New user; Start/end code adjustments needed

[tterickson67 0]

I'm a new comer to the 3d printing world.  Trying to get myself into it as well as inspire my kids to create and learn a new skill.  I have a pulse XE printer from matterhacker.  Being such, it wants to use matter control software.  It is not giving me good prints as noted by many other user reviews on the software.  Like to use Cura to slice it.  What I'm not sure about is how to modify the start and end codes correctly in Cura to account for my machine firmware and Z offset (-1.06 currently).  As cura doesn't have a pulse setting option, i'm using the Prusa mk2 as the pulse is a clone of that machine.  This was recommended by a youtuber.  I'm attaching a benchy file that sliced in mattercontrol and cura as well as the start and end codes from each software.  Would someone be able to to tell me what changes I need to make to the CURA start/end codes to be able to print files?

 

Any other advice or things to be aware of would be greatly educational for me.

Thank you in advance.

 

matter control

 

 

Benchy Cura Gcode.gcode Benchy MaCo gcode.gcode

[GregValiant 1,344]

There is some contradictory stuff going on.  First and foremost is to figure out what firmware you are actually running.  Do you know?  It looks like Matter Hacker took Marlin firmware and added their own commands from RepRap firmware.

Secondly, does your printer have Auto Bed Leveling?

Edited January 14, 2021 by GregValiant

[tterickson67 0]

Yes it does auto bed leveling.  It is using Marlin 1.1.9 It is configured with a Ultimachine RAMBo Mini board, a Bondtech Extruder, E3D V6 HotEnd, BLTouch, 8 bit motherboard & LCD screen, Heated Bed with a layerlock magbase base plate and PEI sheet.

 

[GregValiant 1,344]

You may have to do some experimentation.  Nothing in the Gcode will hurt the printer, but it may not understand a command and it will just sit there.  This first suggestion uses the code from the Matter Hacker file plus a couple of lines that I threw in:

 

;Custom Pulse XE start GCODE
G21 ; set units to millimeters
M107 ; fan off
M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; start heating the bed
M104 S160 ; start heating the hot end but not all the way yet
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; wait for bed temperature to be reached
M109 S160 ;Wait for the hot end
; settings from the Matter Hacker start_gcode
G28  ; home all axes
M280 P0 S160 ;Reprap command that appears to set stepper motor 0 (the Z?) to 160 degrees rotation
G4 P400 ;Marlin Dwell command 400micro-seconds
M280 P0 S90 ;stepper 0 to 90 degrees

G80 ;Bed Leveling  Marlin uses G29 or M420.  According to the RepRap site nobody uses G80 but it's in Cura.
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;wait for the hot end to finish heating
G1 X5 Y5 Z3.01 F1800
G92 E-5                 ; Set the extruder so the first move to E0 results in a prime.
;End of Start GCODE

 

It's ended up a hybrid of what was in the Matter Hacker file, and what was in the Cura file.  I'm wondering about the commands in bold type.  They are the ones that I expect may need some experimenting.  Copy your existing start gcode from Cura into a text file so it doesn't get lost.  Then Copy the above snippet and make it the new start Gcode in Cura.  Slice something small like a calibration cube and see how it goes.  If it hangs the printer, you'll have to power off to reset it.  If it works you can abort the print and smile.

 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by GregValiant

[tterickson67 0]

This is awesome.  I will try it tonight and see what results I get (hoping for the smiling portion).  I'll let you know what happens and may ask for some additional insight.  Thank you.

[GregValiant 1,344]

I edited the previous post.

Edited January 14, 2021 by GregValiant

[tterickson67 0]

Greg, good news, it worked! Mostly all smiles from me. Slicing in Cura, printing through mattercontrol.  I found a purge code to throw in as well and it is all working great.  Can't thank you enough for helping me out.  I've attached a few pictures or what I was able to do last night.  First benchy print in blue was completed (first one), just stringy.  I upped retraction to 4mm and also dried the white filament and tried it again.  The white is the result.  Much cleaner and it looked pretty darn good.  There is still a little bit of slight blobbing on the side of boat.  Any suggestions on how to tighten that up?  Is that a flow or e-steps overextrusion issue?

 

One other question.  When the printer is not printing but travels on the X axis, there is a clunking noise that the motors/belt or something is making as it travels to the next point for printing.  When it travels and reaches the end is when i hear the noise.  Otherwise the printer is silent.  I slowed down the travel speed from 120 to 80 which seemed to help some, but is there another setting that I should look at in Cura to help with that?  I have a video of it but I can't upload it here.  Thank you again for taking a look at this for me.

