HUGE offset on Rep 5th gen

[Nadav Liebermann]

I got my rep 5th gen a couple of days ago, up until now I printed example parts and it was OK.

Once I started printing my own parts it went terribly wrong.

Any one else has this issue?

It starts OK - then (each time on a different height) is "jumps", it starts with an angel and then goes buzzerks.

HELP please? I need this ASAP

Nadav

[Ryan Carlyle]

Are they offsetting on the X axis (the carriage moving side to side) or on an XY diagonal?

X axis means the clip holding the carriage to the belt is broken/missing. XY diagonal means one of the motors is jammed due to a belt alignment issue.

Either way, you probably have to send the printer back to Makerbot. Call tech support. (Don't email.)

[Nadav Liebermann]

It has an offset on both axis, I also guess it is something with on of the motors. I read about someone who had a problem with one of the stepper motor encoders. He has a similar problem of the printer having a constant offset between layers. I also have a "jump" every few layers.

I'm in Israel so sending the printer back to Makerbot isn't a convenient option for me. I called them on Saturday (that's when it happened) and I am still waiting for them to call me back.

[Ryan Carlyle]

Keep calling until you talk to a person. Do not wait for them to return your call. MBI support is very good IF AND ONLY IF you actually talk to them.

[Brandon Andrzejewski]

+1 for the human element.  It is staggering how many people complain about MBI support and have never called them.  I suggest giving them a call shortly after they open up the phone lines, I (nearly always) get a human on the first go and my problem solved before coffee.

[doug poole]

For a start, i didn't see any encoders fitted to the 5th Gen's. I doubt they are used.

This 5th Gen is the cheapest setup i have ever seen, It's like they printed the parts them selves.

There is no way the components add up to more than $800 dollars total. (Everything is cheap inside)

So, they are making approx 200% profit, on a printer that obviously has continuous failures and issues. It's NOT just the extruder !

Its a real shame, but MBI did a big screw up with this product.

Although i had SOME good prints, i am not impressed one bit !

SO, Its been returned, and i have my cash back.

For $3 Grand, i can build a gold plated one myself.

What a waste of time and energy, trying to get this resolved.

I hope all you guys out there with a 5th Gen, stop trying to fix problems that they should resolve. Heck, they should have a mass recall like the car manufacturers.

At least stop selling the 5th Gen until they fix it.

They won't even admit they made a big mistake, let alone fix the issues.

Oh, and when you are more technical than the staff in customer support, they get very obnoxious, so enjoy your phone call when calling in, once the conversation gets HOT, your in big trouble (if you don't stand your ground), they will try to be sweet, but its a BIG front.

[Martin Dillon]

Brandon....

I had the exact same thought the other day.  I only email when they ask for information, otherwise I call and always talk to someone in less them 5 min.

[Ryan Carlyle]

Doug, there is a rotary encoder in the Smart Extruder that is intended to detect nozzle clogging / loss of proper filament motion. This functionality does not currently appear to be enabled in firmware.

Use of encoders for motion position on consumer-grade 3d printers is not currently the norm. Some people like Jetguy have built servomotor printers but stepper motors and step-counting is used in all commercial models at this price point. That works pretty well as long as you keep speeds reasonable and there are no mechanical issues with the gantry to cause skipped steps.

[doug poole]

Ryan,

Sure, understood. If the stepper slips, then that's it. My point is that the 5th Gen has nothing in the way of feedback with motion and is cheap and crap.

With the extruder, it has a hall effect sensor, that's your Z travel calibration.

I know, i took the damn thing apart, screw there warranty procedure, the thing is crap.

Here are the pics, and my mod, so as you can get the clog out without taking extruder apart. Just remove the material as per photo, you can then pull out with tweezers. Access is through the side of the head, under cooling rings.

How do you think i had my 5th Gen working for so long without having to send back extruder once.

On Saturday, May 17, 2014 12:51:31 PM UTC-4, Nadav Liebermann wrote:

[Ryan Carlyle]

My point is, NOBODY is selling consumer-grade printers with position feedback. So it's not much of a critique of the 5g that it doesn't have that. In fact, the 5g apparently CAN detect when the steppers are skipping, because that seems to be how the XY homing works. Which, ironically, puts it a half step beyond anything else on the market, from a "what's possible" standpoint. This is inferior to a true encoder because skipped steps still rely on dead reckoning. But it's potentially a very nice compromise to keep cost down. The problem is, the firmware doesn't know what to do when it skips, and the mechanical construction is bad enough that it DOES skip. In principle the design has features that surpass the competition. But right now it's a beta and those features aren't working.

[Ryan Carlyle]

I'm not disagreeing that the 5g is over-priced and under-built. That's a fact. But many of your specific criticisms are off base and copy/pasting the same complaints in every relevant thread is just annoying.

Injection molding is very expensive up front, and the use of PC-ABS parts is an excellent design decision. And the parts probably do cost about $800 per unit at this scale. Then you factor engineering, patents, marketing, HR costs, legal costs, and everything else a business has to spend money on, and the cost is MODERATELY excessive, not insanely high like you seem to think. The same printer would probably be $1600-1800 from a Chinese knock-off company or $1000-1200 if you built it yourself. Which you're welcome to do. Nobody's stopping you. That's probably a better idea than voiding your warranty to give yourself a way to fix one of several different failure modes, since you now may not be able to receive the upgraded model for free.

[Jetguy]

Here's my gripe and I am trying to help.

 

In EVERY case of the 5 gen skipping in X Y plane, it's the simple plastic clip that attaches the belt to the X carriage. Because it's H-Bot, it is ALL one big belt loop.

SO, if it slips at the carriage, then the resulting motion can be a shift in MANY directions, not just X or Y.

 

And, the stupid part about this is that rather than sending you a clip, they ship the ENTIRE machine back and forth.It costs them money and you time and frustration. Further, what happens when the warranty runs out?

 

The easy fix? Simply get a small zip tie or two and clamp the belt to the carriage using that. Heck, it works for Repraps, it works for my Core XY and I garantee is probably LESS backlash than the stock plastic clip.

Or, Somebody who owns this machine and has 3D cad skills, MAKE A PRINTABLE VERSION.

 

Just saying, this is insane to replace a 2 cent plastic clip. Isn't that the ENTIRE point of having a 3D printer on hand?

[Ryan Carlyle]

The carriage-belt clip failure is stupid, 100% agreement there. I've never liked Makerbot's belt clip design. It causes backlash even when it works right.

[Andre Bynoe]

I just got a Replicator Mini yesterday and having a similar issue. But so far all my prints have been successful. However my question is does this carriage-belt clip issue ever occur during the homing procedure?

What's happening with me is usually the machine starts printing +20mm over from the center. It doesn't do this all the time, but when it does, usually during the homing procedure there's a sound like the belt has slipped.

[Ryan Carlyle]

When steppers stall, they make a distinct hammering/clicking sound. Easy to mistake for belt slippage.

[Jon Wong]

Could you provide a picture for this? Thanks :)

On Tuesday, May 20, 2014 6:31:06 PM UTC-5, Jetguy wrote: