Issues with my Duet Maestro or bad config?

Veti

try reducing the e steps by 10% and see if that improves the print

jbirley

@Veti did not help unfortunately, I had calibrated the E steps previously, all dropping it did was ruin the dimensional accuracy of the cube and cause gaps in the top surface as you would expect with under extrusion

Veti

post a picture of your printer

Phaedrux

Is the filament unspooling smoothly or is it getting tugged around?

What is your seam alignment in the slicer?

Is the bed stable or does it wiggle easily?

lodger

@jbirley
I also have a Sapphire Pro i have converted with a duet and a V6. Are you still using to Clone BMG Extruder it came with.... If you have anything spare kicking around try change it.

jbirley

First off thanks all for any help and input so far, even if I'm not getting anywhere i appreciate people giving up their time to help. Unfortunately that is just where I'm getting, no where.

@Phaedrux The filament is fine it can easily unspool straight into the extruder, I have tried multiple seam alignments from aligned to random, along with multiple slicers (cura and prusa). The bed on the sapphire plus is supported on two edges so is much more rigid than a lot of Chinese coreXY machines and the bed level screws are down tight enough it does not really move around.

@lodger Yes it is the BMG clone that is shipped with it however I have also tried a titan extruder I had kicking about with no change.

As stated at the beginning this has been happening on two machines for me now, with the exact same issue, and both machines had been working fine before the duet. I "upgraded" the first with the duet because of the questionable saftey of the first machines electronics, and the second because I already had the duet so why would i not? However the fact they have both worked fine without it rules out it being a mechanical issue, there is no way it is z wobble, or a bad extruder, snagging filament etc because they have all been proven to work fine.

over the last few days i have tried, in no particular order, multiple filaments, multiple extruders, extruder tensions, changing jerk settings both higher and lower, changing acceleration settings both higher and lower, different temperature ranges, retraction settings, pressure advance settings, I have moved all of the motors around onto different drivers, checked belt tensions really anything that could produce banding on the Z axis like I'm getting that I could think of. It is not layer shifting as the bands appear the whole way around the prints rather than sticking out one side and in the other.

I have tried every suggestion everyone has made on the forums, one at a time and done a test print in between nothing has made any real improvements.

the above imagine is of two cubes printed back to back. The only difference between them is the worse one on the left was sliced at .1mm layer height, while the other at was .2 all other settings stayed the same.

The only thing i can see being wrong at this point is there is something wrong with my board. I just wish i had a second one kicking about i could swap to and stick the SD card in because that would prove it one way or the other. At this point I'm getting close to just tearing the duet back out and converting it back over to the makerbase board that it came with.

dc42

I suggest you examine your test cubes carefully. Is the problem that a layer is shifted slightly from the previous one, so that it is indented from the previous layer at one side but overhangs the previous layer on the opposite side? If so then the problem is poor XY repeatability. Or is the problem that a layer will overhang the previous layer all the way round, or be indented from the previous layer all the way round? If so then the problem may be inconsistent extrusion, or unequal size Z steps (or missing Z steps if the print is not as high as it should be), or inconsistent temperature.

jbirley

@dc42 Its not layer shifting, the bands are too large all the way around. Im pretty certain its over extrusion i just dont understand why. I have calibrated the esteps and i am having the issue with multiple extruders. The really bad cube above is about .5mm too large in both x and y but correct in z. however the one sliced at .2mm is correct in the x and y but about .2mm too small in the Z. what i don't understand is if it was inconsistent temperature or extrusion why is it so drastically different at different layer heights? I just cant wrap my head around what is wrong. The closest i have come to a good surface on the x and y face was when i accidentally set the filament diameter to 2.85 rather than 1.75 so horrendously under extruded, the walls came out nice and smooth but very very weak and the top and bottom along with the infil was terrible as you would expect. see pictures below.

dc42

What extruder are you using, and what steps/mm setting are you using for it?

jbirley

@dc42 bondtech BMG clone that came with the printer and 430 steps/mm is what it came out to when I calibrated it by extruding 100mm of filament. I have tried lowering down to around 400.

JamesM

Did you set your slicer for relative extrusion? I believe it's common for marlin based printers to use absolute extrusion but for reprap firmware you want to use relative extrusion. If you're set to absolute extrusion in the slicer then I suspect that could cause the irregularities in with your extrusion.

