RUG/Pennsylvania/State College/Trouble Shooting Guide

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The contents on this page will help callibrate your printer to help get to the print quality that you desire.

Once you have finished building your printer and can succesfully talk to your printer through a host program, I'm sure you will be dying to start printing. Unless you are extremly lucky, your first print will not be perfect. Using the table below, you can correctly calibrate your printer.


Issue Possible Problem Solution
Circles are not printing
circular
1. Steps/mm are incorrect in the firm ware

2. Your x carriage and/or y crriage belts have too much slack
To fix Problem 1:
Move the X or Y axis of your printer by 10mm. Measure the distance that the X or Y axis actually travels. Let’s say your Y axis actually moved 5mm. Now divide the 10mm you instructed the printer to move by the 7mm it actually moved. 10/5= 2. You will now need to find the steps/mm vector for the Y axis in the configuration.h file of the firmware. Multiply whatever this value is by the factor that you calculated (in this case 2). Now re-flash your firmware (add link) and try again. For help with flashing visit this link ………..

To fix Problem 2:
This is simpler of the 2 problems to fix. All you need to do is tighten the belts to create more tension, ridding the belt of the problematic slack.
Your object experiences "warping" 1. Printing with too much infill

2. Un-level bed

3. Using wrong temperature on for heated bed
To fix Problem 1:
Reduce infill by .1(10%) and attempt print again.

To fix Problem 2:
There is really no easy way to level the bed but we have found a way that works fairly well. First thing to do is check the X-axis bars. This axis will be adjusted using the Z-axis oddly enough. The Z-axis rods can be individually by hand. This will allow you to either move the right or left side up or down to become even with the opposite side. Move the X-carriage from one side of the board to the other and see if there is any change in the distance between the board and hot tip and adjust the Z height of either side as needed.

Next, we will level the print bed. The bed level is adjusted using the four screws attaching the print bed to the Y carriage. Tightening one of these screws will lower the bed in this corner and loosening the screw will raise it. Move the hot tip to the four corners of the print bed. If the distance between the print bed and hot tip changes, make the necessary adjustments so that the distance is constant across the entire print area.

To fix Problem 3:
Raise bed temp by 5 degrees Celsius and reprint. (Note: Do not go above 75 degrees Celsius)

Your object has gaps in the layers 1. Inconsistent extrusion

2. Layer height is set too high
To fix Problem 1:
See "Inconsistent Extrusion" below

To fix Problem 2:
If using Slic3r: Goto "Print setting: tab and click on layers tab. Reduce layer height as needed. A good place to start is 80% of nozzle diameter. (For example if you are using a .5 mm tip, you would want to start at .4 mm layer height ad adjust from there)
Weak Print 1. Temperature too low

2. Inconsistent extrusion
To fix problem 1:
To fix this, raise the temperature in the GCODE for your printed part. The set temperature command is M104 S200 (for a hot tip temp of 200 degrees Celsius)
Inconsistent Extrusion 1. Wrong temperature

2. Idler too Tight/Loose
To fix Problem 2:
While your printer is extruding, check to see if your idler bearing is rotating. If it is not, tighten the screws attaching the idler to the extruder body.
If your printer is not extruding, reverse your extruder 15mm. Check your filament for damage. If there are deep cuts in the filament from the hobbed bolt, your idler is too tight. Loosen the screws attaching the idler to the extruder body.
Your object has lots of beads on the sides row 5, cell 2 row 5, cell 3
row 6, cell 1 row 6, cell 2 row 6, cell 3