 

[GregValiant 1,344]

I was wondering how it worked out.

 

"...slight blobbing on the side of boat..."  In Cura, go to the Mesh Fixes settings.  There is one for Maximum Resolution.  If it is set at .025 or something set it to 0.50.  If the processor in the printer takes too long calculating moves the printer stops for just a split second and leaves a blob.  Increasing the resolution number may help.  It isn't a problem in straight lines, but going around circles and curves it shows up.

 

"...there is a clunking noise..."  Probably mechanical.  If you grab the print head - can you wiggle or rotate it at all?  Same with the bed - can you move it other than fore and aft?  The print head has 1 roller mounted on an eccentric cam.  By loosening the lug nut and rotating the big hexagon shape you rotate the eccentric and the wheel will adjust it's distance to the rollerway.  The bed has two eccentric adjustors and they will both be on the same side of the beam it travels on.  The belts should twang like guitar strings.  A general screw tightening can't hurt either.  Someplace, something is sloppy and it sounds like is in the X.  Do you have Acceleration and Jerk control turned on?  Low settings like 500 Accel and 8 Jerk will make for softer starts and stops.  When they are turned off then Accel and Jerk are essentially infinite.  At high print and travel speeds it's tough on the machinery.

 

The white one looks good.  Bowden tube printers suffer from movement and flex in the tube.  They take more retraction to get the same effect at the nozzle that a direct drive gets with very short retraction.  Not a good/bad thing, it's just different.  If the retraction distance gets much over 6mm you'll start to pull molten plastic into the end of the tube and it will cause a partial clog and result in under-extrusion.

 

I'm a bit surprised the start up gcode worked first try.  I thought for sure you'd be fooling with it for a week.

 

EDIT:  One more thing - printing via USB can be troublesome.  Microsoft sends out an update that restarts the computer, the Matter Control slicer sends gcode too fast or too slow, and there's more.  Printing via the SD card is much preferred.

Edited January 15, 2021 by GregValiant

[tterickson67 0]

Thank you for those suggestions.  I think I got the clunking noise to stop.  One question on how to get the SD card working.  The printer has a reader and when I save a file to the card and print from it, the auto bed leveling does not kick off and run, in addition, the nozzle comes in contact with the bed and drags on the surface and won't extrude any filament.  I tried storing the Z offset from the number into the printer I got from the matterhacker software when I ran the bed leveling process.  I've run it multiple times to see if it was consistent and it seems to be ranging from -.14 to -1.34.  Whenever I store the number and run the SD print I get the same result, no auto bed level and the nozzle is dragging on the bed so no printing.  Is there a way to activate the bed level through start G code?

 

Here is the current code that I'm running.

;Custom Pulse XE start GCODE

G21 ; set units to millimeters

M107 ; fan off

M140 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; start heating the bed

M104 S190 ; start heating the hot end but not all the way yet

M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ; wait for bed temperature to be reached

M109 S190 ;Wait for the hot end

; settings from the Matter Hacker start_gcode

G28 ; home all axes

M280 P0 S190 ;Reprap command that appears to set stepper motor 0 (the Z?) to 160 degrees rotation

G4 P400 ;Marlin Dwell command 400micro-seconds

M280 P0 S90 ;stepper 0 to 90 degrees

M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} ;wait for the hot end to finish heating

 

G80 ;Bed Leveling. Marlin uses G29 or M420. According to the RepRap site nobody uses G80 but it's in Cura.

G1 X5 Y5 Z3.01 F1800

G92 E-5 ; Set the extruder so the first move to E0 results in a prime.

;End of Start GCODE

[GregValiant 1,344]

Put a semi-colon in front of the two M280 lines.  They are the ones that may be bouncing the Z up and down.

The G4 line appears to be a pause so the stepper motor can finish it's move.  You can probably comment that out as well.

Run it like that and see how it goes.

 

As I mentioned, the typical auto-leveling is G29.  You can try replacing the G80 with G29.  I don't hold much hope for that.

I would lower the bed a couple of mm and let it work in the air just to see what's going on and to keep the nozzle from marring the build surface.  Whether it's Matter Control sending the Gcode, or the printer reading the SD card, the movement of the printer should be the same.

 

This is that experimenting thing I mentioned.