Printrbot Talk Forum

I took the wimp's way out. I went ahead and spent the afternoon hacking the RAMPS 1.4 into the Printrbot. My foray back into the world of the Printrboard rev.D made me feel like I was trying to do vintage restoration on one of my project cars. The RAMPS 1.4 at least still feels like a current model,...

Gasp. I'm hoping to achieve two things with my Rev D. Printrboard on my circa 2013 wooden Printrbot Plus; 1) Support an E3D hot end (purchased and in route) 2) Support an auto-leveling probe (considering, but not yet purchased) The internwebs lead me to believe that #2 will require an upgrade to my ...

Good catch. I had to make that part up in KiCad and I apparently screwed up the labels. I have revised the schematic. LCD.jpg It's all taken from: http://reprap.org/mediawiki/images/7/70/Controller_final_reprapdiscount.pdf and revised to work with the Printrboard EXT2 header You really do want somet...

one last thing to check. We had very similar problems to the ones you're noting with the shipped Printrbot LCD's. This turned out to be due to them being 3.3V instead of 5V LCDs. This thread talks about how to identify and rectify this problem: http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&a...

I'm confused at what you're looking for at this point. Here is a schematic that should allow the connection of any standard 16pin 20x4 LCD and rotary encoder to the Printrboard EXT2 using the most recent firmware.

LCD.jpg

I have a RepRap discount smart controller (http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRapDiscount_Smart_Controller) working on the printrboard. here's the pin mapping I used (PB.* = Printrboard EXP2; EXP1.*, EXP2.* are the two headers on the LCD controller, see schematic linked below): PB.1-EXP1.9 PB.2-EXP1.10 PB.5-...

After looking at your spread sheet closer your physical EXP2 pin numbers are different from the way the eagle .brd file has them listed. In the picture I have attached, pin number 1 starts on the top right and goes left and pin 8 would be the bottom right. So I decided to try out how I think you ha...

Some useful info in this thread, reference the linked spreadsheet that cross references all the various pin numbering schemes. viewtopic.php?t=4891

They even stock conductive filament. I have some but I haven't tested out the conductive filament yet but I've used the majority of their other stuff and it works well. Have you measured the actual resistance of this stuff? I could think of all sorts of cool applications if it was a good conductor....

Mechanical considerations aside, PLA is, in many ways, the _traditional_ Rep Rap material. Key patents for it are held by one of the two original Rep Rap founders, Vik Oliver. Additionally, it's plant sourcing and biodegradable qualities make it very much part of the Rep Rap philosophy. Many many Re...

I'd be curious as well to see if the molten plastic didn't try and well up around the entrance, contributing to jams.

The 3 mm filament serves (to some degree,) as a piston on top of the molten pool. I can imagine 1.75 mm filament not serving that function as well.

I don't think you understood my previous post. I was suggesting that you look at the last z step of the G-code, which should tell you the TOTAL height that the code thinks it's printing. No, I understood your previous post. The LCD display is generated directly from the g-code processed by the firm...

Sorry all, the 2650 was a typo. Yes, I'm using 2560 everywhere. The LCD is telling me that it's moving the proper layer height, .25mm which it derives from the G-Code. So yes, it's something weird with the tool change. The two tool heads can be oriented in X and Y, but not Z. They have to be at the ...

Gaargh! :cry: I've now made my 8th attempt at printing a moderately complex model. The problem is that the height is too short. I made the switch some time back to M8x1.25 threaded rods and nuts. This let me have a simple M92 Z2650 statement that has worked like a champ, until this print. Measured a...

Merry Christmas! As a gift in return for your many contributions, here's your dial indicator bracket in OpenSCAD. Do with it as you will :D //RetireeJay's Another Dial Indicator Bracket fudge = .01; $fn = 30; x_offset = -30; base_x = 80; base_y = 53; base_z = 7.021; total_z = 18.07; dial_cutout_r = ...

Ouch! There aren't a lot of things to check. You've tried a different USB cable, so next try a different USB port on the computer. Lastly try a different computer. If you can't get any love from either of these, you may be looking at a fried board. On the outside chance you've got a AVR programmer o...

This could be caused by the x-axis motor not getting sufficient amperage and missing steps. The Printrboard has trim pots (one per motor,) which can be adjusted to provide more power. Turn them incrementally clockwise to get more power (don't go so far that the motor starts running hot.) There may b...

This is a Z-Axis effect. It's frequently caused by math. Really. RetireeJay has done a fantastic writeup of this issue: http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=4596&hilit=ribbing It's not impossible that it's mechanical, if the z threaded rod is wobbling badly, that could be ...

Could be a variety of things, the first thing I'd check is the Extruder ESteps value. There are numerous posts and instructions for calibrating the extruder, so I won't repeat them here. But that's essential. Calibrating the X and Y axes may make a difference as well. The settings in your slicer cou...

I've just been using the crystal kitty litter in a closed container. A humidity indicator inside the container says it consistently stays below 20%. Maybe it doesn't dry the filament as fast as heat, but it does work over time. Taulman ships their nylon inside closed bags with little desiccant pack...

Nice setup. It looks scorching hot with the silver reflecting the light bulbs. (just an illusion, I know :lol: ) Thanks. Run one, before I added the dimmer took the temp up to 135°C before I pulled the plug. I had some test filament that got pretty gooey. :? Personally I bought a food dehydrator fr...

I got sick of cursing at my foaming filament so I adapted the design from a wood drying kiln and built my self a nice filament drying kiln this weekend. I used two 100W light bulbs wired in parallel with a dimmer. Built a 3' tall x 12" wide box out of 3/4" foil covered insulation board and...

You need to connect a heavy wire between both boards, not just connect the two grounds of the power supplies together. On the power supply heating the heatbed, the high current causes a voltage drop across the wire connecting it to the power supply, raising it's ground relative to the power supply ...

Sigh, both the LCD controller and the Extrudrboard are turning out to be unusably flawed. I tried tying a ground between the two power supplies and that didn't make a difference (even with no tie between them, they have a shared ground somewhere.) I've got a monster 750W power supply from an old Del...

See my post above with a link to the data sheet and part. Almost all of the 16 pin LCDs are interchangeable (if they're of the same voltage.)

Well, you did the first part the way I meant: one probe on the extruderboard +5V (proxy) and one probe on the main board heater circuit. And you did see a change. Now what lwalkera and I would like to see is one probe on the extruderboard ground (at the thermistor header) and the other probe on the...

I tried 3 configurations. CONFIG 1 - PROBE 1 GND to Printrbot supply GND, PROBE 1 SIG to Extrudrboard supply GND (PROBE 2 watching the bed heater 12V line) CONFIG 2 - GND connection made between the two power supplies. Same Probe configs as CONFIG 1 (This actually appears redundant. After disconnect...

Okay! Based on: Graph 1 - 5V side of the extrudrboard unused thermistor (actually the 10K dummy load resistor required to keep from getting a MINTEMP error.) Graph 2 - 12V bed heater on printrboard https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3HgzVHCOA_0/UityOvJDIvI/AAAAAAAACcw/1ylq2Yb4yfI/w1103-h827-no/IMAGE...

This should be easy: Connect your probe ground to Printrboard ground, and then look at the signals on the unused thermistor pins. One of them is ground, and the other is +5V through a resistor - which should be in effect +5V if you have normal 1M or 10M resistance probes. Sorry, I clearly drank too...

Can you get your scope onto the +12V and the +5V lines on the daughter board? For that matter, can you scope the "ground" voltage on the daughter board relative to the main ground on the Printrboard? For the previous traces above I attached: - Probe1-GND to a spare ground line from the Pr...

The bed bang bang heating is definitely impacting the second extruder. The second extruder will level out fine at target temp until the bed is heated. When the bed comes on, it starts doing it's oscillation. I attached scope probes to the power line of both the bed heater and the second extruder hea...

