Hi Folks,
This is my polar printer, it's down for a bed bearing upgrade at the moment, but she's definitely running and the duet's working a treat.

Working volume is 570mm diameter by 1150mm tall.

Here's some footage of her in action...

https://youtu.be/nvOLMP2IJIU

The YouTube playlist for the build so far is here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWjZVEdMv1BY82izahK45qKh-hp3NFkix

My channel is www.YouTube.com/CNCModellerUK

I'm hoping to come to TCT so will drop by the stall. If you want some better pictures just let me know!

Cheers
Barry M

@dc42 MQTT integration would be awesome... my home automation uses an mqtt broker and openhab so I could check print status securely anywhere via the openhab internet gateway and mobile app.

See you on Thursday all being well...

Hi, the shop says that the Rotating Magnet Filament Monitor is out of stock. Is there any news on when it'll be back in?

Many thanks
Barry M

@Phaedrux said in RepRapFirmware 3.01-RC3 released:

@CNCModeller You can send M115 to see what firmware is actually flashed.

Cool thanks for the heads up...

@Phaedrux said in RepRapFirmware 3.01-RC3 released:

@CNCModeller said in RepRapFirmware 3.01-RC3 released:

Is there any way for me to re-configure things on the SD card directly so I can get back to using my printer with 2.05 in the short term?

You can place the 2.05 firmware file on the SD card in the /sys folder, connect via USB terminal, and send M997 to flash the firmware.

While you've got the SD card in your PC, you can also replace the contents of the /www folder with the files from DWC 2.0.7 just to make sure it's all there.

Thanks @Phaedrux,
I'm thinking that the firmware is already installed so I'm hoping I just need to copy over the files to the WWW folder.

Fingers Xed!!!

Cheers
BPM

Hi @dc42
I've finally got back into the workshop and am still having this issue, having done much more digging and tried Cura as well as S3D for slicing I'm getting a better picture of whats going on.

The print stutters in a couple of places, one where the brim gcode is "complicated" which I kind of get but the other is during a clean ark on the print wall. More interestingly it seems that the stuttering is more prominent when the movement is at print max / min y axis rather than the x, i.e. the top and bottom walls of the print are clean but the left and right walls are marred (its a circular print with radial notches and the features appear as described if you use the rotating bed home location for orientation see below).

Top/Bottom (Max Min X)

Left Right (Max Min Y)

The Gcode is consistent all the way round the print and being a polar printer I can only assume something weird is going on in the translation of one of the print axes to polar from Cartesian.

This is what my current test print looks like in plan view:-

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Also if RRF3 would be better for polar it'd be good to know.

Many thanks
Barry M

@dc42 said in RepRapFirmware 3.01-RC3 released:

I suggest you upgrade to either 2.05.1 or 3.01RC3. The main benefits of 3.01 are more flexible pin allocation, and conditions and loops in GCode and macro files; but upgrading from 2.x to 3.x is more complicated than upgrading to 2.05.1.

What is the upgrade procedure?

If you want to upgrade to 3.01 from 2.x then you must first upgrade to 3.0, and from there to 3.01. You will also have to make a lot of changes to your config.g file.

Hi All / @dc42
Unfortunately I think I've made a foolish error with my Duet 2 Ethernet... after upgrading to RRF3 (R3 zip then R3.01) I decided that I needed to spend much more time learning the new config commands so re-uploaded the 2.05 firmware, unfortunately (I think) I forgot that V3 uses a newer web interface and now I cant connect to the board via the web interface.

Is there any way for me to re-configure things on the SD card directly so I can get back to using my printer with 2.05 in the short term?

Also is polar config supported in RR3? I know I should have checked before upgrading but I am having a "hard of thinking" day. I only ask as the home files being called by the web interface for x appear to be the xhome rather than the radiushome file.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many Thanks
Barry M

@dc42 Update - Sorry its been a while have has car trouble...!

So the issue with the weird steps per degree was down to belt tension, that's resolved now.

This is my config file it's pretty simple.config.g

Unfortunately the Gcode file is 43meg so I cant upload it.

I've just generated code for the first 20mm of the part in S3D and here's just the base, the full test print is 1100mm tall. Its a spiral thin wall print.

TallTestConeStructured_0-20mm.gcode

The printer struggles on the brim radially from where the wall stiffeners are, and also on the main part wall when running above 125%. The printer will run faster but stutters quite a lot. The previous video link is still representative.

As an aside it also looks like the max deg/sec limit on the bed doesn't work when doing relative rotational moves, i.e. +120deg. Is this normal? I think the limit is working for normal operation.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Many thanks
Barry M

@dc42 The radius carriage is static as it's just printing a 300mm dia thin wall cylinder which printed fine on the old setup.

See the first few seconds of this video to see what I'm printing. It's the same code file running on the old setup.

Old printer setup

The only subtle change to the config file is that I'm actually using a step per degree of 961.33333 instead of 960 which is 3x320 that was used previously on the ungeared setup. Not sure if using a non integer increases the processing workload.

The 961.3333 is because I haven't got the tension quite right on the drive belt and I think it's having an effect similar to that of a harmonic drive effectively changing the 720t gear size by one tooth. It's an effect I've seen before but haven't managed to tune out yet on this drive config.

Will post gcode and config tonight if that is still useful.

Many thanks
Barry M

@dc42 MQTT integration would be awesome... my home automation uses an mqtt broker and openhab so I could check print status securely anywhere via the openhab internet gateway and mobile app.

@dc42 it says duetwifi v1.02 on the board but it's an Ethernet board. I'm having issues doing a test print at 300mm dia see video link below. I Want to be able to print down to a dia of 50mm, albeit r min is set to 0 at the moment to support calibration after a bed axis bearing and stepper drivetrain upgrade. Bed max print diameter is 600mm.

behaviour video link

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Barry M

Hi All,
I've recently put a 3 to 1 reduction on my polar bed motor for better acceleration and am now getting co-ordinated hunting in the stepper speed of both the bed and extruder. Was wondering if there is a max stepper frequency that I may be saturating. Im running 40deg / sec at 960 steps per degree (16 microstepps). It seems to run fine for the bed alone but starts to hunt when actually printing...

Any thoughts?

Cheers
Barry M