This is the typically Chinese seller habit: They bug you with unnecessary informations unless you give up. I would try it with melzi standard settings should work.by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
@broy55: I've take a look at your mainboard: This is a relative new one sold by chinese printer sellers: It *could* be compatible with the melzi board (also uses an 1280) but maybe some pins are different - so be careful!. It would be nice to have a schematic for this board. Interesting detail: It looks like, they are using a CH340/341 UART-controller instead of a fake FTDI chip. (I don't have prby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
NOP. Forget the elf file, until you wanna play with avrdude and/or other command line tools and you cannot change anything in that file. It's the compiled source code - unchangeable and you cannot change the firmware via SD-card and the printer itself! Meanwhile nice people of the community have added support to the zonestar printers in the repetier firmware configuration tool. So you can chooseby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
...just forget the *hex or *elf files, because they are already compiled. Nothing you can do with them just to keep it as backup (but the better idea is to readout the firmware from your printer as backup so you can be really sure). Those chinese sellers and (more the) producers like zonestar are ignorant and stupid people who keep their source code like a holy grail secret unimpressed that theby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
OK, I've double checked the circuit (http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/7/7d/Melzi-circuit.png) the z-motor module is exactly the same as x,y and e. So there is no technical reason why only two motors are running (beside my connectors theory written above)by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
If everything went wrong you can just adding some load resistors instead of the second stepperby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Ok, maybe it's only a stupid mechanical problem: The thickness of two connected steppers is twice, so maybe just check the cable connectors if only one motor is connected? The skrew connectors could be wear outby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Ok, I'm sure you'll have to setup the motor current for the single z-motor (I think the current is much too high, because the driver current was calculated for driving two motors): Connect only one motor and try out different trim poti settings (but stay within v-min and v-max!!!) until the motor runs smoothly. Begin at 0.4V and then turn it upby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
So you must have the two steppers physically connected - so one stepper is build in on the top of the new thing, and the second stepper is just lying around? That's totally strange, only possible thing is, that you really have to adjust the vref of the stepper. So again: "Normally" both z-axis motors are running and if you disconnected one (have you tried to switch them?) the other one won't do aby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
jnsbanman : There is no need to "tell the board" something, because the z-steppers are parallel connected to one driver output. Just disconnect the secondary z-stepper. If one stepper hasn't enough torque (or too much), you'll need to fine adjust the driver output. But I really see no benefit from this construction, but perhaps I'm wrong (I had never problems with the z-axis on my printer)by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Do you have an UNO or MEGA (or something else Arduino like) at home? So you can upload the code (or bootloader) via arduino as ISP ---> But sadly I guess that's not only the bootloader is affected, because the code for the bootloader is on the first sectors of the flash and won't be overridden with a new sketch code (via bootloader upload method). You can try the "push fast the reset" methodby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Quotejnsbanman They should work fine. They work fine. I've got them at home.by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
I read this about Herz: (sorry german, but maybe you are german): QuoteAbraten möchte ich vom Anbieter Herz auf Ebay (http://www.ebay.de/usr/herzonline). Anfänglich war ich begeistert, Ich konnte das ABS Filament mit dem Soft Temp Mod ohne Probleme drucken. Habe ordentlich zugeschlagen und mir alle verfügbaren Farben bestellt. Leider hatte ich mit allen andere Farben (außer Blau) massive Problemeby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
@Vincent: Thank you for your link. Fortunately I only need the steel frame. The people were complaining about the whole set (missing and bad chinese copy parts (hotend/extruder)) and the delivery time (as I buy nearly all electronic things via aliexpress, I've learned how to wait for parcels...).by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
The printouts reminds me of a spool of PLA I bought (I think "BQ" was the brand). Everything I've tried out resulted in ugly prints like yours. So I decided the PLA was the problem. Are you *really* sure this is ABS? (I heard of mislabled spools) Try to print with 180 degrees (or try to dissolve it in acetone, if it won't dissolve it's for sure not ABS) You can also proof the diameter of the fiby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Unfortunately it's very time and material expensive to reproduce the failue for you .... I can quiet move the y-axis (the board) without great force forward and backward (with disabled steppers), my belts aren't totally stiff, so I can push my finger on the belt and bend it about 1 cm. Maybe 0.8V is too high (it's about 1 ampere!) You can choose 0.6V for the X and Y steppers. So 0.8 can produceby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Maybe too tight or too loose... Another thinking: Maybe your Z-axis is not calibrated right or had problems above a certain threshold (maybe it jammed about 15 centimeters and do not all steps and the extruder scratch over the printing and the y axis loose steps). Just try to move up the z-axis and examine each height and proof it is smooth enough (disable steppers and wind manually both rods a bby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