Check out my post above. I used some breadboard jumper cables and figured out the patch and it works great! Not all the ramps controllers are exactly the same, but they're all almost identical. All of them should be pretty close but I'd check the schematic to make sure. The one I have is a clone of ...

The firmware is set up to expect a 4x20 LCD (driven in 4-bit mode). I haven't looked at the other marlin options, there may be an i2c option in there, but it wouldn't be happy coming off the Printrboard ext2 pins without a lot of new code. It's also looking for a rotary encoder switch for menu selec...

Are the extruders really that different? What happens if you plug the original extruder (with its thermistor, of course) into the second extruder ports and the second extruder into the original ports? What happens if you use the tuning parameters for the original hot end as the parameters for the s...

Since the bed is bang-bang, that would nicely match what I'm seeing on the temperature readout of the thermistor. It's not a gradual oscillation, it ramps up towards the set point, then jumps immediately to the top, ramps down to the set point and then has a hard down to the low value ad infinitum. ...

{Sorry to keep hammering the site with Extrudrboard problems, but I'm at my wits end.} I have a Printrbot Extrudrboard attached to my Rev. D Printrboard (Printrbot Plus V1) I have successfully upgraded the firmware despite problems . I have successfully gotten an LCD controller to work despite probl...

Since you guys are chatting about Autotune, I'm kinda stuck on an aspect of that. The temp on my extrudrboard extruder is oscillating nastily (set to 235, oscillates between 207 and 249) I want to Autotune and know the syntax for extruder specific tuning: M303 E1 S235 C5 (five cycles tuning to 235 o...

Is that the R7 shown in this pic?

lcd.jpg

I understand Port A Bit 0 etc, and I can see from the schematic and from the Atmel data sheet how that maps to a physical pin on the chip. That's the kind of programming I cut my teeth on back in the day. And I understand the concept of - and the reasons for - a level of abstraction. I have used it...

Got my RAMPS 1.4 LCD working with the Printrboard by making a simple patch cable out of breadboard jumpers. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CV8DaPU2WV0/UiUQgvQtkvI/AAAAAAAACbg/8kpO6p8Hqts/w1143-h857-no/IMAGE_1.jpeg Patch list looks like: PB.1-EXP1.9 PB.2-EXP1.10 PB.5-EXP1.8 PB.6-EXP1.7 PB.7-EXP1....

The USB connection disappearing is more a result of Brook just ordering the cheapest LCD he could find, not checking the specs, and ending up with 3.3V LCDs. Fortunately, the only thing different is the value of the current limiting resistor for the backlight. You can disconnect LCD backlight and s...

I've added the core_pins.h definitions. Clearly a lot of those are in use. One explanation for the pin numbering switching we see is the use of different def files. But I'm still not clear on which ones/when/how. The 'key' between the different definitions is the PIN, i.e. PINA0 is what I'm matching...

I'm with you on the confusion. I left a comment on the pins.h checkin that changed the pin numbers in the most recent printrbot firmware asking what abstraction layers are in play. I not that lincomatic got frustrated on this topic and talked about it in his blog at http://blog.lincomatic.com/?p=537...

I also responded in Thew's thread . He's dead on the money. The LCD part is a 3.3V LCD (I peeled the sticker with the partnum out with a dental probe.) NHD-0420AZ-FL-YBW-33V3 Data Sheet 3.3V , 3.0V backlight. And this is _clearly_ being powered by a 5V pin off the Printrboard. Aargh. (and great catc...

You're dead on the money. The LCD part is a 3.3V LCD (I peeled the sticker with the partnum out with a dental probe.)

NHD-0420AZ-FL-YBW-33V3

Data Sheet

3.3V , 3.0V backlight. And this is _clearly_ being powered by a 5V pin off the Printrboard.

Aargh. (and great catch by Thew!)

