Posts made by funjon

lol i spoke too soon my new extruder stepper's shaft is too long. BRB getting out the dremel…

So I've spent a ton of time troubleshooting (very carefully, as blowing a driver has scared the crap out of me). Lots of things.

1. The Z stepper - I redid the wiring, but I finally got mad and replaced the stepper. Some decent NEMA 17's on Amazon were $15, so I bought 5 (in case, you know, I go mad and build a replacement printer - more later). Replaced the stepper, and used the wire that came with it, bam, perfect Z axis.

2. The extruder - Replaced that one too, because as I was looking into the Z stepper, I determined that Wanhao has some funky wiring for some of the motors. The X and Y have always behaved perfectly, but the Z motor was wired straight through, where it should've had some wires crossed over for the (a,b)(1,2) positions. Same for the extruder. Just finished testing and validating steps/mm for E0, and we're good to go.

The lack of markings (both of brand/model of the stepper, and which pin is which) scared me, and I was concerned about the lack of movement/random movement in both E0 when I was testing, and Z when it was acting psychotic. $30 worth of steppers has given me much peace of mind.

I believe I have a working printer! Thank you all so much for your help.

And, now that it's working again, I think I'm going to start printing parts for a D-bot (after I print the housing for the PanelDue!). I'll be putting a Duet in that one, too. At least I'll be building it from scratch, and won't be able to blame any blown parts on anyone but me.

I am running a 24V system (my multimeter currently says the PSU is outputting 24.1V DC). Motor current for E0 was 1500mA.

I will email Filastruder tomorrow. Thanks!

Well, crap. I was trying to calibrate my extruder while waiting for some help on the Z axis, and it wouldn't turn - like it was jammed. After it tried briefly, I heard a pop and smelled smoke. Looks like the driver for E0 grenaded.

I double-checked this wiring, it's not bad. Wondering if the stepper itself is jacked up somehow.

Guess I can try to go on E1, but I'd rather not kill another driver.

sigh Starting to feel like this isn't meant to be.

The broken wiring:
Green = Z axis
Yellow = Y axis

I apologize for the delay in response; I spent most of last week dealing with a death in the family.

Last night I pulled the wiring out to take some pictures, as requested, and discovered the wiring loom for my Z-axis stepper had some crimp failures. I re-crimped the ends and rebuilt the plug, and it seems more solid now. I checked the rest and they seem good.

I did use the configurator, but I also started from a config from another person who had a Wanhao Duplicator 6 and replaced the board with a DuetWifi. Both have yielded a relatively similar configuration.

I've figured out my +/- issue, I need to tell it that the X axis goes backwards, and now when it homes to zero, X+ goes to the right as expected. Y+ still goes up, as expected. So that's solved.

My problem however is still the Z axis. When I can get it to move, it still randomly goes up or down. Sometimes it just sits there and makes whining noises like David Tennant in The End Of Time[1]. I'll double-check all the wiring, and maybe hand-turn the lead screw to get the bed closer to home. Somewhat disturbingly, I told it to Home Z, and it sat, grinding and whimpering near the bottom of travel, and so I came here to finish my reply. When I went back to my Duet tab, it says the Z axis is homed and it's at Z=0. Which is hard to believe, since it never got to the endstop, and I don't have a probe (installed or configured: [c]M558 P0[/c]). Not sure where it gets that idea, since it's been told about the endswitch ([c]M574 X1 Y1 Z1 S0[/c]).

I tried upping the current a bit to the Z motor, and now it consistently moves without grinding and pulling a Tennant, but it still bounces randomly backward and forward.

My current running config:

; Configuration file for Duet WiFi (firmware version 1.16)
; executed by the firmware on start-up
;
; generated by RepRapFirmware Configuration Tool on Sat Mar 25 2017 23:18:27 GMT-0700 (PDT)

; General preferences
M111 S0 ; Debugging off
G21 ; Work in millimetres
G90 ; Send absolute coordinates...
M83 ; ...but relative extruder moves
M555 P2 ; Set firmware compatibility to look like Marlin
M208 X0 Y0 Z0 S1 ; Set axis minima
M208 X200 Y200 Z180 S0 ; Set axis maxima

; Endstops
M574 X1 Y1 Z1 S0 ; Define active low and unused microswitches
M558 P0 ; no Z probe installed
;M558 P1 X0 Y0 Z0 H5 F120 T6000 ; Set Z probe type to unmodulated, the axes for which it is used and the probe + travel speeds
;G31 P600 X0 Y0 Z2.5 ; Set Z probe trigger value, offset and trigger height
;M557 X15:185 Y15:185 S20 ; Define mesh grid