I see your configs show relative extrusion so that's why I ask.

DIY-O-Sphere

@jbirley said in Issues with my Duet Maestro or bad config?:

bondtech BMG clone

Please check the filament channel for free movement. There were problems with this on the old models. I had to drill out my output channel to 2.2 mm because it was not aligned and there was a lot of friction. The new version has been improved. This has an insert in the housing.

dc42

@jbirley said in Issues with my Duet Maestro or bad config?:

@dc42 Its not layer shifting, the bands are too large all the way around. Im pretty certain its over extrusion i just dont understand why. I have calibrated the esteps and i am having the issue with multiple extruders. The really bad cube above is about .5mm too large in both x and y but correct in z. however the one sliced at .2mm is correct in the x and y but about .2mm too small in the Z. what i don't understand is if it was inconsistent temperature or extrusion why is it so drastically different at different layer heights? I just cant wrap my head around what is wrong. The closest i have come to a good surface on the x and y face was when i accidentally set the filament diameter to 2.85 rather than 1.75 so horrendously under extruded, the walls came out nice and smooth but very very weak and the top and bottom along with the infil was terrible as you would expect. see pictures below.

Unless it is an issue with the extruder (see the reply that precedes this one) then I think it is most likely caused by inaccurate amounts of Z movement. That would explain why the print with 0.1mm layer height is so much worse than with 0.2mm layer height.

What Z mechanism does your printer use? How many Z motors does it have, what is the motor type number, and how are they connected to the Duet?

lodger

I have just looked your config.g compared to mine. "same printer".

Your running Z400.00 steps and mine is 1600. I have also checked my old marlin config which also is 1600.

Check you Z microsteps . when you tell the bed to move 10mm does it move down 10mm

Just a idea !

Here is my config.g if it helps

config.g

jbirley

@lodger Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't think that can be it, I will double check however if it was out by a factor of four there is no way a model would come out. As it stands the 20mm cubes are coming out at 20mm, if it was moving 1/4 of what it should it would have just been a 5mm tall squashed mess

I will check the other suggestions and get back to you.

lodger

@jbirley I have just noticed you have two drives mapped to Z. My Sapphire Pro only has One lead screw. That may explain why we have so differant steps.

jbirley

@JamesM Yes, I have tried both cura and prusa slicers just in case and both were set to relative extrusion and reprap firmware.

@DIY-O-Sphere I did have the extruder in parts to check it over and all seems fine but i will double check to see if the input and output holes are aligned once the current test print is done.

@dc42 the Z mechanism is two leadscrews one on both the left and right edge of the bed, with linear rails. pretty sure they are 2mm pitch. I have the motors running off different drivers each with their own end stop to level the bed left to right, then a bl touch probes the centre to get the z height. They are 1.8 degree 1.7a motors 17HS4401S. As @lodger stated above though this should mean at 1/16 steps (interpolated) with a 2mm pitch they should be 1600 steps/mm right? but I have tried them at that and when i tell the bed to move down 50mm it shoots 200mm down to the bottom of the printer. set at 400 steps/mm it moves the correct amount.

DIY-O-Sphere

@jbirley said in Issues with my Duet Maestro or bad config?:

I did have the extruder in parts to check

You can check this very easily.
When the motor is removed, simply push a piece of filament through the extruder (lever closed). You can feel whether it can be pushed through easily.

dc42

@jbirley said in Issues with my Duet Maestro or bad config?:

the Z mechanism is two leadscrews one on both the left and right edge of the bed, with linear rails. pretty sure they are 2mm pitch. I have the motors running off different drivers each with their own end stop to level the bed left to right, then a bl touch probes the centre to get the z height. They are 1.8 degree 1.7a motors 17HS4401S. As @lodger stated above though this should mean at 1/16 steps (interpolated) with a 2mm pitch they should be 1600 steps/mm right? but I have tried them at that and when i tell the bed to move down 50mm it shoots 200mm down to the bottom of the printer. set at 400 steps/mm it moves the correct amount.

Are the leadscrews 2x8, i.e. 2mm pitch but 8mm lead?

jbirley

@dc42

I think so,

pretty sure they are 2mm pitch, 4 start, 8mm lead. so having double checked that math that means that 400 is correct right?