I peeled the sticker with the part number out with a probe. Sure as shinola, you're right, mine is:
NHD-0420AZ-FL-YBW-33V3

Data Sheet

3.3V , 3.0V backlight. And this is _clearly_ being powered by a 5V pin off the Printrboard.

Great catch!! Now, what to do next?

Fascinating!!

I can't see the LCD part# on my Printrbot purchased LCD. Did you have to desolder your's to see it?

This is convoluted stuff. I spend much of my work-life futzing with issues like this. A few choice blog posts/notices on the Printrbot website would go a long way to clearing things up. There are a couple contributing problems, the first of which is the number of places that state something like &qu...

Fascinating! I took my Marlin Github pull from the Printrbot Github page's most recent link: https://github.com/Printrbot/Marlin Here's the pins.h section: /**************************************************************************************** * Teensylu 0.7 / Printrboard pin assignments (AT90USB1...

I'm with you. Funny you should ask that, I just spent the last 7 hours making the spreadsheet below. This is based on the firmware at https://github.com/Printrbot/Marlin Google Doc Version pins.jpg I still see potential problems with the LCD Enable and LCD RS mappings. I'm thinking they should be to...

I just traced every pin on the LCD and there aren't any shorts. It's a _very_ simple board and I'm really familiar with the standard 16x2 LCD. When I plug it in, the backlight comes on, Row 0 and Row 2 go solid black. The printrboard loses it's ability to provide a COM port. It's kinda acting like i...

Though I'm not exactly sure which part fixed this, I got it working and talked about the details in this thread:http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4891

I whipped up a 100K Ohm resistor with the proper plug and plugged it into the third thermistor port. I still couldn't get the Extrudrboard to work. I compiled and flashed the latest Marlin firmware, it's more recent than the special LCD/Extrudrboard version, says it supports the LCD and I wanted sou...

I watched the videos (which was like chewing glass.) I burned the specific firmware (Printrbot-LCD-Extrudr-Firmware) in case the latest Marlin I was using was wrong. I'm still struggling with a critical work/no-work app note like the third thermistor thing being tacked onto the end of a video. I onl...

Thanks!! I watched most of the second video (the parts that seemed relevant to just the Extrudrboard and LCD, but not the Printrbot stock extruder kit.). But I didn't watch the other two. I get really impatient watching videos. They're so linear. My learning style betrays me with them. I can spend u...

Interesting. A thermistor into the third extruder plug? I have my second extruder/heater/thermistor plugged into the first of the two connections (aka the second extruder connection set,) but nothing else but power and the ribbon cable. Are there docs that describe the additional thermistor you're n...

I went through 25+ hours of madness getting my firmware updated to the latest on my Printrboard Rev D. That's all working great. But when I plug in my Extrudrboard, I get the same problem as described in http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4063 . The bot will home the axis, b...

Have you gotten anywhere with this? After upgrading my firmware on my Rev D. Printrbot Plus V1, I get the same behavior if I attach the Extrudrboard. It will home the axis, but anything else results in: Printer stopped due to errors. Fix the error and use M999 to restart. (Temperature is reset. Set ...

Wow. After 25+ hours of working at this, it appears that I've burned new firmware. I had to use my (phenomenal) Bus Pirate as an AVR programmer. Which was, of course, the new V4 Bus Pirate and needed a firmware upgrade to do avr programming. this unlocked the chip: avrdude -c buspirate -P com16 -p a...

For the Rev. D, the normal operation mode is no jumper. To enter BootLoader, a jumper is placed across the two pins. This is the opposite of all prior boards and causes no end to the amount of documentation grief. It's pretty straightforward in Linux to see the difference with lsusb (Response reads ...

Thanks, I've had no problem getting into Bootloader mode. I verify with: Bus 005 Device 038: ID 03eb:2ffb Atmel Corp. at90usb AVR DFU bootloader from lsusb per docs. My problem is that the lock bits are set. But I've finally gotten the new firmware burned onto my Bus Pirate to let it talk to avrdude...

