Hi Andy The main reason people are not doing this is because of the limit on printing speed. Leadscrews are very slow. I would imagine the only change you would need to apply to the firmware would be the steps per mm parameter for each axis. Further, the gcode generating program would need to ensure the x and y axis acceleration and max speeds are reduced from that for the belts. Cheersby AgeingHippy - General
If you consider the cost, time and effort involved in tooling up so you can print parts I don't think £150 or so is overpriced at all!! It's not just about the plastic cost.by AgeingHippy - General
Hey awyea If you have not yet sourced any parts I would strongly suggest you take a look at the rather than following the standard G3 route. For one thing, the G3 extruder controller is not built to run a stepper motor and is hacked to make it work with a stepper. This results in a constant nasty whine eminating from your extruder stepper that will quickely become rather tiring. The alternatiby AgeingHippy - General
This really looks promising. I will (as I am sure many others are) watch this space closely.by AgeingHippy - General
by AgeingHippy - General
Hi Nop I have a heater block so I guess that is high thermal mass... I have changed the code to do bang-bang... but the temperature still swings wildly. Hence maybe switching on the heater if the temp is over but the trend is down and approaching the target. Bit like putting the breaks on the temp change.. I do imagine insulation should help the swings in preventing heat loss from occuring tooby AgeingHippy - General
Hello All I am thinking there are numerous ways to narrow down the wild (up to 10 degrees) temperature oscilation of my extruder around the target temperature. 1) I can examine the trend of the temperature and switch the heater on (off) even if it is over (under) temp but is consistently decreasing (increasing) and within a specified range of the target temp (say 1.5 degrees - to be fine tuned)by AgeingHippy - General
Good luck Mathew You are guranteed to get really despondant at times but if you realise this going in you may be able to handle it. Sometimes it seems like one step foreward two steps back but ultimately one moves foreward. You will also learn loads. In fact it is the times where things do not work out as you wish or expect where you learn the most. These are my experiances anywayby AgeingHippy - General
Countries using Imperial system are U.S.A, Liberia, and Burma With us in the UK slowly moving away from the stone age. Interesting to see USA up there with Liberia and more specifically Burma!!by AgeingHippy - General Mendel Topics
SebastienBailard Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > ? > lol - I think that must be Sebastien's favorite pageby AgeingHippy - United Kingdom RepRap User Group
Thanks for that Rich My next iteration most certainly will not be a commercial solution (other than using the pololu drivers). I will probably even build an Arduino clone from components as well... Fortunately the problem that inspired this investigation turned out to be software (firmware) rather than hardware so I need not rebuild the extruder controller just yet. Thanks for the pointers thoby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Probably a stab in the dark, but have you set the board to Sanguino in the Arduino IDE?by AgeingHippy - Reprappers
SOLVED The problem seems to have been occurring since my motherboard firmware thought it had 2 physical extruder controllers but it really only has 1. The waiterror is because the motherboard was sending the (failing) M113 and M105 commands to the physical extruder 2 (gcode address T1) and of course since there is nothing attached to that port of course it will time out waiting for the responseby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hi Triffid The thermistor itself came loose from the breadboard where I had put in the capacitor and 4.7k resistor as per this schematic. (simplified) So I don't think there could have been any 12v short. My Motherboard seems to be working fine, passing commands to the stepper motors etc. The problem seems to be with the communication to the extruder controller. I guess it is possible that theby AgeingHippy - Controllers
QuoteTriffid_hunter the "i2c" lines to the motherboard carry step and dir signals, you can simply hook another pololu to these and many have done exactly that using the A3949 chips on the extruder board to control a stepper is a nasty hack that works rather poorly, they're simply not designed for it Yes, the point is getting the other stuff like reading temperatures and turning the heateby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hi Ian Thanks for that, but I am looking for a slot in solution just for the extruder controller to work with my existing G3 electronics, not a complete solution. Looking at the extruder controller v2.2 schematic it looks like it would be substantially simplified if it is not used to control the extruder stepper.by AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hi Rich Thing about using another controller is the communications interface which is where I am having my current problem. Anyway, it is worth looking into. Do you have any links I can look at for the reworked controller? Also, is this using the regular reprap firmware with a switch set? PS - my investment is too much in time and funds (over £600) for me to give up. The despondency is just teby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hello All In respect to the G3 electronics... I was wondering what the extruder controller actually does. If using a stepper motor to drive the extruder that is controlled from the motherboard and if using a pololu driver then what does the controller do? I can think of the following - extruder temperature reading - extruder temperature control - heated bed temp reading - heated bed temp conby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hi people Someone must have an idea?? More info on the board. I am using unmodified Makerbot G3 boards. The debug light on the extruder controller will flash 3 times (each flash very briefly) - seemingly once a second then just after the 4'th flash the debug light will stay on for close to 4 seconds... could it be something is happening in the code in the extruder that is hitting some strangeby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hi All I have been testing my temperature and one of the wires on my secondary (actually the Bed) thermistor came loose. I don't know if that is the cause but I am getting a regular waiterror() message as a result of a M113 gcode being sent. (The example below I disconnected all thermistors in case they were causing the problem...) rebooted the printer etc. comms: G-code: N213 M113 *0 dequeuby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hello All To achieve 195 degrees Celcius inside my barrel I need to push my heater block up to 255. The thread on my heater block could be tighter on the barrel and I was wondering if anyone could reccomend a high temperature thermal paste I could use on the barrel to ensure good connection between it and the heater. Would standard thermal paste as used for microchips work or would that degradeby AgeingHippy - General
Hi All I see a number of people starting to use 1.75mm filament. Could anyone please elaborate on what the benefit is over 3mm? Thanksby AgeingHippy - General
Hmm... I had removed the chip so I could insert my probe wires (connected to an LED and resistor) to check the change of direction. This showed there was a change in the DIR pin. I plugged the pololu back into my stripboard carrier thinking I would check the back of the signal to see if the connection was dodgy. Testing it worked!! Wohoo - obviously somehow the connection between the male pin oby AgeingHippy - Controllers
hmm.. unfortunately it is not the DIR signal - That is being flipped when I change direction. Anyone have any other ideas?by AgeingHippy - Controllers
I got 135-104LAC-J01 from Mouser, although I cannot find it on the Honeywell site. I think it is simply the 1% as opposed to the 10% of the LAG. I am initially going to use it to measure the temp of the nozzle itself since my primary thermistor is on the heater block. Cheersby AgeingHippy - General
Welcome and good luck It certainly is a learning curveby AgeingHippy - United Kingdom RepRap User Group
Thanks for that Triffid. I know the signal is being sent from my motherboard so it may be a loose connection on the stripboard hosting the pololu driver. I do appreciate you giving me a place to look. I had no clue where to go.by AgeingHippy - Controllers
Hi All I am stymied. I am using a pololu driver to drive one of my stepper motors and all was working fine. Now regardless of whether I nudge the motor up (+ direction) or down (- direction) it only moves down. It moves down even when I nudge it up!!?? Can anyone please advise? I have a heatsink attached to the pololu chip. I had the machine on for a few hours tonight while testing the tempby AgeingHippy - Controllers
Nice one Thanks Tayebby AgeingHippy - General
Hi All I wonder if someone with Python could run the createTemperatureLookup.py script found here to create the temp table for my thermistor? R0 = 100,000 T0 = 25 deg Celcius Beta = 3974 Calculated Rz = 338692 (would be great to calculate using Rz = 326500 as well if possible - determined using this table if my understanding is correct) using R2 = 4700 Much appreciated. I am not of a mind to iby AgeingHippy - General