I could use some help

fcwilt

@mac

Morning.

Now that we know the end-to-end travel of the Y axis is some 350mm you need to edit the homeY.g file.

Notice the G1 H1 X-230 command.

That is not moving enough to move the entire 350mm if it needs to.

So change the -230 to -360, save, re-boot and re-home Y to see if it moves to the Y endstop twice and then back to near the center of the bed.

If that all works then we can proceed to figure out what is wrong with the X stepper.

I await the results of the Y homing test.

Frederick

A Former User

@droftarts @fcwilt @alankilian

Here's what we learned last night:

The Y-axis / bed can roll all the way to the rear edge of the pulley. That's where I placed the beginning of my metal ruler. You can hear the bed activate the endstop when it gets to the rear side of the spindle that goes through the pulley. Moving the bed back creates that beautiful second click that indicates the message has been sent, and the bed is backing away from the endstop.

When the bed is all the way to 0 on the metal ruler, which goes back to front of the printer, the endstop is fully depressed. When the rear edge of the bed is at the center of the Y-pulley spindle, it is contacting the endstop, and when it is at the rear of the spindle, the endstop is fully activated, but not fully depressed. Those events happen between 0 and 12.75mm's (rear to front).

Pushing the bed as far to the rear as it can go takes it to -.238mm's (to the rear of 0).

Pushing the bed to the front of the printer takes it to 457.2mm's. DWC reports that the bed is at 350.0mm's.

Pushing the bed to 247.65mm's puts the rear line of the bed directly under the nozzle.

Pushing the bed to 25.4mm's puts the rear line of the bed over the front of the Y-motor. At that point, the front line of the bed is under the nozzle.

Important: The foot that pushes against the Y-endstop is still 73mm's in front of it. This means that the bed has to go another 73mm's to the rear to contact the endstop. It also means that the bed is 15.875mm's to the rear of the nozzle.

So this is what we need to communicate to the firmware, I gather, so that it can move the bed accordingly.
Any help getting there would be appreciated.

Mac

fcwilt

@mac

It should not be possible to move the bed left and right.

It should only move forward and back.

I'm confused by what you posted.

Thanks.

Frederick

P.S. Don't forget the required change to homeY.g and the testing thereof.

A Former User

@fcwilt I just posted the measurements I've been collecting over the last four hours. Maybe they will be helpful? Maybe they will have some impact on what I just read in your post? I'm all for moving forwards, but it's nice to know the route ahead beforehand?

A Former User

@fcwilt understandable, because I have the printer sideways so I can read the metal tape measure. I'll edit the post.

fcwilt

@mac said in I could use some help:

@fcwilt understandable, because I have the printer sideways so I can read the metal tape measure. I'll edit the post.

OK I understand what you were describing now.

Frederick

fcwilt

@mac said in I could use some help:

@fcwilt I just posted the measurements I've been collecting over the last four hours. Maybe they will be helpful? Maybe they will have some impact on what I just read in your post? I'm all for moving forwards, but it's nice to know the route ahead beforehand?

My first goal today is to get the Y axis working in all regards.

We have gotten it moving in the right directions.

We have determined how far it can travel.

Now we need to get Y homing working.

Once that is done we need to move on to getting the X axis working, then the Z axis.

It is essential that all three axes work correctly and home correctly before we can move on to the next phase.

Frederick

A Former User

@fcwilt essential work sounds like fun! I'm all in.

A Former User

@droftarts thanks for asking, Ian. I'm going to focus all of my attention of meeting Frederick's needs today, as he's hell-bent to get my printer working properly. I feel like I need to support his efforts as best I can.

At some point, I'll make a video about all of this, and put what I've learned about the technology and the coding and the great customer support I've received. Hopefully, I'll be able to use moving pictures to make the points that need to be made.

Mac

A Former User

@fcwilt I'm going to make the change, etc., and will let you know as quickly as I can.

fcwilt

@mac said in I could use some help:

@droftarts thanks for asking, Ian. I'm going to focus all of my attention of meeting Frederick's needs today, as he's hell-bent to get my printer working properly. I feel like I need to support his efforts as best I can.