This looks to be the same problem as described in this thread http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2928.

I hope I don't have to buy a special programmer, but that may be what's next.

I'm trying to flash my Printrboard with the new Marlin unified firmware. I'm on a linux box and have failed trying either of two methods. First I verify through lsusb that I'm seeing the board in boot loader mode: Bus 005 Device 038: ID 03eb:2ffb Atmel Corp. at90usb AVR DFU bootloader 1. From Binary...

like all your setups, it looks great! (I especially like the micro-fire extinguisher!)

There are several videos in their campaign info. One does a great job of explaining the technical features of the extrudes and how they work. You can find it under the "read more" section http://youtu.be/Ze8ygZSUL_Y Thanks, that helped a lot. But am I confused, or does this design not sup...

Which Printrbot model are you working with? (that will help in giving specific advice.) In general, the problem with the extruder ending up off the front of the board has to do with how you've set the Y-End Stop screw. You should be able to give it a few turns and make it stop the Y motion such that...

I'm kinda thrown off by the video spending 4 times as much time talking about the cute animal faces on the extruder front (and how they want folks to vote on them,) than the technical capabilities of the extruder itself. But I supppose they had to put something in the video without giving away all t...

Here's a Printrboard image from RetireeJay with the fan connector labelled: http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/download/file.php?id=2745&t=1 (from this topic: http://www.printrbottalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3922) Most smaller 12V PC fans will work. 40-60mm fans are the most popular. T...

my Plus V1 had this problem and it was the motor mount
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2684

Normally, it would be the set of things RetireeJay is describing, but...

I've just recently started using the hidden power of Pronterface macros. This is very clever and going to be added to my installation tonight!

by the way, great quality photos!

Wow! That's serious scorching. I know that one of the spools of ABS I bought is utter crap, so there can be variance. The amount of moisture that the spool has absorbed can make a huge difference. If it was stored badly before shipping, that can be a big issue. The water will boil in the plastic at ...

Interesting! I've only used it as a support material so far. The physical properties don't seem to offer it much advantage over ABS as a primary material. The more I read about it, the more it seems like the big advantage is that it's cheap (which certainly isn't true about it in filament form!) I'm...

Good catch on the troubleshooting. Bummer on the PSU. But, better it fails now than in the last 10 minutes of a three hour print

(been there.)
good luck!

If multiple machines and USB cables have all declined to connect, you're narrowing it down to the Printrboard. Just as a last review, do you feel really good about all the power connectors (and other connectors for than matter,) on the Printrboard? Is the ATX jumper correctly in place (you mention g...

The current adjustment should be easier than it sounds. Each of the motor drivers on the Printrboard has a tiny trim pot. http://d17kynu4zpq5hy.cloudfront.net/igi/printrbot/NLpQMUhoMrkZdjp4.medium Use a jewler's flathead screwdriver to turn it (in pretty small increments, say 30 degrees clockwise.) ...

Thanks! I found that the additional mass of the Bowden setup (hot end, adapter, extended carriage) really made no difference to the effective inertial mass (it's more, but not enough more to make a difference.) Dual bowdens is definitely the lightest/fastest approach. My concern, and it's turning ou...

I've been running a good bit of HIPS (purchased from Amazon ) through my Printrbot/Ubis. I've bought both 3mm and 1.75, running them through my 3mm stock Wade's extruder and my secondary 1.75mm Bowden extruder. I've been treating them just like ABS, heating the head to 235C. Slightly oozier than the...

Just to make sure we're on the same page, extruder calibration measures the filament going into the extruder, not the actual extruded filament itself. A delta of that much is certainly possible, I've been that much off before. I tend to measure it it 20mm or 30mm increments but 100 mm should be even...

I only see shavings like this after I scrape them out of my hob. It looks like they're falling out of the hob (at least for the most part,) by themselves for you. The shavings may just be the hob biting into the filament. How much of the hob is staying filled with filament (as opposed to discharging...

