I can edit the parts you need. I'll take a look at it later when work decides to lighten up a bit.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2015 10:12AM by dbrewski.

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Ecky
Get one here: Docs on google drive

Got it, thanks. Now the motors don't stop when hitting the end stop and make the belt skip, nothing moves except when hitting the home button in repetir manually, extruder has never been turned on but shows at 308.7 degrees C.
Ideas?

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Hephaestus0000
I'm using 1.75mm.
At 210*c I'm not getting scorching or discoloured prints (that I can visibly detect).
I can check with the house temps but that's about it. I've gone way over what I have allowed myself to spend on the printer just getting it to this point.

I physically cannot get it to print any faster than 20mm/s. Unless of course I wish to listen to the song of the extruder people...

Do you have the specs on the PLA you got? I know Maker PLA is 210 C to 230C - I wouldn't push 230 due to heat issues - but you may have that other type of PLA. This stuff is usually made with 4042 resins and is classified as "High temperature PLA" by some. If you cannot check your heat and you believe your temps are accurate - try 220 C and it should print much better because 210 is the lowest listed.

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chromecarz00

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Ecky
Get one here: Docs on google drive

Got it, thanks. Now the motors don't stop when hitting the end stop and make the belt skip, nothing moves except when hitting the home button in repetir manually, extruder has never been turned on but shows at 308.7 degrees C.
Ideas?

From my experience building a Folger i3, I'd check a couple of things:

1. The Folger manual advises installing the X end stop on the right side of the printer and the Y end stop at front of bed.This means that the manual is wrong when it tells you to plug the X end stop into the lowest or "Min" pin on the RAMPS. The right side of the board is actually the X Max position and so the end stop has to be plugged into the "Max" pin on the RAMPS. That is the second set of pins from the bottom instead of the lowest set of pins. I also had to reverse the motor plug for mine so that it wouldn't print mirror image.

2. Folger recently corrected another error in their configuration manual. If you look at the Slicer settings for Printer Shape you'll see settings for Bed Left and Bed Front. The old manual said those should be 200 and 200 when in fact, as the corrected manual says, they should be 0 and 0.

The manual has been superseded. Check out the FAQ at Folger which says:

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Where do I put the y-axis endstop on revision b of the kit?

With the current kit design we prefer to put the endstop on the small bit of 8mm rod that extends past the 8mm nut on the rear lower right of the print bed platform. Putting the endstop here will allow it to hit the heated bed and give you the print area you desire.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2015 08:42PM by Ecky.

lol, if you look back through this thread you'll see that a few of thus deducted that the right rear would be the logical place to put it with Rev B since the directions still were refering to the right front and using the bearing housing to hit the endstop.

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Ecky
Check out the FAQ at Folger which says:

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Where do I put the y-axis endstop on revision b of the kit?

With the current kit design we prefer to put the endstop on the small bit of 8mm rod that extends past the 8mm nut on the rear lower right of the print bed platform. Putting the endstop here will allow it to hit the heated bed and give you the print area you desire.

Additional info.

When I put my endstop at the back I had the carriage going the wrong way, i.e. toward the Y plus. Being a mechanical guy I simply reversed the connector for the motor and it went the correct way. Today now edited the following line:


#define INVERT_X_DIR true // for Mendel set to false, for Orca set to true
#define INVERT_Y_DIR false // for Mendel set to true, for Orca set to false
#define INVERT_Z_DIR true // for Mendel set to false, for Orca set to true

to have

#define INVERT_Y_DIR true

and I put my motor Y connector back the right way around.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2015 10:36PM by Ecky.

OK so assuming the power supply is on the back right, here are the facts/issues:

Endstops are all on the back left. The Y axis, when clicking home, goes to the front - away from the y endstop. X goes towards the endstop, but doesn't stop when it comes into contact with it. Z does the same.

Neither the bed, nor the extruder start to heat when commanded by the program. The XYZ home functions are the only functions that move any of the motors.

I have Rev B which means that apparently the firmware and manual are out of date. Personally, I'm shocked that the second revision was released without everything working, but I'm sure that's just teething issues.

Dan told me that the firmware is out of date, and that I could find it in this thread. My eyes have glazed over while trying to get through the thread, so if anyone could help me resolve these issues that would be surely appreciated.

Update - got the heaters to both work. The first time that extruder comes on, it is smelly!

Now I need to know why the motors don't move unless commanded home, and don't stop at the end stop when it hits them.