Folger Prusa i3 Kit from ebay

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.

See: [reprap.org]

That will help you troubleshoot.

chromecarz00:

When I look down at my printer from the power supply/Ramps/ triangular frame end, I see:

a. my power supply and X axis motor is on the left

b. my ramps is on the right

c. the Y motor is between them.

d. endstops are on left side closest to me.

Attached is a picture of it.

Also attached is the configuration.h file for that runs it at the moment.

That should get you going. Enjoy.

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chromecarz00
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.

Use the M119 command to find the status of the stops.
There are MIN and MAX positions on the RAMPS, and in the firmware you make the end stop either a MIN or MAX

Steve

---

My updated Instructable on our Prusa i3 Build
[www.instructables.com]

I've been working on this for a couple of days with Tardisrepair and wanted to share it with the Folger community. It is a remix of the direct drive I post earlier, but it uses a different type of toothed gear. This design is used to easily swap out your Folger hot end with the an E3D using most of the hardware already in the original kit. It might take a few extra screws and a spring, but its better than trying to get a hobbed bolt for a geared wade extruder. Its not entirely complete yet, but this iteration is designed to use the original toothed gear and grooved bearing.

I had a couple concerns I wanted to get an outside opinion from before I release the .stl files. I guess its a concern with most direct drive extruders. The idler has the potential to place a lot of radial force on the stepper motor shaft. It seems like that is a good way to wear out a stepper motor quicker than anticipated. I have no way of knowing if there is enough deflection to make a difference, but I've been known to Hulk torque down my idler on a wades extruder for flexible filament.

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chromecarz00
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.

As far as I know the motors aren't supposed to move unless they've been homed first. Mine has always operated that way.

As far as the carriages not stopping when they hit the end stops, try moving just your Y end stop plug to the other Y location on the RAMPS and see if that resolves the Y carriage not stopping. So if it's currently connected to the pins that are 3rd from the bottom, move it to the 4th spot. If it's currently connected to the 4th spot from the bottom, move it to the 3rd.

Those end stop pins on the RAMPS are arranged like this;

Z MAX
Z MIN
YMAX
Y MIN
X MAX
X MIN

So if your Y end stop is at the back of your printer, the Y end stop plug should be connected to the Y MIN spot on the RAMPS.

I'm shocked too that the documentation and firmware for these printers isn't better. There's lots and lots of info out there about people doing different kinds of builds, almost too much info, and eventually you start to figure out how everything works together but it's needlessly frustrating when the info you get from the company that you bought your kit from isn't up to date.

Vanbot - you got your machine dialed in yet?

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Chris Rap
Vanbot - you got your machine dialed in yet?

Getting there. :-)

Folger mailed out the replacement LCD yesterday.

I've ordered a new hexagon hotend and Steve Roy is helping me build a new extruder to hopefully do away with that awful clicking.

I've replaced those tiny little springs for suspending the heated bed with some bigger, stronger ones which has made bed leveling easier and more consistent.

A roll of filament fell on the back of my bed yesterday and broke off a piece of the acrylic heat bed support so I'm looking at options to replace that, maybe with a plywood version. I thought maybe the acrylic was flexing too much so it was in the cards to be replaced eventually anyway.

How long have you had yours Chris? Made many mods and upgrades?

I got mine assembled and working back three weeks ago now, about same time as you got yours. I printed a filament guide, but other than that... all stock parts. Printed up lots of stuff and need to buy a few more kg of filament since I been going through it so quickly. Printing out some larger models now and just made my first little treefrog. Using Cura for complex prints since repetier's slic3r keeps crashing on multi-megabyte models.

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Chris Rap
I got mine assembled and working back three weeks ago now, about same time as you got yours. I printed a filament guide, but other than that... all stock parts. Printed up lots of stuff and need to buy a few more kg of filament since I been going through it so quickly. Printing out some larger models now and just made my first little treefrog. Using Cura for complex prints since repetier's slic3r keeps crashing on multi-megabyte models.

I've had some great success with hollow calibration cubes. ;-)

Otherwise I'm spending a lot of time trying to resolve various issues. Some of those are certainly the result of my clumsiness, such as my newly broken Y plate. Grrr.

I think a lot of my print quality issues were due to poor leveling. It seemed like no matter how much time I spent carefully leveling the bed, it would come out of level all the time. I was even using a little leveling gadget I found on Thingiverse that uses your caliper to give really accurate distances from X smooth rods to bed.

I never did figure out what was causing my extruder to click. I looked at temps, alignment, levelling, speed, feed speed, filament diameter and other parameters and couldn't find anything that correlated with when it would start clicking. Steve assures me I'll be much happier with the hexagon in a Wade's extruder and I'm game to try it out.