My first guess would be inadequate current settings for the z steppers.

Wouldn't hurt to lube the lead screws (I use lithium grease.)

Looks sweet!!!

I'm switching my rig back to the Printrboard + Extrudrboard with the new Printrbot LCD. It'll be interesting to see how the firmware issues aply.

NOTE: This article is the third in a series documenting the conversion of my Printrbot Plus V1 to Dual Extrusion. Along the way, Printrbot released their beta solution for Dual Extrusion, making some aspects of this effort (notably the Ramps 1.4 controller board,) redundant. This article is relevan...

I hated everything I tried until I started using OpenSCAD. It's a lot easier to learn than it seems at first and you can do real work with only a few lines of code.

Try it, you'll like it!

How confident are you in your calibrations? The X axis shifting looks a lot like calibration issues and the globbing could be as well. Getting Started Guide has basic calibration instructions, holler if more would help.

Wow, you folks with the clean shops make me nervous

image.jpg

Good description! Thanks!! The more I work with it , the more I want to mod the LCD menu. The FR setting is global (X,Y,Z,E), I'd _really_ like to have controls on the LCD/encoder to mod the flow rate of the Extruders individually (or even as a pair via steps/mm, but if I'm going to hack it, might a...

At this point I think you're right, flow rate is adjustable per extruder with a recommended value of .9-1.1 and that may well be the mechanism to adjust the Steps/mm. I've been trying to sniff through the code to really understand what the relationship between flow rate and feed rate is. They don't ...

My experience is that it can be frustrating to get engaged with their support (busy busy busy,) but once you do, they really make a concerted effort to make you a satisfied customer. I've always come away happy.

Holy moley! The Extrudrboard is a great deal as well http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-extrudrboard/ . $65 for support of 2 more extruders! That makes the Printrboard amazing! When I saw that - I immediately thought you'd either cheer or cry : ) Ha! I considered crying, but decided to cheer :roll...

[Note: I unwittingly began this quest just before Printrbot released the Extrudrboard . That release makes the use of Ramps 1.4 unnecessary . I'll go ahead and document my effort for completeness sake, but Part 3 (slicing & printing,) will become the most relevant section of dual extrusion info...

Holy moley! The Extrudrboard is a great deal as well http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-extrudrboard/. $65 for support of 2 more extruders! That makes the Printrboard amazing!

Wow! They only sold 10. It looks pretty interesting. If they're really going to sell it for $230 (not just as a beta price,) it's a phenomenal bargain. Controller, 2 motors, 2 hotends, 2 thermistors, 2 fans, cables, a mount, vitamins and a 350W power supply! That's more like a $500 (at least) packag...

Thanks! Chasing this stuff down has forced me out into a lot of other 3D printing forums. It's really brought home how much I like the Printrbottalk community. This forum has a confidence inspiring vibe that is not as tangible in a lot of other forums. I hope I can return enough in useful documentat...

First reaction to dual extrusion printing. Take every frustration you've ever had with slicing, filament feeding, and general printing grief and square it.

Getting there!

image.jpg

Thanks! I've still got a long way to go. I've trashed another dozen prints after that one as I work through the requisite tuning. So far: - Getting the two hotends dead level. Absolutely critical and very frustrating. - Getting the correct offset between the two hotends correct. Harder than it seems...

Woohoo, the planets aligned and I got a successful dual extrusion print from my hybrid Pinrtrbot Plus V1 printer! Ramps 1.4 electronics with SmartLCD Extruder 1 = Stock Wade's extruder mounted on X carriage driving directly into 3mm Ubis hotend, Black ABS Extruder 2 = Printed Wade's extruder mounted...

It's a 60mm ring I got from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00899AI92/ref=pe_175190_21431760_M3T1_ST1_dp_1. They're also referred to as 'Angel Eyes'.

2 for $9.05, Amazon Prime (aka free two day shipping.)

I'd love to find smaller ones as well.

Experimentation will have to show if it's the best of both worlds, or the worst

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