At some point, I'll make a video about all of this, and put what I've learned about the technology and the coding and the great customer support I've received. Hopefully, I'll be able to use moving pictures to make the points that need to be made.

Mac

I assume you want to get it working as well?

If that is not the case then let me know and we can explore any aspect of your printer you like.

Frederick

droftarts

@mac once the axes are moving correctly, it may help you to draw a picture of the bed. Measure the size of the bed. Move the nozzle to the home X and Y position, touching the endstops. Is the nozzle over the bed, on the edge of the bed, or not over the bed? Measure the offsets. Do the same with the nozzle at the maximum position, measuring the offsets from the bed. You will need these numbers for the M208 commands, to get the printer to know where the printable are of the bed is.

Ian

A Former User

@fcwilt REPORT: the bed started towards the rear of the printer slowly, then moved faster, until it came to where it thought it should stop, and did so.

UPDATE: I decided to move the bed forwards as far as it would go. DWC is telling me that the bed will go to 220mm. According to my metal measuring stick, 220mm is 327mm in the real world.

UPDATE: I thought I was seeing weird behavior. So I moved the bed forwards and backwards to the limits imposed on it by the firmware. A couple of times I hit the endstop and then kept going to pound on the motor a bit. None of this bothers me. I have a box of endstops and a box of motors I can use to repair whatever damage these efforts produce.

The firmware is limiting how far the bed can go forwards to where it thinks 220mm is. It's 220mm is 327mm in the real world.

It's not lightly touching the end-stop, then backing up (forwards) / away from it.

M119 reports that Y is at Max Endstop.

A Former User

@fcwilt "properly" means exactly that.

I'll put it another way: I want this $160+ dollar board to outperform the mystery board in my Xvico. I think my efforts, and everyone's help require that to put the world right again.

Mac

A Former User

@droftarts I understand. And I'm working on developing that image.

A Former User

@fcwilt I just ran M119 for all 3 endstops. When depressed, all of them are reporting that they are at Max Endstop.

fcwilt

@mac said in I could use some help:

@fcwilt REPORT: the bed started towards the rear of the printer slowly, then moved faster, until it came to where it thought it should stop, and did so.

UPDATE: I decided to move the bed forwards as far as it would go. DWC is telling me that the bed will go to 220mm. According to my metal measuring stick, 220mm is 327mm in the real world.

UPDATE: I thought I was seeing weird behavior. So I moved the bed forwards and backwards to the limits imposed on it by the firmware. A couple of times I hit the endstop and then kept going to pound on the motor a bit. None of this bothers me. I have a box of endstops and a box of motors I can use to repair whatever damage these efforts produce.

The firmware is limiting how far the bed can go forwards to where it thinks 220mm is. It's 220mm is 327mm in the real world.

It's not lightly touching the end-stop, then backing up (forwards) / away from it.

M119 reports that Y is at Max Endstop.

I have no idea what is going wrong.

Your testing confirmed the Y jogged in the correct directions.

You testing confirmed that all of the endstops were working.

The Y homing code is very simple.

How about this:

move the bed to roughly the center of it's possible travel
verify the Y endstop is working using M119
if all is good execute G91 then G1 H1 Y-360 F3600

It should move to the endstop and halt. The DWC display should read Y = 0.

Frederick

fcwilt

@mac said in I could use some help:

@fcwilt I just ran M119 for all 3 endstops. When depressed, all of them are reporting that they are at Max Endstop.

Max Endstop?

That's wrong.

What do the current M574 commands look like.

Thanks.

Frederick

A Former User

@fcwilt I put a + on the center of the bed. I also put a l on the left side of the bed. I lined those marks up with 9 inches, which is half of the 18 inches the bed can travel.

I sent the codes.

The bed moved may-be a millimeter to the rear.

A Former User

@fcwilt

; Endstops
M574 X2 S1 P"!^io5.in"                             ; configure switch-type (e.g. microswitch) endstop for high end on X via pin !^io5.in
M574 Y2 S1 P"!^io6.in"							   ; configure switch-type (e.g. microswitch) endstop for high end on Y via pin !^io6.in
M574 Z2 S1 P"!^io2.in"							   ; configure switch-type (e.g. microswitch) endstop for high end on Z via pin !^io2.in