So it starts - Voron 0.1 build

[mvdveer]

6 hours ago, smirk said:

minimalistic eco-friendly packaging:

That amazon for you. Never surprises me how they need to use the biggest parcel for the smallest item

[Buurman]

9 hours ago, mvdveer said:

That amazon for you. Never surprises me how they need to use the biggest parcel for the smallest item

Well, atleast its not wrapped in 8 layers of plastic like our well known Chinese friends... like the package is meant to go on a boat, it could sink, package would still float to shore, some guy would pick it up at still be able to deliver a perfectly fine product  that also explains the 6 weeks delivery sometimes  

[smirk]

3 hours ago, Buurman said:

Well, atleast its not wrapped in 8 layers of plastic

I always thought it was more like reverse pass-the-parcel, each courier adds an extra layer. I am always intrigued in the logistics behind these things (given the at-times minimalistic cost), I just suspect a lot relies on the six degrees of separation

[smirk]

<Sigh>

I got my magnetic panels finished and found some insulation (left over from some other project). I even got the tophat built - which I absolute hate. Fat fingers and very similar parts which need a precise orientation don't go well together. To me the top-hat is the worse part of the build.

When putting the door on I found i'd inexplicably forgotten to print the (magnetic) door catches. A very small annoyance, fortunately one of the other printers came to the rescue.

I was  feeling good:

When testing the machine, everything (still) worked- the fans, heaters, end-stops, motion. It was going great. Until I tried to do a resonance test. All I got was a "Invalid adxl345 id (got xx vs e5)" error, which is apparently indicative of buggered wiring or connectivity.

Ho hum, never mind. I have other ADXL345s, thought I, and I'll double check with those. Nope. That didn't work. I've now tried them on  two of my other machines and  those didn't work either. So it would seem all my ADXL345s are buggered?! Or possibly a software update?

Guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend.

 

 

[mvdveer]

32 minutes ago, smirk said:

all my ADXL345s are buggered?!

Had the same problem - just run the command a second time and see if that fixes the problem. On one of Nero3D videos this same problem occurred and rerunning the query command seemed to fix it.

Run - ACCELEROMETER_QUERY - this will give the error. If you immediately run this again, it should, if this is the problem run without an error. Then proceed to input shaping.

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, smirk said:

I was  feeling good:

So you should - nice unit

[smirk]

32 minutes ago, mvdveer said:

run this again

Sadly running it again made no difference, so it's possibly not that software bug which fails to initialise the ADXL345. I've got more accelerometers and a PI that's not been updated for months so will try that tomorrow.

6 minutes ago, mvdveer said:

So you should - nice unit

Thank you

[mvdveer]

5 minutes ago, smirk said:

Sadly running it again made no difference

Bummer - always something not resonating with the build . Sure you will get it sorted

[smirk]

Dear god!

I had to break out my trusty magnetic hyper-wrench. I used that to reverse the polarity of the gravitons emitted by the main deflector array which in turn allowed  the stabilisation of the sub-space interface membrane with regular space-time. Phew!

In layperson-speak, I rotated the gpio diagram 180° which allowed me to plug the bloody connector in the right way round! It was an amazing challenge to my intellect but I'm proud that I got there in the end! I shall see you all at the Nobel Prize award ceremony....

I guess I can take some pride in being consistently wrong and plugging multiple accelerometers into multiple raspberry pi's all in precisely the wrong orientation!

The rather amusing thing (and what did genuinely throw me) was the little LED on the Mellow ADXL345 accelerometer lit up no matter which way around it was plugged. So it never occurred to me (as it had power) that I'd reversed the connector - I am surprised it managed to get power (really I'm glad the magic black smoke did not escape) as the power pins would've been plugged into random input pins. It wasn't until I gave up and did a complete back-to-basics check that I realised my school-boy error!

[smirk]

Well carrying on the pre-flight checks, I noticed the klicky-probe was not docking propery (basicaly hauling the probe off the dock). I vaguely remember when I was originally setting it up and testing it, I had the dock holder the wrong way round (so the dock was protruding far too far into the chamber) but it did dock.

My solution was shims washers (lots of them):

 

My other trauma was the bloody umbilical. Clearly I have made the cabling just a little too long so it bunches up just enough, and just like a cheeky victorian street urchin throwing rocks at the toffs, it keeps knocking the bloody top-hat off.

I found a tophat riser that will suffice for the moment. I always grumble when parts for the V0 won't actually print on the V0 bed (we don't all have 350x350 big Vorons....yet) and whilst this one technically breaks down into 4  pieces they really are at the absolute limit of the bed. Perhaps if I had a Mandala Rose (130mm^2) bed then it might've worked.

Anyway, I managed to bodge something on another printer with some filament that I found (yes I've almost run out of black ABS so wanted to keep that for emergency reprints). I'm not entirely happy with the end result but the top hat does at least stay on now without the use of elastic bands or ducktape.

On a positive note: Hoorah for magnet panels. The salvation of fat-fingered eejits. Being able to (easily) remove the sides allowed me to get my hands in and undo and redo various nuts.

On the subject of emergency reprints, I had to reprint the latch for the mini-AB  for whatever reason the one I'd printed simply was not catching (and staying closed) no matter how little tension I applied to the tensioner (?!).

 

Now onto the last mile, the tuning with the ever able help of Mr Ellis. Gotta admit that this is generally my least favourite part of 3d printing. Tuning/calibrating the things. To me, it's somewhat akin to trying to balance a marble on a sheet of glass at the same time as riding a unicycle over cobbled streets.

In the wisdom of the Mythic Man Month, this part of the project will tkae the remaining 80% of the time.......

