baseball43v3r

Hey all, got a curious situation. I'm getting a mintemp error when I start my ultimaker, but I'm getting an accurate temp reading on screen of 25C. If I squeeze the sensor between my hands the temp goes up, and I've tested for continuity so I know it's connected. So why could I be getting this error? If it helps I have an upgraded head to an e3d hotend. Any ideas?

A little update... Still think I'm not pulling enough power from my power supply. tried the new heater with the same setup, but this time disabled the fan after the first layer, and the temp seems to be holding steady. So it looks like I'm simply not getting enough power to the machine. I'll look for another power supply that gives more amps at 19v but does anyone think that will fix the problem, or is the board regulated by how many amps it can take in?

I did use the the Marlin PID tuner like you linked. I don't think the problem is not pulling enough power, I switched heater cartridges and retuned the PID for the original ultimaker heater cartridge and I'm still getting the same error, so I think I have a problem with my board somewhere. I tried unplugging the external fan on the heater and still no dice, and thats the only other new thing I have on there. So I'm not sure :?: :roll:

I noticed in my last round of testing it is now hovering in the 190 range instead of the 180 so that's progress. I don't know enough about math to know how the PID equation affects the heater, so does anyone know which of the values affects the expected temp drop or bringing it back up to level, ie which one in which direction I should play around with?

So I've done a little testing and I'm not sure where to go. I measured the amp of the heater off the ultimaker board, and it was about 1 amp, multiplied by 19 volts gives me around 19 watts (I rounded to 20 to make my math easier). My heater from e3d is a 40 watt heater, so I ran the PID auto tune and cut those values in half and tried that, still no luck. Then did autotune again and used those values, still no luck. Also tried the values not cut in half. The terminal says the values are saved. I tried a little more testing, I extruded 100 mm of filament close to the bed with the fan on and off, the biggest temperature drop I got was 3 degrees, not nearly the 30 I am getting while printing. I'm wondering if it's the board at this point? Is there any way I can use an external PID controller with the board? or is that too hacky?

Yes, I stopped the print where it was and just moved it on x/y to to do the fan test. Bed is not heated, printing PLA. I did not retune the PID, do you have a link on doing that? I assumed it didn't need a retune because it's pretty consistent showing the 220 in my tests above. my heater is 24v. I assumed it wouldn't be a problem on a 19v system, I just figured it would take longer to heat up.

Hey all, I have an unusual problem that started this morning. I've tried to print several objects and each time after the first layer, the temp (or temp controller) will drop off but the temp seems to stay constant as the machine still prints. At least I think its constant as its reporting a temperature that should be too low for the printer to adequately print yet on my last part I printed which took 7 minutes it came out just fine, previous ones I didn't have as much luck as they were longer. I've tried tests so far with different parts, and also quickprinting in Cura and I get the same results each time. I looked through the gcode and I don't see any lines indicating a temperature change. Specs Ultimaker Original with ulticontroller e3d printhead with e3d hotend and thermistor Updated marlin firmware Octiprint interface with raspberry pi Gizmodorks filament a timelapse of my print, heats up normally, and then after the first layer the print temp drops into the 180's for the rest of the print until the command to shutdown. If i set the print to heat up to temperature this is the graph If I turn on the fan with the print temp this is the graph, seems consistent to me, not sure what the problem is

So I took a look at your files there gr5 and I was able to trace my DIR pin for the Z axis and on the Ultimaker board it wasn't even soldered... So a few seconds under the gun and it seems to work much better now. I spent more time taking apart the machine than I did troubleshooting or fixing it! Thanks for the help guys.

Yep already swapped the drivers, looks like I am throwing out a support ticket...

Switched the end stops as well and the same results.

Since I couldn't figure out how to test the endstops with my multimeter I tried Dim3nsioneer's suggestion, and lo and behold some results... So after switching the x and z motor I can move the bed just ifne but when I use the z axis on pronterface (which is now connected to the x axis) the x axis only moves in one direction regardless of whether I press up or down on pronterface. So I'm assuming this means it's a broken DIR bit on the z axis... how can I fix this? Do I need to replace my board? my arduino? could I resolder this?

hm so I tried to home and got the bed stuck all the way at the bottom. After some tinkering I got it reconnected in pronterface and got the z axis to move back up, I pressed the -z button to bring it up 10 mm and it went about 5mm, made an odd noise and went back down 5 mm. Now either direction on pronterface causes it to go back down. This is after I swapped drivers FYI. So I'm out of ideas.

Hey gr5, thanks for the info and sorry for the late reply, I left my machine at work and only now got back to it. So I tried your lines and now the machine has gone full bonkers. I tried the initial commands G1 Z15 F9000 G1 Z0 and it went down both times, with the second command being it went down a about 2 inches and then back up half an inch. Then I tried to autohome and it went up a hair and then went all the way down hitting the bottom zstop. it didn't stop at that point so I had to pull the plug. When i restarted it and tried to home again, it did the same thing, went all the way down. If I send manual commands or try to jog the z axis via pronterface it'll respond to that correctly. How do I go about checking the DIR bit? I'll try swapping drivers and see what happens.

Yes the bed is moving, but it is moving in the wrong direction. The spin of the coupler also coincides with the direction of the bed so it is definitely being told to do that. I've triple checked the coupler and that is not any play in it that I can find, as I initially suspected that.

;Generated with Cura_SteamEngine 13.12 M109 T0 S220.000000 T0 ;Sliced at: Mon 10-03-2014 13:01:18 ;Basic settings: Layer height: 0.2 Walls: 1 Fill: 10 ;Print time: #P_TIME# ;Filament used: #F_AMNT#m #F_WGHT#g ;Filament cost: #F_COST# ;M190 S70 ;Uncomment to add your own bed temperature line ;M109 S220 ;Uncomment to add your own temperature line G21 ;metric values G90 ;absolute positioning M107 ;start with the fan off G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops G28 Z0 ;move Z to min endstops G1 Z15.0 F9000 ;move the platform down 15mm G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length G1 F200 E3 ;extrude 3mm of feed stock G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again G1 F9000 ;Put printing message on LCD screen M117 Printing... ;Layer count: 169 ;LAYER:0 M107 G0 F4500 X91.77 Y93.49 Z0.30 ;TYPE:SKIRT G1 F2400 E0.00000 G1 F1800 X92.59 Y92.83 E0.02471 G1 X93.50 Y92.36 E0.04886 G1 X94.46 Y92.09 E0.07218 G1 X95.20 Y92.03 E0.08970 G1 X95.75 Y92.02 E0.10278 G1 X96.08 Y92.02 E0.11054 G1 X96.13 Y92.02 E0.11169 G1 X96.90 Y92.02 E0.12961 G1 X97.28 Y92.02 E0.13854 G1 X97.60 Y92.02 E0.14623 G1 X98.01 Y92.02 E0.15578 G1 X98.34 Y92.02 E0.16349 G1 X98.74 Y92.02 E0.17304 G1 X99.07 Y92.02 E0.18072 G1 X99.48 Y92.02 E0.19027 G1 X99.80 Y92.02 E0.19796 Thanks for the heads up illuminarti, I've been having problems with the plastic coming out irregularly so I'll fix it shortly.