I kind of have a crappy connector on my z-axis endstop. It often loses contact and triggers it when trying to home. Can you move the z up and down with no problems or does it just go up? Sucks about the hotend but I killed my first one with an epic crash into the bed in my first few days too. It's a nice relief when it finally starts working like it should. Don't let the learning curve get you dby chase82 - General
This guy was playing with it for awhile. I don't think he ever managed to tweak it though. http://reonarudo.info/blog/by chase82 - Controllers
I had a roll of PTFE tubing from Omega kicking around that works awesome. A little goes a long ways. I just slide it over the resistor leads and cement them in. PTFE Tubingby chase82 - General
Where is your thermistor mounted? I had my thermocouple on my block for a bit until I realized the transfer across the threads to the barrel wasn't great. You really need to take your temp reading from as close to the tip as possible. I was seeing about a 20 degree difference. The other common problem is a gap that will be larger then your melt chamber between the ptfe and the barrel. The filamenby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
RepRap Host Ubuntu Live install This might be a decent starting point?by chase82 - General
I've been keeping it around 25 mm/s at a 0.35 mm layer and getting some nice prints. I've tried printing in the low 30s for objects with less detail and have had some okay stuff come out. 25 moves pretty quick though. I also have one wobbly z-axis rod that I should get around to swapping out.by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
Glued them on with some Inferno Metal Repair and a bit of insulation over the back and the lowest setting seems to sit around 60 degrees. The highest setting seems to level out about 125 or so. Works pretty damn good if somebody needs a heatbed in about an hour plus time for the epoxy to set. Time to get serious now! They also sell hair straightener mats for a few dollars that are basically a 20by chase82 - Mechanics
Do you think when the driver led is blinking its getting actual values and not other times? Does it seem like it's running 100% of the time when you receive 0 as a response or does the led blink fairly regularly? As long as your nichrome wire stays at 6.8 ohms you shouldn't see temps much hire then 260 to 280. At least from my experience. So you shouldn't burst into flames.by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
It's supposed to warm up to a reasonable temperature tomorrow. I had just moved it out to the garage because I thought it was June and was supposed to be nice. Jokes on me I guess. Well I threw the two heater plates on the aluminum plate just now. The ambient temperature is about 11` and the plate hit 50` in about 2 and half minutes. Then gradually leveled off around 70. I'm sad to admit all Iby chase82 - Mechanics
I just recently got my Techzone Mendel up and running and the need for a heated bed has become apparent. I think the fact the last couple days up in Edmonton have been like 7 degrees and it's in my garage might have something to do with severe warping. So I came across this 170W hair straightener for a bit over 20 bucks. I'm sure if I shopped around I could find it even cheaper. It has thermal fuby chase82 - Mechanics
I was getting ugliness like that when I first started trying and just ended up going straight to skeinforge to generate the gcode to print in repsnapper. What do you have your extrusion width and layer thickness set to? The temperature won't update while printing. That's typical. If you keep an eye on your output LED for your heater though you can see it blinking on and off. Once you send the heby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
Nice project Graeme! I was contemplating making some molds myself but you are way ahead of me on this one. Your hackerspace looks pretty awesome too. I just recently got my lasercut mendel up and running. Let me know if you need anything.by chase82 - Canada, Edmonton RepRap User Group
Sounds like you're getting closer! How's your heater and temperature issues?by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
What's the finish like on that paper? Is it kind of rough or smooth. It almost looks like some sort of heavy card stock the wife used for scrapbooking.by chase82 - General
Its a USB to TTL then ribbon so it'd only be 19200 baud. But still the ribbon doesn't really fit well in the connector provided. I found it to be the biggest culprit in buggy electronics. Even when my extruder acts up half the time it's that stupid connector.by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
Did you get the arduino program up and running? Placed the Sanguino info in the hardware folder? And download the techzone firmware from the links above? When you get that all running you can just open the firmware in arduino. As far as I know the extruder controller should come flashed from techzone and you're probably interested in flashing the motherboard as that's where most of your adjustmeby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
You could tape a piece of paper to the bed. Mark a spot on the paper and hit +100 in repsnapper and make another mark. If you measure the difference and it's like 80mm instead of 100mm. If you look in the firmware under x_steps_per_mm there's probably a default value of something like 10.047 in there. So if you do a little quick math you could figure out what it should be. x=(80mm/100mm)*10.047=wby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
I haven't got far enough into this yet to know for sure but that doesn't sound like it should effect serial coms checksums. If it was working fine and you didn't change firmware or software then I'd be double checking all my cables. Maybe somebody with a little more experience with the software could shed some light on it.by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
You can flash both. I just flashed the extruder with the firmware provided in the techzone link (You have to plug your USB->TTL cable into the extruder controller). That software is in the extruder folder. Evey other setting is in your configuration.h for the motherboard (FiveD_Gcode, FiveD_Gcode_interpreter). There you can adjust your X,Y and Z_STEPS_PER_MM appropriately. Really take a goodby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
I'm running linux myself so I'm not a lot of help to you. I know I saw that error before but I couldn't reproduce it to figure out exactly what was causing it. Are you running the repsnapper off this page?by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
Hey Morrist, I just got my techzone lasercut up and running a week or two ago. Mucking with the firmware actually probably isn't as bad as it sounds. I grabbed the firmware files from here, then I got arduino (0021 version, 0022 had some bug I can't remember exactly what it was) and the sanguino board hardware folder for arduino. Setting up your configuration.h file is pretty straightforward andby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
It has been come a bit of an obsession here as well. I know how you feel. I'm going through some hotend woes now and managed to make a couple crude ones in my garage. Each one gets a little better. The damn weather is nice today though so I should maybe walk away from this thing and go enjoy some sun.by chase82 - Canada, Edmonton RepRap User Group
Build a heater block for 5/16" rod and heat it up with your electronics. For bonus points!by chase82 - General Mendel Topics
I added the option '-b gtk2' on the end of my git checkout and had to add a few libraries and such, I can't remember off the top of my head what they were but it's in the README. It got me menus but for some reason it wouldn't drive my z axis.by chase82 - RepSnapper
Good stuff. I just got some PLA and ABS from ultimachine today. I haven't really got it sticking to the bed all that well yet and just starting to tweak it now. Let the good times roll!by chase82 - Canada, Edmonton RepRap User Group
Hey guys, I have most of the mechanical built on my techzone lc mendel after a bit of looking at the limited documentation on it and lots of trial and error. Things went pretty well overall but they never shipped me any bed springs. I've got a pile of metal springs in my garage and I'm just wondering how stiff they should be? I'm assuming the springs are there if you bottom out the head into theby chase82 - General Mendel Topics
Currently building my first reprap! I just ordered a mendel kit and I was expecting a lot of parts but I was surprised! Good thing I'm unemployed at the moment. I'm just wondering where you guys source your filament from?by chase82 - Canada, Edmonton RepRap User Group