Re: Got my MakerBot Replicator 2 and it's not working right

[Eighty]

Hmm, sounds like something I've heard recently.  There was a post towards the end of this thread:  Replicator 2 - First Impressions that was the same issue.  You're definitely missing steps on one axis.  Try checking the belt, and see if there is a tooth or two missing at the joint.

[Ian Lougheed]

Or just make sure each axis has sufficient belt tension. Mine wasn't missing any teeth, or skipping stepper motor steps, it was simply a loose belt that would jump a tooth every so often.

Also, OP, it looks like you've got intermittent extrusion. Make sure your filament is the correct diameter and that it's feeding properly. Otherwise you might need to adjust your extruder's delrin plunger, as per the user's manual.

[JohnA.]

Print the same chain links (that worked) again. 

If it works, it's probably not a filament feeding or belt-skipping problem.

JohnA.



On Friday, November 16, 2012 2:27:58 AM UTC-5, Kyle Hart wrote:

Hey guys I'm new to 3D printing and just got my new Replicator 2 in the mail today. Setup was a breeze, got the extruder height dialed in a printed out a set of the chain links with no trouble. Then I tried it again on the finer setting and the extruder started skipping around randomly offsetting the print pattern. I drew up a simple .25"x.25" block in CAD to use as a benchmark and it looks like everytime the plate lowers it moves slightly off axis. I tried a different part I made in CAD and it just went all over the place. Any ideas as to what's wrong?

Kyle

[Mark Durbin]

You may also have turned off acceleration, I did this by restoring the factory defaults.

Make sure it's turned on.

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[Steve]

Ian Lougheed 

How do we determine the correct tightness of the belts?

 . 

[Dan Newman]

Steve wrote:
>
>
> Ian Lougheed
>
> How do we determine the correct tightness of the belts?

You can compare the X and Y axis belts and see if they feel to be about
the same: they should be.
Beyond that, the best way to tell is to make a stubby cylinder and print
it and see if it is circular
or elliptical. You want it to be circular. See, for example,

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12259

for some objects you could slice and print.

Dan

[Steve]

dnewman 

Thanks again for sharing your insights, they are very helpful. 

Did you learn all this through the school of hard knocks, or are there places with things I should be reading

about 3D printing and Makerbots other than the MakerBot web site/Wiki, this group, the Skeinforge and ReplicatorG

web pages?

 .

[Dan Newman]

On 16 Nov 2012 , at 7:08 PM, Steve wrote:

>
> dnewman
>
>
> Thanks again for sharing your insights, they are very helpful.
>
> Did you learn all this through the school of hard knocks, or are there
> places with things I should be reading
> about 3D printing and Makerbots other than the MakerBot web site/Wiki, this
> group, the Skeinforge and ReplicatorG
> web pages?

I started with a Cupcake CNC back in 2010 (but largely kept my mouth
shut back then as I was pretty busy helping with the development of the
Eggbot and some other projects). So, I go back a moderate ways with this stuff
but not as far back as others on this list (who remember the first few
batches of Cupcakes and the very early Skeinforge, RepG, and other
softwares people were wrestling with and rapidly improving).

So, definitely the school of hard knocks.

Unfortunately, a lot of the docs on the makerbot wiki are somewhat dated. E.g.,

http://wiki.makerbot.com/thingomatic-doc:about-timing-belts

And, for whatever reason, there's not a lot of more up-to-date docs on calibrating
Rep 1 and 2's. (I keep on meaning to write some stuff up, but Sailfish keeps me
pretty busy as is.)

Dan

[Dan Newman]

On 15 Nov 2012 , at 11:27 PM, Kyle Hart wrote:

> Hey guys I'm new to 3D printing and just got my new Replicator 2 in the mail today. Setup was a breeze, got the extruder height dialed in a printed out a set of the chain links with no trouble. Then I tried it again on the finer setting and the extruder started skipping around randomly offsetting the print pattern. I drew up a simple .25"x.25" block in CAD to use as a benchmark and it looks like everytime the plate lowers it moves slightly off axis. I tried a different part I made in CAD and it just went all over the place. Any ideas as to what's wrong?

What are you using to do the slicing? MakerWare or RepG? I
ask since there was a bug in RepG 39's support for Replicator 2's
which would result in behavior like that…. And it's easily worked
around. There's a missing closing ")" in the start gcode file for the
Replicator 2 in RepG 39. It throws the gcode parser in RepG for
loop and it generates s3g commands which do novel things with the bot
(or at least did for me on my Rep 1 when that bug got perpetuated
into the Rep 1 start gcode in early beta versions of RepG 40).

Dan

[Dan Newman]

Reread your message: you say "finer setting" so I take it you mean MakerWare.
It's my understanding that MakerWare isn't correctly working when you use
the "fine" setting. That's when it tries to use Skeinforge 50 instead of
MiracleGrue. You can contact MBI support to get the status on that issue
and see if a fix has been issued yet.

In the meantime, you can use RepG 40 from http://replicat.org and give
that a try.

Dan