; Drives
M569 P0 S0 ; Drive 0 goes backwards
M569 P1 S1 ; Drive 1 goes forwards
M569 P2 S1 ; Drive 2 goes forwards
M569 P3 S1 ; Drive 3 goes forwards
M350 X16 Y16 Z16 E16 I1 ; Configure microstepping with interpolation
M92 X80.4 Y80.4 Z800 E95 ; Set steps per mm
M566 X1200 Y1200 Z1200 E1200 ; Set maximum instantaneous speed changes (mm/min)
M203 X20000 Y20000 Z1000 E1000 ; Set maximum speeds (mm/min)
M201 X1000 Y1000 Z1000 E1000 ; Set accelerations (mm/s^2)
M906 X1000 Y1000 Z1500 E1000 I60 ; Set motor currents (mA) and motor idle factor in per cent
M84 S30 ; Set idle timeout

; Heaters
M143 S280 ; Set maximum heater temperature to 280C
M305 P0 T100000 B3988 R4700 ; Set thermistor + ADC parameters for heater 0
M305 P1 T100000 B4138 R4700 X200 ; Set thermistor + ADC parameters for heater 1 and remap it to channel 200

; Tools
M563 P0 D0 H1 ; Define tool 0
G10 P0 X0 Y0 Z0 ; Set tool 0 axis offsets
G10 P0 R0 S0 ; Set initial tool 0 active and standby temperatures to 0C

; Network
M550 Pdup6duet ; Set machine name
M552 P0.0.0.0 S1 ; Enable network and acquire dynamic address via DHCP

; Fans
M106 P0 S1 I0 F500 H1 T180 ; Set fan 0 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned on
M106 P1 S1 I0 F500 H-1 ; Set fan 1 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned off
M106 P2 S0.5 I0 F500 H-1 ; Set fan 2 value, PWM signal inversion and frequency. Thermostatic control is turned off

; Custom settings are not configured

; Miscellaneous
T0 ; Select first tool

I appreciate any insight. Thanks!

[1] "I don't want to go!"

I bought a Duet Wifi to replace the broken motherboard in my Monoprice Maker Ultimate (a Wanhao Dup6 rebadge). After a bunch of long nights I got it all wired up and installed, figured out my various wiring issues, and I have a config! So I should be good, right?

Well. No.

I have a couple problems, and I'm almost certain that it's either a) my config is wrong, b) my expectations from the old Wanhao firmware are clouding my experience, or c) I broke something. Likely a sad mismash of all 3. Here's what I got:

1. So I have a config that -seems- to work. On the Wanhao, the X and Y endstops are in the front left corner, and the Z endstop is in the back, but at the top of bed travel. So I put all 3 in as at the low end, and home the bed. It correctly homes the X and Y axis, placing them at (0,0). I tell it to move Y+, and it grinds against the endstop. But X+ moves it to the right, as expected! Tell it to move Y-, and it moves away from me (in what should be the positive direction?) I'm clearly confused here. All the steppers are wired the same, straight through.

1a) Part of my confusion related to coordinates and endstops is, if I tell it the endstop is at the low end of the axis (so X=0), and it homes the head at X=0, it knows the endstop is engaged. But if I tell it to move X-, it sits there and grinds against the endstop, and happily now reports X=-10. Whaaaaat? Why ever support this? Now it thinks the printhead is jamming through the crossbar on the left side.

2. And then there's the Z axis. The Duet really wants there to be a Z probe, but I don't have one (and hadn't planned on one - I have endstops, why can't those suffice?). I tell it to home the Z axis, and this gets all kind of grindy and crunchy. It's like the Z stepper is bouncing rapidly forward and backward. The bed barely moves and I'm wondering if the stepper is eating itself. Also, when it finally gives up on homing the Z axis, it has a cool trick: I can repeatedly hit the Z+ (or Z-, doesnt matter which as long as I hit the same one) button, and it will randomly decide which way is up. Yesterday I hit the Z+10 button ten times, and the board moved, in order, up, down, down, up, up, down, up, up, down, up. Does this sound like a wiring problem? Configuration?

I've both taken a config from another person who replaced the Duplicator 6 board with a DuetWifi, and started from scratch. I can't get it to behave. I'm sure there's lots of causes here, and I'm fully aware that part of this is probably expecting it to act like the OEM firmware in methods of control, so I just need to get my head wrapped around it, but if anyone has opinions or ideas, I'd love to hear them.