[Penatr8tor]

22 minutes ago, smirk said:

My solution was shims washers (lots of them):

I took a step file of the probe bracket and modeled up a quick spacer. Let me know what the distance is and I'll send you an STL. 

Better yet... I've uploaded an STL of a 20mm thick spacer. Just sink it into the bed in your slicer <20mm. So if you need 12mm, move the Z down 8mm so that 12mm is protruding from the bed, etc. or some will say change the Z scale but I think that's too much math.

KlickyProbe_20mm Spacer.stl

[claudermilk]

I was going to mention KlickyNG has added a spacer part, but @Penatr8tor probably has a more useful part for you. I had to space my dock with one set of shims like Steve did. Apparently there's many of us needing to do this, thus the KlickyNG part--which happens to be exactly that thickness.

[Penatr8tor]

@claudermilk Plus the part is simple enough that the spacer distance can be easily modified in the slicer.

[smirk]

Hmmm....rather interestingly my second mini-AB latch started to pop off. I had set one of the Ellis EM multiplier tests off this morning while I was in a meeting so wasn't watching the printer. When the meeting finished (that took a lot longer than the print) I eagerly looked at the print bed only to find it bare. After my initial "Aaaargh the hotend is blocked" subsided I realised the latch had popped open. I ended up replacing the [latch] bolt with a powder coated black bolt rather than the stainless ones I had been using. The surface of the powdered coat bolt is a little rougher. Whether that has fixed the issue or it's just a case of removing/replacing/re-tightening the bolt I'm not going to bother finding out.....it works......I hope......the tuning continues.....

[smirk]

Patches! Patches everywhere. as far as the eye can see!

 

I hate to think how many little patches I've printed.

I thought I had got to the "end" of my tuning effort only to find an unacceptable number of gaps in one of the first peices that I printed. I know that does not necessarily mean underextrusion but I could not tune them out with slicer settings. So I ended up right back at the start.

I retuned the extruder, I'd clearly been out by 0.5mm or somesuch on the 100mm extrusion and that appears to  have had a non-trivial knock on to the other tunings (PA, EM, etc). So back around the merry-go we go.....

[Buurman]

20 minutes ago, smirk said:

I hate to think how many little patches I've printed

but they look good!!  

[mvdveer]

5 hours ago, smirk said:

thought I had got to the "end" of my tuning effort only to find

Always the way

[smirk]

Expletives!  Well I've clocked up 15.5 hours mostly of tuning prints and a two test prints......and I've just noticed the cooling fans have stopped working. I'll try and sort that tomorrow. The main thing is the hotend fan is still spinning.

[mvdveer]

18 minutes ago, smirk said:

the cooling fans have stopped working

The worst problem on a V0, especially for fumbling fingers like mine. Must be the month of the Loki of 3d printing up to mischief Me - PCB causing me ages of despair @Buurman with support despair and now you @smirk with cooling despair - except under your collar - that will be HOT

[Penatr8tor]

8 hours ago, smirk said:

Patches! Patches everywhere. as far as the eye can see!

I hate to think how many little patches I've printed.

Ahhhhh... So that's how you get rid of orange filament.  Mystery solved!

I have a ton of those. For my trip to see the family, I printed some pokemon figures and misc printed toys for my niece's son... and I also filled a big ziplock bag full of my little test cubes for him to make walls that he can crash his hot wheels cars thru.

[smirk]

<even more expletives> Well inbetween meetings thought I would diagnose the non-operational part cooling fans....

I thought the easiest way would be to just by pass the electronics and plumb the fans directly to the power supply. I was super careful to get the polarity around the right way. However, in my pre-test testing I noticed the meanwell is pumping out 26.5 volts (!). [I know! I shoulda tested, but never thought as it was a quality bit of kit.]

Connecting the fans directly to the powersupply did not work, they're still dead. I know the fans had been working as that's one of the basic tests I did do when setting up the machine (make sure all the fans work).

Give they are twiddly and little and the power supply was overvoltage I imagine they're burnt out rather than it being a broken cable (it's certainly not a duff fan port on the board). I really do not fancy having to strip the entire head down just to get at those bloody fans.....which I do not have spares for........and everyone is on strike so the post is not working and half the stuff I have order is delayed.....

Oh, well, I'm making progress. I started this post in the "Denial" phase of the grief cycle. Just typing I have transitioned into the "Anger" stage....ggrrrr...bloody annoyed!.

Well thanks for listening, it's been cathartic, see you at the next session!

[claudermilk]

Sometimes you just have to vent. Been there.

[smirk]

The mystery deepens. Rather that simply "tune" my Meanwell I thought I'll double check. My other multimeter says 24.2v. I cannot find my 3rd or 4th multimeters at the moment (may have lent them out) so I am not quorate on the electrical readings front. Clearly that makes no difference to the dead fans. I'm moving out of bargaining ("Should I just run the machine with no parts cooling......it'll be fine.....what could go wrong?!?") and approaching acceptance.

I've got the "spine" wiring duct ripped out of the machine and will start to unpick wiring.......

[smirk]

Right, checked the cooling fan wiring continuity up to to toolhead and it's all fine, so the fans are goners

Short of waiting until next year I had to order some suitable replacements from Amazon they'll arrive Thursday and are eye-wateringly expensive, but I'll just have to suck that up as I don't want to wait 2 months.

The cooling fans are out of the toolhead now - it was like pulling the lungs out of a puppy. I felt sad. Remarkedly, they actually came out relatively easily. I sincerely hope the reverse is just as easy.

 

Again, thank goodness for magnetic panels it just made it so much less of a hassle to work on the machine and not have the panels in the way of worry about scuffing them up when moving the machine around.

[smirk]

Hoorah, new fans arrived today, and they work!

I'll get around to refitting them tomorrow and then back off round the tuning cycle again.....