Folger Prusa i3 Kit from ebay

Thanks. Looks like good info. I'll dig in tonight.

Well... built my unit over the weekend. Only had one crack. Thankfully it was in "the right place" the top section of the right vertical support (image below). The biggest problem was the nuts fitting into the frame. I highly suggest that anyone purchasing this kit go out an buy a set of needle files a set of needle files for $4 at Lowes (USA). They really help expand the slots for the nuts. The rectangular one is the perfect fit. Too bad I found them after I had already put almost all of the frame together. I ended up using them when I repaired the chipped piece.

Everything works.... except my extruder. The motor works just not from the correct Ramps port.

I am working from the Folger config.h. Tried the recent Marlin version but I was getting a comm error during the Arduino compile. Decided to go the Folger route to get things running. I looked up the condition of no extruder motor control and only came up with replace the boards for other i3 kits. I have another Arduino but not another Ramps board. When I get back to the house this evening I will be trying to:

• Try the extra stepper board on the Ramps E0 slot.
• ELSE         Try my other Arduino board
• NOTELSE Swapping one of the other control ports in software like X with the extruder control. I really don't want to do this.

I believe that I have not read anything here except hardware issues with the extruder. If anyone has a similar experience and have it working please share it.

I recieved my kit with this part broken exactly at the same area. It's more fragile than I thought. I fixed it up with CA glue, but it's weak and ugly, and I bought a working kit. I'm looking forward for an awnser from Folger's (since November 17th, that long, yeah !) about this problem and others. The nuts must be tight into their holes to stay in place. Note some nuts are bigger than others in some dimensions. When I get a larger one, I drop it and found another one which can fit more easily. No need to file anything.

Is your stepsticks properly set ? Sometimes, the output voltage is too low to move anything.

---

Collective intelligence emerges when a group of people work together effectively. Prusa i3 Folger (A lot of the parts are wrong, boring !)

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mikez104
This may be a silly question but can someone tell me where these bearings go?

20141123_172327.jpg

I built a spool holder using those bearings.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2014 10:28AM by KeyserSoze3d.

Ok, so I put a tiny enclosure around by printer, but it seems I still need work on adhesion as my print last night had some separation at the corners (and I was printing multiple parts at once so that's multiple separations). Most of the parts are sufficient to get me by in the event of a break except for the taller ones (we'll get to that in a minute). The filament from Folger seems pretty good now so I don't know what caused the clog in the first place.

So about those taller objects, yeah, it turns out that I suck at crimping. Especially onto those tiny pins that the thermistors get connected to, so 5 hours into a 6.5 hour print, a wire on my heater thermistor crimp came undone and I hit "Error: MINTEMP" since it was now reading 0 degrees for the tip. At about the same time that that happened (just before, actually) my nozzle started spinning and making me very nervous. Since this is the second time this has happed to me, I'm going to put some loctite blue on there today and see if that keeps it from coming loose from vibration. Also today I'm going to go to a local PC shop and see if they have any pre crimped pc fan wires or pc fan wire extensions so that I can solder those wires directly to my thermistor wires (soldering is something I CAN do) and just plug the damn things in. I even ruined my last spare pin this morning trying to crimp the damn wire again.

Finally, I decided to give Cura a try to slice last night and I think these are the nicest prints I've gotten yet. I copied the gcode to a sd card and popped that into my sd card reader to print from there but the lines were really nice and even and looked really good.

As for adhesion, I'm going to try a new hairspray (instead of the wifes not cheap stuff) and see if it helps. When you guys print in ABS, what temp are you using for the bed? I'm using 110 for the bed and 225 for the nozzle.

Thanks for the support

I tried random hairspray with crappy results... the garnier is great...
you still have to get a good first layer down, I use .3 for the first layer and .2 for all others...
and you must still make sure you have leveled your bed properly

Also another thing to keep in mind, sometimes long thin things will warp no matter what,
you might have to add those little tabs in the corner, and then break them off.