I suspect my linear bearings would run nicer with some grease packed into them so I'll probably try that soon. They tend to rattle at times and I am getting envious of the strong silent i3's that others have built.

I learned that the hard way and it was very frustrating

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Vanbot

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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.

Chris, did you calibrate your extruder steps? I haven't done that yet and a wondering if that's one reason I'm not getting great results.

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Vanbot
Chris, did you calibrate your extruder steps? I haven't done that yet and a wondering if that's one reason I'm not getting great results.

No, I did a very thin wall part and had more strings than normal with Cura so I need to dial the slicer in. It slices and works without strings on Repetier. Objects like the treefrog require proper cooling and I don't have that, so I encountered some minor issues with fine bumps on the underbody. The Folger Tech settings are pretty much on par and they shouldn't be off by a lot... they already have the math done and its probably within 2% of actuality. I am confident you have much bigger errors elsewhere to tackle first.

Bed level is key - without it, nothing works right. Also - what are you printing on? Your print surface is as important as how level the bed is.

I also am using something very unorthodox for a print surface... I can get several prints for about 2 cents of material and some strips of double sided tape. I know my print bed is not perfectly level and it does warp with ambient temperature change and temperature changes, but with a much rougher surface I simply have a much larger window to get that first layer down. Most people go by the piece of paper as a shim and I do as well, but glass is picky and I got some places where two pieces of paper don't create friction - yet it sticks perfectly. Also - for reasons of safety, I'm not mentioning what I am using because I don't want people destroying their machine if they try printing ABS on it.

Suffice to say... rough surfaces > better adhesion.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2015 01:50AM by Chris Rap.

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Chris Rap

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Vanbot
Chris, did you calibrate your extruder steps? I haven't done that yet and a wondering if that's one reason I'm not getting great results.

No, I did a very thin wall part and had more strings than normal with Cura so I need to dial the slicer in. It slices and works without strings on Repetier. Objects like the treefrog require proper cooling and I don't have that, so I encountered some minor issues with fine bumps on the underbody. The Folger Tech settings are pretty much on par and they shouldn't be off by a lot... they already have the math done and its probably within 2% of actuality. I am confident you have much bigger errors elsewhere to tackle first.

Bed level is key - without it, nothing works right. Also - what are you printing on? Your print surface is as important as how level the bed is.

I also am using something very unorthodox for a print surface... I can get several prints for about 2 cents of material and some strips of double sided tape. I know my print bed is not perfectly level and it does warp with ambient temperature change and temperature changes, but with a much rougher surface I simply have a much larger window to get that first layer down. Most people go by the piece of paper as a shim and I do as well, but glass is picky and I got some places where two pieces of paper don't create friction - yet it sticks perfectly. Also - for reasons of safety, I'm not mentioning what I am using because I don't want people destroying their machine if they try printing ABS on it.

Suffice to say... rough surfaces > better adhesion.

Extra fine sandpaper?

Aren't strings caused by too high extruder temp or lack of retraction?

I'm printing onto blue tape covering 1/8" mirror tile. I get great adhesion with some PLA filament and zero adhesion with others.

Not sandpaper - but not too far off the mark. It has a self-ignition point at the ABS range... and the "high-temp PLA" range so it cannot be used for all things. The strings in my case were retraction based because I didn't get the settings right and I use higher temperature so I can print without clicking. If the extruder is not printing it tends to ooze a fair amount... but with the amount of plastic I shoot down the extruder results in the temperatures being pretty low when it comes out of the nozzle..

I think I'll get an E3d once he releases the .stl for the folger tech set up... the hot end is holding me back.

Almost done. Just finishing up tolerances and test fitting. Here is a look at the overall assembly. I honestly don't know if it will be any lighter than a geared wade extruder. It does do a good job of maintaining z height build volume and it will take minimal extra hardware to get it up and running. Once I get the green light from Tardis I'll post it here.

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Chris Rap
Not sandpaper - but not too far off the mark. It has a self-ignition point at the ABS range... and the "high-temp PLA" range so it cannot be used for all things. The strings in my case were retraction based because I didn't get the settings right and I use higher temperature so I can print without clicking. If the extruder is not printing it tends to ooze a fair amount... but with the amount of plastic I shoot down the extruder results in the temperatures being pretty low when it comes out of the nozzle..

I think I'll get an E3d once he releases the .stl for the folger tech set up... the hot end is holding me back.

I just got my hexagon from marginallyclever.com. Stoked to assemble it and see if it makes me happy. Lol

I also picked up some BuildTak from them. I"m curious if it's as miraculous a build surface as I've heard.

