KlipperScreen (MIA - installed litedm for it - need to scour logs, priority is z movement)
LCD screen: functional, but probably not necessary…
CoreXY: both motors test fine (STEPPER_BUZZ STEPPER=stepper_x, STEPPER_BUZZ STEPPER=stepper_y). cannot command them to move until homing works. can’t home until z axis works.
z axis: z motors have 6 pin interface jsh connectors and have overlapping coil pinouts, so center pins had to swap. 2 of 3 z motors are now working. The third one fails after one step and controller shuts down. It fails with the cable and driver from one of the working motors also. I believe it is a motor problem. the motor spins freely. Will swap with spare once spare is located. (these are repurposed motors from a friend, so there was some risk in using them. Backup plan is to order a few more from Ryan, which may happen soon.
extruder motor appears to work, but is not yet calibrated… how do you do that with a direct drive setup?
both x and y end stops are connected (!! no smoke) and working but likely the sense pins need to be set as pullup with a ^ before each pin name in printer.cfg (QUERY_ENDSTOPS)
BLtouch functional as far as pin movement commands go (BLTOUCH_DEBUG COMMAND=pin_down, BLTOUCH_DEBUG COMMAND=pin_up). Had to swap sensor pin and control pin assignments in printer.cfg and add the pullup to one of them (^).
both bed and hot end temperature sensors read 23 °C
print cooling fan works and can be set to % of interest
hot end fan not yet tested (automatic with hot end temperature)
hot end heater not yet tested
bed heater not yet tested
controller fan not yet installed
exhaust fan not yet purchased
the lynch pin here is the bad z motor. once that works, then several other things will be quickly tested. So close!
KlipperScreen working… run KlipperScreen-install.sh. it does everything and will run when the pi autologin to command line is selected
CoreXY: carriage will home X and Y then go to center
z axis: z motor not bad. One of those kids was doing his own thing and had a different wiring pinout than the other 2. BLtouch z homing not yet tested. The odd motor likes to skip steps every once in a while, so further wiring tests required.
extruder motor appears to work, but is not yet calibrated… how do you do that with a direct drive setup?
hot end fan works when hot end is activated.
hot end heater heated to 30 degrees from 25 without issue (HE0 on octopus is not working - using HE3 for hot end)
bed heater on SSR would not turn off. set to 50, but stopped it at 60… SSR on all the time. power supply (15 amps) fan turned on and it started to get really hot… SSR active ON all the time. After looking at schematic, wired up the octopus bed heater circuit and pulled SSR. Bed heated to 30 and held without issue. green light flashes on octopus with power pulses to the bed.
Same way as with a bowden. Put some filament in and mark 100mm. extrude 100mm and see if your mark hit the right spot. If not, measure and make adjustments to your rotation distance in klipper.cfg.
doesn’t it push it into the hot end? do you take the nozzle out for that?
24V bed, so the octopus has provision to run it with the 4 screw terminals on the board next to the motor and electronics power input screws. I had just seen all the SSRs in use, so I tried to use it. I wonder if the negative side switching causes issues.
Nope. I just pull the bowden tube from the input of the extruder and do it right there. You can do it anywhere in the filament path. you just need a reference.
I think most with SSR’s are using 120v beds. I had a mosfet on my Hypercube to run the 24VDC bed but actually removed it when I replaced the board with the Manta. Was just extra wiring that did not need to be there.
For direct drive extruders, I do the calibration through the hot end, with it heated up. Wastes a little plastic, but also is a moment for me to study how the filament is flowing through the extruder.
I think I have the z axis working. Question on the BLtouch: when the system tries to home the z axis, shouldn’t the probe pop out to measure? it did that before I swapped the pin positions. Swapping the pin assignments, makes the debug commands work to extend and retract the probe, but it doesn’t extend when homing now. I watched teaching tech’s video on the BLtouch, which was very informative, but any additional insight for troubleshooting would be most useful.
Just about to head out the door. SOrry I can’t be more helpful but yes it should pop out. There are some g/M codes you can use to test the BL touch. You also need to make sure you use a PWM capable pin for the signal I believe.
on klipperscreen, i press move, then home, then home xy and the carriage homes y and then x and then moves to the center of the bed.
press home z and the bltouch does nothing and stays red and the bed motors start to move. I’ve loosed the lower belt connection so the motors dont’ move the bed though. The BL touch is supposed to extend the pin to sense before the bed starts to move.
I just found a burn mark inside the bltouch though (pic a few posts above) and I used the volt meter to verify that when the debug command to extend the pin is issued or the probe is put in touch mode, the voltage output of the sense pin is always zero, so it seems plausible that the sensing circuit is cooked.
Bought my legit ANTCLABs BLTouch 3.1 Dec 2020, didn’t start using until this year. Yet today’s model listed for sale on amzn seems to be the same 3.1 with same features, same price. Unsurprised there’s newer cheaper alternatives. Some of the reviews are unkind, who knows how legit they are
The only thing I have ever done is replace the probe pin. There is a small screw reachable from the top.
I am not sure that the probes are serviceable.
It has an electromagnet to deploy/retract the probe, and a hall effect sensor to detect the trigger. A small controller to signal, and manage the deploy/retract electromagnet.
Few serviceable parts that can burn out. The electromagnet is basically a coil of long fine wire. If it overheated, the probe is junk. A hall effect sensor might be replaceable, but is a large portion of the cost of a BLTouch clone, and you need to unwind and rewind the coil to get.to it, I think. The controller is almost certainly easiest to replace the whole probe.
Yeah I think I agree with you there. Looks like something shorted inside. I keep a spare on hand just for stuff like this LOL. Luckily its been on hand since I started the V4 build and hasn’t been needed yet. But now that I say that ill need it in a day or 2 LOL
Commented out the [bltouch] section and added a [probe] section. Using the bltouch pin header, connected gnd. 5v, and sense pin to digital, I got the z axis to home. Now to mount the ir sensor so it can be used… it will probably not work with a warm bed and vary with how hot the bed is and change if the bed sticker has a white design on it. Likely not the best sensor for this, but it was freely available to try and it worked once the pin was flipped in software. The sensor grounds when the light is detected and it sits at 5v until triggered. wondering if it will require a relay to not trigger during normal operation…