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Waltermixx
I tried random hairspray with crappy results... the garnier is great...
you still have to get a good first layer down, I use .3 for the first layer and .2 for all others...
and you must still make sure you have leveled your bed properly

Also another thing to keep in mind, sometimes long thin things will warp no matter what,
you might have to add those little tabs in the corner, and then break them off.

Oh, my bed is leveled properly. It's just annoying that on long pieces while the printer is working on something else I can hear the crinkle and then pop as a corner pops off. I'm going to try a new hairspray as soon as I have my other issues resolved. What temp do you set your bed to? And did you have to use loctite on your threaded hot-end? Or were you able to just really wedge it good with a nut against the block?

Just wanted to share this with everyone in case your curious about most of the lines in the marlin configuration.h file. [airtripper.com]

Sorry forgot to post temps...

My bed is at 100.
my extruder is between 225 and 230 usually

seems to work well... if overhangs are an issue or look like a challenge, i drop the temperature a bit :0)

Waltermixx, what Y end stop holder are you using? Looking at your pictures, it looks different than the one that comes with the kit. I can't find a good place to mount the "kit" one.

the y-endstop is different, i printed a different one.
the stl file should be posted in one of my early posts.
first or second page?

if I can find it, i will post again ...

here you go: [www.thingiverse.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2014 10:49PM by Waltermixx.

Sweeet. Thanks! I'm going to ask my son to print this for me. Almost ready to fire it up.

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Waltermixx
Sorry forgot to post temps...

My bed is at 100.
my extruder is between 225 and 230 usually

seems to work well... if overhangs are an issue or look like a challenge, i drop the temperature a bit :0)

Ok, I'll try using 100 for my bed with Garnier Fructis hairspray tomorrow. I loctited my extruder hot end tube to the aluminum cooling block it was coming loose from and I hope the solves that issue permanently. I fixed the wiring for the thermistors with some pc internal audio cable similair to this, [www.computercablestore.com] but I have 3 black connectors (so I guess it's a splitter). I was able to pop a pin and wire out of one of the other black connectors and securely fasten it in a different position so that I would have 4 wire coming out and I have all 4 of my thermistor wires connected to that and it plugs in perfectly (just keep them in the right orientation and pairs). Tomorrow, before I print anything, I'm going to have to check my vrefs on my X and E pololu drivers cause my X motor is getting ridiculously hot and so is my extruder motor (though that one is directly connected to something at 225c so...) I'll make sure that it's at the recommended 0.33 and 0.35 respectively and adjust from there if they are. I'm hoping that tomorrow is the day that I get a full large print to complete without any issues.

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louspinuso

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Waltermixx
Sorry forgot to post temps...

My bed is at 100.
my extruder is between 225 and 230 usually

seems to work well... if overhangs are an issue or look like a challenge, i drop the temperature a bit :0)

Ok, I'll try using 100 for my bed with Garnier Fructis hairspray tomorrow. I loctited my extruder hot end tube to the aluminum cooling block it was coming loose from and I hope the solves that issue permanently. I fixed the wiring for the thermistors with some pc internal audio cable similair to this, [www.computercablestore.com] but I have 3 black connectors (so I guess it's a splitter). I was able to pop a pin and wire out of one of the other black connectors and securely fasten it in a different position so that I would have 4 wire coming out and I have all 4 of my thermistor wires connected to that and it plugs in perfectly (just keep them in the right orientation and pairs). Tomorrow, before I print anything, I'm going to have to check my vrefs on my X and E pololu drivers cause my X motor is getting ridiculously hot and so is my extruder motor (though that one is directly connected to something at 225c so...) I'll make sure that it's at the recommended 0.33 and 0.35 respectively and adjust from there if they are. I'm hoping that tomorrow is the day that I get a full large print to complete without any issues.

You have to get those pololu drivers right before anything else. You don't want anything to cook. I'm sure you already know, but the proper vrefs have been posted countless times in this thread, and work a real treat.

I also recommend the Garnier Fructis Extreme Hold ( in a green aerosole can ) for your glass print bed. I sprayed a single coat, let dry, hit it with a second, let dry, and did a final third coat. Every couple prints, I hit it while the glass is still on the bed, using a piece of cardboard to shield the extruder, hot end, fan, electronics etc from over spray.