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dbrewski
Almost done. Just finishing up tolerances and test fitting. Here is a look at the overall assembly. I honestly don't know if it will be any lighter than a geared wade extruder. It does do a good job of maintaining z height build volume and it will take minimal extra hardware to get it up and running. Once I get the green light from Tardis I'll post it here.

Looking good. Regarding your concerns about radial force on the stepper shaft, could you apply an opposite force on that shaft with a second idler that rides against the side of the drive gear opposite the filament idler? In fact the two idlers could be pulled towards each other with a tension spring.

Stuff is looking good folks, give me a few days. Got a busy Mother's Day weekend ahead. I hope to get new extruder installed Sunday night after work. There may be a few tweaks that need to happen after that.

I'd like to thank DBrewski for all his diligent work on this project. He has done a great service for the Folger I3 community.

I modified the bearing extender to fit this new extruder. I would definitely install this little piece if anyone decides to use this but it's not critical. I really haven't been working too hard on this project. In fact, it's me putting off real work to play. It's a lot more fun to design for hobbies I choose than what the boss tells me.

[imgur.com]

[youtu.be]

I tried some of the solutions above and the motors do move after homed, but this is what happens. Settings are also included...

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dbrewski
I modified the bearing extender to fit this new extruder. I would definitely install this little piece if anyone decides to use this but it's not critical. I really haven't been working too hard on this project. In fact, it's me putting off real work to play. It's a lot more fun to design for hobbies I choose than what the boss tells me.

I love the design! does this attach to the x carriage in place of the Nema then? I just bought a B3 Pico hotend and have been trying to figure out how I wanted to mount it. It too has the same 12mm neck. I might have missed it, but did you put the stl up yet? I'd love to give this a go! Great job!

I haven't put it up yet. I've been busy building the kiddos swing set this weekend and haven't had time at the computer. I finally got my printer up and running again and want to do a little more testing before I post them up. I want to give credit to the originator at [www.thingiverse.com]. All I have done is modify it for use with the folger tech extruder. They should be up tonight (after I go to see the new Avengers movie.)

Haven't read this whole thread yet, but the search function didn't help. I'm working on putting my kit together this weekend. It seems my xcarriage printed part is shrunk a couple of % from its full size. The linear barrings were a couple of mm to big to fit in the slots. I made them fit with a dremel. However, I now see I can't attach the extruder without drilling some new holes. The printed holes are a few mm too close. Did anyone else have this problem?

Indeed, I did have these problems--on both counts
I shaved off some bearing to fit, and drilled holes BIGGER.
Sorry... but this kit really does S**K... when it comes to QC, and materials used. You Know what they say... "You gets, what you pay for..."? ....at least you'd think.

Needless to say, I've done some up-grades, and planning MORE

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2015 08:42PM by 55rebel.

Chrome:

What is that clack clack noise ????

I built mine with the Y endstop at the other end as per the Folger FAQ. My X is where your's is. My enstop connectors are as the build manual. X in the lowest position(1), skip one(2), Y is next in 3 and Z is in 5. My configuration.h is posted for your use if you like. It works but it may be mirror imaged. Still testing.

When I bought my printer I ordered ABS material because I wanted something strong. Well I later found out that ABS is tricky to print with.. I discovered that yes it is tricky. I was trying to print the "100 mm Calibration Block", Thingiverse # 386448. I tried glass with hairspray and then blue tape but the ends of my calibration piece curled up. I then went nuts and added some tabs/rafts on the ends, put hair spray on the blue tape and made a wall to keep the draft from the air conditioning away from the part. It printed well and was a bear to remove and it looks like I think it should. The X and Y lengths are are 100.05 and 100.15 instead of 100 mm. This can be tuned out.

The part model file is attached. The tabs are not my idea but they definitely help to prevent the corners from curling up. A better design would be to have the tabs centered at each of the corners as this where it starts to curl up.

Removing files to eliminate confusion until extruder can be updated.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2015 07:55AM by dbrewski.

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dbrewski
Let's see how these work out for everyone. I printed them tonight and everything seems to fit OK with very little extra work. I haven't tested the fit of the E3D in the extruder but that shouldn't be too hard to make fit with a little sandpaper. I have attached all the files you will need. Please provide feedback if anyone decides to use this.

What did you use to design these? Only reason I ask, is that I would like to modify this design to accept a 9g servo for my bed leveling. Any chance you'd release the drawings, or possibly be able to incorporate that into your existing design?

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chromecarz00
[imgur.com]

[youtu.be]

I tried some of the solutions above and the motors do move after homed, but this is what happens. Settings are also included...

Where are your end stops located on the printer and which slots on the RAMPS are they plugged into? I think maybe you need to try changing the way they are plugged in. Unless you have already tried that?