I'm also interested in getting a steel frame and I found this: (Also from spain) Quiet less shipping costs.by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
jnsbanman: Looks like an overheating problem of the y-stepper driver if this occurs after a while of printing. (The stepper protection switches it off automatically) At first: Check the voltage of the stepper drivers ---> Drives the bed smoothly on y-axis? Is the belt too stiff or to loose?by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
I got similar ones (if not the same): So rating is 1.7A, this should be more than enough. My steppers aren't even warm after printing 2-3 hours. And think about your stepper drivers: If you use A4988 drivers they can give you max 1A (without special cooling) so you'll drive them only to max 2/3 of their power. So yes, they are more than ok!by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
@Gatchaman: On my melzi board the heatsink were glued with epoxy so there must be different versions.by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Javier: Unless you won't have trouble OR you need extra features like auto levelling stay at 0.91. Yes, you have to manually add the display for update and beware of other things you have to take care of (steps mm, your rod dimension....) because there are different models and you must have luck that a firmware here in the forum posted matches your printer to 100% Updating the firmware is like dby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Hello, I'm exchanged my melzi board with a RAMPS 1.4 board successfully. I own A4988 drivers and everything worked as expected. So I tried the DRV8825 (chinese ones, they should work have hundred of good reviews on ali) for all steppers, knowing that jumpers M0-M2 set "on" results in 32 steps. So I removed the jumpers M0 and M1 and left only M2 plugged in. Now the strange case: All steppers are mby madias - RAMPS Electronics
Quotewombat Thank you all for all the opinions - I really appreciate them. I think I went though all the cheap printers on Aliexpress and decided to go for this one: My reasoning: - steel frame - auto leveling (the question is how well it really works...) - decent build volume - bowden extruder (potentially a good thing?) - it is not totally unknown 'brand' and apparently assembly instructioby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
@MKSA: 1. The effects of the FTDI driver policy is well discussed at hackaday. For short: It's one thing that a company should defend their property, but it's another to let the unknowing customers bleed for it. I hear you cry "UNKNOWING?". So, as one example(!) read this and yes, I know the whole FTDI story, but as I bought the printer, I didn't noticed that there is a FTDI on it (I guessed CH3by madias - Prusa i3 and variants
com = ground, right. Nobody knows about the silly colors of these sensors (normally GND = black) So here is the color table: blue: GND or COM brown: +12V (VCC) black: Signal (12V Output! Use resistor dividers!) So in my example the two resistors are lowering the voltage from 12V to 4V otherwise the MELZI board could be damaged. (4V is written as "high" state, everything above 3.3V is safe as aby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
A little or BIG warning to all owners of those chinese Prusa i3 clones with MELZI boards: ALL of the shipped melzi boards from china are using a FAKE FTDI chip (this is the chip for the serial to USB communication). There was a problem (I think about 1-2 years) where windows did update automaticially the drivers with a "special" one from FTDI. Result: The "fake" FTDI were bricked from softwareby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
This is not a silly question I'didn't found the best solution removing the filament either, but I use the technique: 1. Heat extruder depends on your filament (180 PLA....) 2. push the extruder spring to release the gear (do this through all steps!) 3. push the filament a bit into noozle for a second and then VERY FAST 4. pull out the whole filament in one piece. This all depends much on your eby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
Ok, it seems it wasn't wrong here taking about the thermistor and values Keep in mind Robkadett: If you experience problems while extruding (clogging...) then your teflon tube shrinked a bit. You can easily solve this, just cut a few millimeters off. There is an easy test: Take out the teflon tube and push the filament through. If you need force, than it's shrinked.. BTW: Cause I fired up my meby madias - Prusa i3 and variants
QuoteJimsFlight Not saying this is a definitive guide or anything, there’s a wealth of information in previous posts, this is just what worked for me. Here is a link to a google drive with everything I used in it. Thanks again to everyone on the forum for helping me out. @JimsFlight: Can you confirm, that your thermistor values are all right? You use the standard 100k Epoc B575xxxxx in the configby madias - Prusa i3 and variants