I haven't quite got everything to an acceptable working range, but I am printing, and that's great. Also, if you're printing ABS, bed to 110.

Argh
So I finish putting everything together and plug it in and get nothing. I check the output of the power supply and get nothing. I disconnect the two green incoming power connectors going to the board and the power supply puts out 12.4 volts. The Arduino works and I was able to load the Marlin code but I can get nothing from the RAMPS board. Here are some pictures. Can anyone see anything that I may have dorfed up?

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mikez104
Argh
So I finish putting everything together and plug it in and get nothing. I check the output of the power supply and get nothing. I disconnect the two green incoming power connectors going to the board and the power supply puts out 12.4 volts. The Arduino works and I was able to load the Marlin code but I can get nothing from the RAMPS board. Here are some pictures. Can anyone see anything that I may have dorfed up?

Stupid question, did you set your power supply to 110? It comes set to 220 by default.

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louspinuso

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mikez104
Argh
So I finish putting everything together and plug it in and get nothing. I check the output of the power supply and get nothing. I disconnect the two green incoming power connectors going to the board and the power supply puts out 12.4 volts. The Arduino works and I was able to load the Marlin code but I can get nothing from the RAMPS board. Here are some pictures. Can anyone see anything that I may have dorfed up?

Stupid question, did you set your power supply to 110? It comes set to 220 by default.

And another question, you say you're measuring 12.4 volts out of the power supply and I see that you have something else plugged into that green jack going to the ramps board which I'm assuming is a fan. Does that fan spin? And you should probably adjust the power supply to give you 12 volts too.

Yep, I caught that one.

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louspinuso

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louspinuso

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mikez104
Argh
So I finish putting everything together and plug it in and get nothing. I check the output of the power supply and get nothing. I disconnect the two green incoming power connectors going to the board and the power supply puts out 12.4 volts. The Arduino works and I was able to load the Marlin code but I can get nothing from the RAMPS board. Here are some pictures. Can anyone see anything that I may have dorfed up?

Stupid question, did you set your power supply to 110? It comes set to 220 by default.

And another question, you say you're measuring 12.4 volts out of the power supply and I see that you have something else plugged into that green jack going to the ramps board which I'm assuming is a fan. Does that fan spin? And you should probably adjust the power supply to give you 12 volts too.

No, fan only spins when the green connector is disconnected from the RAMPS.

Ok, so I've been thinking it sounds like a short and the power supply is going into self preservation mode and cutting the output. So I start probing around with the ohm meter and find that after disconnecting every wire and pulling all the drivers off the board, the lower power connector is reading a short across the input.

So I start inspecting the board looking for a solder bridge or something. I see some decent sized diodes that look like they may be for reverse polarity protection? Then I see the one right by the input looks like it was installed backwards.... According to the stencil on the board, it should be going the other way. Could someone please take a look at their board and verify this? The white stripe on the diode should be towards the right, no? Gads, its almost 3am. I'm done for the night.


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2014 03:05AM by mikez104.

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mikez104
Ok, so I've been thinking it sounds like a short and the power supply is going into self preservation mode and cutting the output. So I start probing around with the ohm meter and find that after disconnecting every wire and pulling all the drivers off the board, the lower power connector is reading a short across the input.

So I start inspecting the board looking for a solder bridge or something. I see some decent sized diodes that look like they may be for reverse polarity protection? Then I see the one right by the input looks like it was installed backwards.... According to the stencil on the board, it should be going the other way. Could someone please take a look at their board and verify this? The white stripe on the diode should be towards the right, no? Gads, its almost 3am. I'm done for the night.

20141127_022319.jpg

Definitely the wrong way round!

Doug

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dougal1957

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mikez104
Ok, so I've been thinking it sounds like a short and the power supply is going into self preservation mode and cutting the output. So I start probing around with the ohm meter and find that after disconnecting every wire and pulling all the drivers off the board, the lower power connector is reading a short across the input.

