Scale Issues with my Lowrider 2

LowRider CNC Troubleshooting
1

G’day, I’ve just completed my Lowrider2 build and I’m having issues with the scale of my x, y and z moves being undersize.

I bought the following from V1 ENGINEERING in Nov 20 for the build:
-SKR Pro 1.2, 2209 Drivers, TFT35 E3 V3 display, 16 Tooth Pully’s, Nema 17 Steppers, SD Card 16GB, 300mm T8 Lead screw and nuts, bearings, 20T idlers, flex couplers, roller limit switches, GT2 10mm belts and a wiring kit.

I haven’t setup the roller switches for endstop homing yet; baby steps for this newbie.

The firmware being reported is: TFT35_E3_V3.0.0.26.x Jun 15 2020

Using the TFT35 I jogged each axis a distance, which I assume is mm’s, and measured the actual distance travelled. I got the following:

  • X 170 travelled 272mm (0.625)
  • Y 200 travelled 289mm (0.692)
  • Z 100 travelled 45mm (2.22)

Having experience with setting up 3D Printers my thought was to modify the step/mm for each axis.
I went to the Steps per MM setting and found 80 is the default for X,Y and Z.
I calculated the correct steps per MM to be approximately 50, 51 and 178 for x,y and z respectively and modified the settings accordingly. When I backed out of that menu I got the error dialog screen detailing ‘EEPROM disabled’.
I OK’s the dialog box, returned to the movement screen and rechecked the distance now moved for the axis’s, and it was now corrected.
I navigated to the custom screen to save the EEPROM settings but it again it returned EEPROM disabled. I cycled the power and all my changes were not saved as expected.

With the steps/mm now restored back to 80steps/mm, I drew a 1000x1000mm box in fusion 360, exported it as a DXF, opened it in ESTLCAM, engraved it, saved as a CNC program, opened the gcode in Repetier-Host, and it accurately displayed the 1000 x 1000mm size and tool path. When I ran the gcode on the lowrider, first of all is displayed ‘Unknown Command M05’, then it traced a box 325mm (x) x 320mm (y).

I was going to try modifying the step/mm again and re-run the 1000x1000mm box, but didn’t bother as I don’t think this is the issue.
Any help on where to look next would be appreciated.

Regards,
Sean

2

Which firmware is flashed on the SKR 1.2 board? M05 is afaik a GRBL command and not Marlin (spindle-state command).

3

Hi Keeze. Having bought it from V1, I assumed the board would of been pre-configured with the correct firmware; I did have a concern that buying the end stop switches may have resulted in the wrong firmware being installed. If you could point me to the instructions on how to check the firmware version it would be appreciated.

4

The M5 being unknown and is a property of the post processing Waunakee me believe the wrong post processor was used

5

Well, it very likely is. Next thing is how did you set up Estlcam?

6

You can see the version with M115. There should be a version lile v508.

It is easy to flash the skr boards. It should be 1/16th microstepping and 100, 100, 400 steps/mm. The fact it was 80 is bothersome. M502 should restore them to the defaults from the firmware.

M122 would be useful too. It should show the drivers in 1/16th microstepping.

You should also check the pulleys. If they are loose, it can look like it is skipping.

7

Hi Jeff,

Using Repetier I entered code M115 and it returned:

10:23:59.890 : N27 M11519
10:23:59.890 : FIRMWARE_NAME:Marlin bugfix-2.0.x (Github) SOURCE_CODE_URL:https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin PROTOCOL_VERSION:1.0 MACHINE_TYPE:STM32F407ZGT6 EXTRUDER_COUNT:3 UUID:cede2a2f-41a2-4748-9b12-c55c62f367ff
10:23:59.890 : N28 M220 S10091
10:23:59.890 : Cap:SERIAL_XON_XOFF:0
10:23:59.890 : N29 M221 S10091
10:23:59.890 : N30 M111 S684
10:23:59.890 : Cap:BINARY_FILE_TRANSFER:0
10:23:59.890 : N31 T08
10:23:59.890 : Cap:EEPROM:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:VOLUMETRIC:1
10:23:59.890 : Cap:AUTOREPORT_TEMP:1
10:23:59.890 : N32 M155 S181
10:23:59.890 : Cap:PROGRESS:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:PRINT_JOB:1
10:23:59.890 : Cap:AUTOLEVEL:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:Z_PROBE:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:LEVELING_DATA:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:BUILD_PERCENT:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:SOFTWARE_POWER:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:TOGGLE_LIGHTS:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:CASE_LIGHT_BRIGHTNESS:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:EMERGENCY_PARSER:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:PROMPT_SUPPORT:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:AUTOREPORT_SD_STATUS:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:THERMAL_PROTECTION:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:MOTION_MODES:0
10:23:59.890 : Cap:CHAMBER_TEMPERATURE:0
10:23:59.890 : echo:DEBUG:INFO,ERRORS
10:23:59.890 : echo:Active Extruder: 0

Using code M122 a few times it returned:

10:26:49.048 : N33 M12218
10:26:49.048 : echo:Unknown command: “M122”
10:27:33.503 : N34 M12221
10:27:33.503 : echo:Unknown command: “M122”

I’m happy with the pulleys; they appear to all be good and no slipping either on the NEMA shafts or belts.
Looking at the M115 command response, I can’t see anything like v508, so I suspect I need to flash the board?

Cheers,

Sean

8

After a day of tinkering and looking through the forums I have a working machine.
I decided to flash the SKR Board. No problems installing VS Code, and PlatformIO, and successfully built the Firmware from the V1CNC_Skrpro_2209-2.0.7.2-scr zip file. There were a few steps missing in the instructions where VS Code needs you to download and install GIT software. I also needed to disable my virus software as this caused the firmware build to fail.
When attempting upload the Firmware to the board it failed; I even removed the card from the rig and tried on a second computer which I also set up with VS Code; frustrating.
I saw a thread on an issue with formatting the microSD card in the SKR Pro 1.2. Took mine out, a 128MB card, and tried reading the contents; my PC didn’t even recognise there was a card in the reader. I was wondering what even goes on the card, and thought maybe the firmware.bin file. I found another microSD card, copied the firmware.bin file to it, inserted and hit reset. The GUI screen came up with ‘No printer Connected’. Read a thread on that and seen the Marlin Screen worked for them. Switched to the Marlin interface and apart from the y-axis inverted (swapped the plug), the rest worked perfectly; movement scales now correct in all axis, and yes the steps/mm are preset to the above 100,100,400.
I ran a simple 1x1 meter print, and the crown and it worked great. At this stage I’m happy to continue using the Marlin interface; it does everything I need.
My main disappointment was I thought with buying the electronics from V1 I would avoid having issues with setting up the controller and display. Turns out the SD card didn’t work, and the firmware was not loaded on the controller. With others also having the 'No printer connected" issue with the TFT GUI interface when used with the SKR Pro V1.2, I’m not going to spend any more time at this stage trying to get the GUI interface working.

9

You probably have to change the connection speed on the screen, tap menu - settings - connection - baudrate and choose 250000 if it says 115200 or 115200 if it says 250000. (one of these speeds is defined in the firmware of the Pro)

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10

Yes, it worked. Thankyou very much :+1:

11

That is frustrating. I will ping @vicious1 because he does flash them (or tries to anyway).

FWIW, There is a precompiled firmware.bin in the .zip file, for anyone in the future. You don’t need vscode unless you are editing the firmware.

And yeah, the 250k makes sense too. The fact that you didn’t need that before is another sign it wasn’t flashed from Ryan.

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12

I don’t load the firmware on those boards since it is so easy to do yourself. Trying to keep the costs down, it is simple to do but takes a relatively large amount of time per order.

Sorry for the confusion everyone.

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