Improved calibration of my RepRapPro.

3D Printing
,
1

Improved calibration of my RepRapPro.

Old printing (all with black background): huge layers, and the fitting U test (http://www.thingiverse.com/download:17274) did not fit at all. 50mm wall was not 50mm in wall width. Measures were not exact (e.g. 52mm instead of 50, and not square)
Current printing (green and yellow bed): Measures are near OK (50mm is 50.4mm or 50.5) Layers are near good. The new U fit test worked fine and I was able to fit a piece in the other almost completely (just about 1mm left).
WHAT I DONE:

  • General check and fine alignment of the mechanics (trying to get absolute 90 degree between some axes)
  • Repaired the extruder gear that was shifting (not regular extrusion).
  • Glued the Y-axe plastic pulley (jumped out. Ordered a new one in Aluminium)
  • Tighten the x and y belts
  • Increased the accuracy of the X,Y,E M92 params.
  • DELETED THE SKEINFORGE profile (I played too much with the parameters, and it went out of control) and restore the factory settings coming from RepRapPro, and changed some minor values (e.g. bed centre)
  • Lowered the PLA melting point to 185C

TO DO:
One Z-rods is not perfectly stright and causes some slight move of the X-axe. I will need to find one exactly stright. I tried to fix but it is almost impossible. I looked at a local shop, and they are all bended more or less!
I can’t understand why the 50mm thin wall (http://www.thingiverse.com/download:17273) have a 3mm gap at the beginning. It starts do draw the first layer and the plastic stops 3mm before closing the gap. In my opinion it should depend from a wrong Extrusion coefficient (e.g. the plastic ends before it expects) but when I measured the extruded filament length with G1 E100 seemed to extrude 10cm.

  • May be another random shift problem ?
  • Is it the extruder back filament value too hight that should be lowered ? Where is it ?

Another issue is the melting of PLA in short items. The square tower become a half melted cylinder. Even the small parallelepiped on the small circled item in photo is melting down and rotating on itself.
I do not use any fan at the moment.

  • IS IT MANDATORY in the RepRapPro Mendel ?
    If yes, it should be included as base project option like the hot bed is.
    If not, what is the current best approach ?

  • Check the level of belt tight.
    I would need a scientific approach to measure the belt tight.
    My proposal: if I pluck the belt as a string, I get a sound of a certain frequency, that changes as soon as I tighten and loosen the screw.

  • Can any of you that owns a RepRapPro Mendel Mono well calibrated record the sound you obtain by plucking the belt and post the wav/mp3 ?

That would be simple easy to tight the belt until the same sound frequency (and some tight). Of course the recording should be done on the exact same machine model, otherwise other mechanical parameters can change the sound.
Then we could post the file on the Mendel installing Wiki.

f8d6a8cbf66f1844b2c4d031e4fafbd3.jpeg
f8d6a8cbf66f1844b2c4d031e4fafbd3.jpeg3888×2592 2.26 MB

0006772c033f315a3ecba93f98f69e74.jpeg
0006772c033f315a3ecba93f98f69e74.jpeg3888×2592 2.37 MB

725616e57c0f97cceff54c9fc876c559.jpeg
725616e57c0f97cceff54c9fc876c559.jpeg3888×2592 2.29 MB

b15478adfc9699db76f319df20aafbe3.jpeg
b15478adfc9699db76f319df20aafbe3.jpeg3888×2592 943 KB

7f1284a4098d7af2225ed5c252d22bae.jpeg
7f1284a4098d7af2225ed5c252d22bae.jpeg2048×1366 125 KB

2eafaf16a52542824edd6b4bef6be438.jpeg
2eafaf16a52542824edd6b4bef6be438.jpeg2048×1366 123 KB

5304a9cc6c59342a0848c71d0de1789f.jpeg
5304a9cc6c59342a0848c71d0de1789f.jpeg2048×1366 123 KB

93b26847dfb33af1f4ea5b6fb8930397.jpeg
93b26847dfb33af1f4ea5b6fb8930397.jpeg2048×1366 120 KB

d2e96afcefb4d35eb01864ce4a44491b.jpeg
d2e96afcefb4d35eb01864ce4a44491b.jpeg2048×1366 120 KB

1e66dac282d5503b78fa4d37b4caadc8.jpeg
1e66dac282d5503b78fa4d37b4caadc8.jpeg2048×1366 80.7 KB

71455463614881c5a7f427e24de6e336.jpeg
71455463614881c5a7f427e24de6e336.jpeg2048×1366 83.9 KB

ce0c556a813f159b47093af23f961d51.jpeg
ce0c556a813f159b47093af23f961d51.jpeg2048×1366 90.8 KB

362b49ea0756331875e6dad073e44676.jpeg
362b49ea0756331875e6dad073e44676.jpeg2048×1366 95 KB

2

Hi Roberto,
I have got a RepRapPro Mendel too … since february. First I thought to do calibration tests as you do. I had some troubles with the results. Finally, i discovered that the default RepRapPro skeinforge settings are right. There is nothing to change.
All troubles came from mechanical problems. It is essentially the pulleys that have a game drive shaft around. I slipped a metal strip in the flat on the pulley. It is really fixed now.
Other trouble : When the axis of the pulley and her idler are not strictly parallel, the belt rubs somewhere and this creates breaks step and therefore a shift in the layers of the printed part.
The belts should not be too tight or not enough. It’s not really a problem.
These are right for the Y axis and for the X axis.
Once all these mechanical constraints are met, the printer produces perfect parts.
From your photos, it appears that the rate of your extruder is too high.
Personally I left this setting to 875 (M92 E875) and it’s sufficient.

I bought PLA from another supplier and there are only temperatures that have been changed. 230°C for the first layer and 200°C for the rest. Nothing else.

The 50mm thin wall works only with two fans … front and back fans. The PLA must be cooled quickly before the hot end come for the next layer.
You can print the first layer at 185°C and you can try to lower the temperature as much as possible (170°C ?) from the second layer. For this, you can edit your gcode file.

If you don’t want to use fans, you have to print your tower slowly. You could introduce pauses between each layer in the gcode file.

And pay attention with your aluminium pulley. Those i saw had all 16 teeth. RepRapPro Mendel plastic ones have only 14 … X and Y settings should be changed in that case.