So I start inspecting the board looking for a solder bridge or something. I see some decent sized diodes that look like they may be for reverse polarity protection? Then I see the one right by the input looks like it was installed backwards.... According to the stencil on the board, it should be going the other way. Could someone please take a look at their board and verify this? The white stripe on the diode should be towards the right, no? Gads, its almost 3am. I'm done for the night.

Definitely the wrong way round!

Doug

I'll second!

Easy way to check, set your ohm meter in the reverse polarity across the input and see if you still read a short. Although that diode may be shorted now and need replacing anyway.

Based on the silk screen on the board in backwards. It is possible the silkscreen is wrong and they did it on purpose. Based on the fact it is not working I am betting that is the problem.
If you are able I would unsolder it and put it in the other way and see if it fixes the problem.

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ron22
Based on the silk screen on the board in backwards. It is possible the silkscreen is wrong and they did it on purpose. Based on the fact it is not working I am betting that is the problem.
If you are able I would unsolder it and put it in the other way and see if it fixes the problem.

Yeah, thats the way I see it too. I've seen errors on silkscreen before so just wanted to verify with ya'll before I took the soldering iron to it. And it is acting exactly as it should if it is reverse polarity protection soldered in backwards. I'll switch it this afternoon. Thanks for looking at your boards guys! Happy Thanksgiving.

Mikez104

[youtu.be]
6:40 mark Shows that only top two pins used for end stops. I am new to this but noticed on your pics using all 3 pins.

Is yours the way I'm supposed to hookup? I'm just reading and watching everything I can on prusa i3 builds. Maybe I'm reading and watching too much?

I have ordered my kit just waiting for to ship; this thread will be my main reference. Great info here

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2014 04:06PM by Booda.

Well, that was it. One would think I would have actually checked to see if the diode was good before I soldered it back in. I plugged it in again and nothing. I was like really? Then I unsoldered one side and checked it and yup, it was a dead short through it. I had one close in value and soldered it in and it fired right up.

I had to go in and invert the Y axis but I still cant get the screen to work... Not sure what is wrong there. I used dooms101's config.h file and I thought it was enabled in there.

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Booda
Mikez104

[youtu.be]
6:40 mark Shows that only top two pins used for end stops. I am new to this but noticed on your pics using all 3 pins.

Is yours the way I'm supposed to hookup? I'm just reading and watching everything I can on prusa i3 builds. Maybe I'm reading and watching too much?

I have ordered my kit just waiting for to ship; this thread will be my main reference. Great info here

Yeah, I saw that after I hooked it up but they seem to work fine with all three wires. You just have to make sure to put the green wire towards the edge of the board. I recorded a bunch of video as I built mine and will be editing it together and uploading to utube. I did it a bit different than others I have seen. I don't know about you but I don't need to see someone turning a screw or fiddling with stuff for a half hour. I just recorded steps of what to do and what it looks like and any hurdles I came across.

This is a good place for support. Lots of friendly folks here. Good luck!

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mikez104
Well, that was it. One would think I would have actually checked to see if the diode was good before I soldered it back in. I plugged it in again and nothing. I was like really? Then I unsoldered one side and checked it and yup, it was a dead short through it. I had one close in value and soldered it in and it fired right up.

I had to go in and invert the Y axis but I still cant get the screen to work... Not sure what is wrong there. I used dooms101's config.h file and I thought it was enabled in there.

As far as I know Dooms101 does not have a graphics LCD screen...

I do, so have a look at that section...but seriously check out the youtube video that TOM does about the LCD screen, it's easy to follow...
if you just blindly use someone elses confuration.h file, and they have their motors wired differently and endstops etc, you are looking for problems...

i suggest you look at mine, and see how I have the graphics section commented etc... i've posted my config.h file a couple of time in the thread
hope this helps? i also provided links to TOMS videos on Ramps

Found another adjustable x-idler pully that will fit on most Prusa i3...
have not tried it but it looks good.

have a peek..

[www.youmagine.com]