User:Bsutton

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I'm going to use this page to record my trials and tribulations with getting a RepRap printer working.

September 18th

I've not done much work on my hardware in the last month as I've been waiting for my Arcol (arcol.hu) hotend to arrive. In the mean time I've been busy working on a multi-material tool change for reprap. You can see the work in progress on gitub: https://github.com/bsutton/3dc/wiki

August 6th

I've been busy with building my prusa now that I have most of the parts. I've just finished the wiring and I'm going through a series of test for the electronics. For the record: Ramps 1.3 Sprinter firmware that ships with the Reprap host (although I'm not certain what version as it doesn't appear to have one). I had to make a number of minor changes to get my hardware working such as: Configuration.h MOTHERBOARD = 33 ; this identifies my hardware as Ramps 1.3 ENDSTOPS_INVERTING=true ; this was required due to the way I wired my endstops When testing the endstops I had to turn the connector into the motherboard for the X axis as the endstops were stopping the X axis from moving the the wrong direction. I think you can achieve the same end by switching the option INVERT_X_DIR in Configuration.h.

It also wasn't clear when wiring up the power just what to connect. So for the ramps you need to: Connect a USB cable from your PC to the Arduino board Connect 2 x 12V lines directly into the Ramps shield. You DO NOT use the Arduino's power supply.

OK last thing I have to do is play with the trim pots on each motor control to reduce the current. My Z motor keeps shutting down as the controller chip is overheating (I understand that it has a thermal cutout).

I had trouble adjusting the trim pots until I got a magnifying glass and realised I wasn't actually turning them. The assembly guides say to use a multi-meter to measure the voltage. I couldn't get a stable voltage so I just started running the motors. If they started shutting down a moved the trim pot anti-clockwise about a eighth of a turn until the motor would run without shutting down. I over did the Z axis trim pot at one stage and it just wouldn't move (it would sort of vibrate in place), just move the trim pot back clock-wise a quarter turn and all was good again.

As I've only got one end stop on each axis I'm using the 'software' endstops which use absolute positioning to determine where to stop at the end of an axis which doesn't have the end stop. I had to adjust these values from the defaults. I ended up with the following: const bool min_software_endstops = false; //If true, axis won't move to coordinates less than zero. const bool max_software_endstops = true; //If true, axis won't move to coordinates greater than the defined lengths below. const int X_MAX_LENGTH = 195; const int Y_MAX_LENGTH = 150; const int Z_MAX_LENGTH = 108;

You results may vary :D

I've just done my first dry run. I still don't have a hot end, heated bed or the extruder wired in, but all three axis are operational so I loaded a dolls bed I've designed for my daughter and did a dry run. I'm sitting here watching the printer sing to itself. Its a thing of beauty :)

My heated bed should be here in the next couple of days, so just need to make a decision on the hot end and a little more wiring and I should be away.

The next big job will of course be calibration. I can already see that I've got wobble on my z-axis, I'm thinking about cutting a new pair of z-motor connectors on my lathe to remove the wobble. It just feels a little too much like cheating :<

July 9th

Started work on updating the debian package.

July 8th later that same day

Installed Netbeans so I can upgrade the forms to java 6. Eventually worked out how to do this.

Problem then was that the BotConsoleFrame can't be edited in the form layout tool. You can now run the form directly but it still won't display in design mode. No clear errors so I'm not certain what is going on. One theory is that the PrintTabFrame doesn't confirm to the Bean requirements.

July 8th 12:59 am

Upgraded to java 6 replacing org.jdesktop with the standard java libraries javax.swing.GroupLayout.

And then realized that most of this code has been generated using the netbeans forms library. Argh!!! Will consider what to do on the morrow.

July 8th 12:10 am

I finally have the reprap host up and running.

So some work to do as the system is reporting an incompatible serial library:

Native lib Version = RXTX-2.2pre2 Java lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7 WARNING: RXTX Version mismatch Jar version = RXTX-2.1-7 native lib Version = RXTX-2.2pre2


July 7th

Downloaded the reprap host software and began the saga of getting it installed

FYI: my desktop is Ubuntu 11.04 x64

Found a couple of debian packages but neither of these work.

1) Found the ppa by Jonathan Marsden but this doesn't appear to be in working order: ppa install

2) The host git repository also has a debian package, however this appears less complete than Jonathans and again doesn't appear to work.

So I've decided to try and update then so one of them does work. The question is which one to start from?

manual install

Before I attempt to start building a debian package I thought it might be useful to work out how to get it to install manually.

The following is a log of my efforts and failures. brett's manual install

On my first attempt I received the following error: 

./reprap
Exception in thread "J3D-Renderer-1" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: javax.media.j3d.NativeScreenInfo.openDisplay()J
	at javax.media.j3d.NativeScreenInfo.openDisplay(Native Method)
	at javax.media.j3d.NativeScreenInfo.getStaticDisplay(NativeScreenInfo.java:48)
	at javax.media.j3d.NativeScreenInfo.isGLX13(NativeScreenInfo.java:36)
	at javax.media.j3d.NativeConfigTemplate3D.getBestConfiguration(NativeConfigTemplate3D.java:67)
	at javax.media.j3d.NativePipeline.getBestConfiguration(NativePipeline.java:3241)
	at javax.media.j3d.Renderer.doWork(Renderer.java:488)
	at javax.media.j3d.J3dThread.run(J3dThread.java:256)

So the UnsatisfiedLinkError basically means that its looking for a entry point javax.media.j3d.NativeScreenInfo.openDisplay in a shared library. This feels like a compatibility issue! e.g. the shared library doesn't match my jar.

After much research I found a fix for this. Basically its an incompatability issue the fix for which is described here j3dcore install


July 1st

I've order the mechanical parts for a Mendel-Prusa on ebay from Investalator.

Cost $USD160 Shipping $USD45 (ouch)

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