Hi guys,
Here's a long message describing my issues with my first 3D-printer built. Sincerly hope you can provide me with some help!
I have a problem with my newly built and first Reprap Prusa i3. Its assembled and everything is moving. However, at the accerlation and feedrates needed for printing (3000mm/sec^2 and 500 mm/sec, respective), the motors vibrate very much at 0.4V from the Pololu. I can largely overcome this problem by turning the potentiator on the Pololu stepper drivers to minimum and it moves okay - however, this is hardly normal behaviour and suggests that something is going wrong.
Also, it seems that the motors do not properly microstep, although the jumpers are in place, as the steps the motors need to take pr mm is as low as about 5 rather than the usual 73 or so (funny coindicidence: 73/16 = 4.56). Does it make sense that the motor requires less voltage when run without microstepping? If it does, then faulty microstepping might be the cause of the motor vibration. I should say that this problem is only evident for the X and Y axis. The Z-axis is moving smoothly and the default settings using 0.4V from the Pololu.
With 1 axis is moving fine, I have ruled out the power supply giving too many or too few amps as this should affect all axis. I have ruled out the Arduino electronics. So what im ending up with is the soldering of the pins for X- and Y-axis microstepping jumpers. I dont think that this is likely as I havnt got any other bad solderings, so should be extremely unlucky to have 12 bad ones in close succession. Is there any good way to test if these pins are working? Can the problem be with pin assignment in the Arduino firmware? I don't think the Pololu Stepper Drivers themselves are the problem as I order new ones when I first encountered the problem. Wiring to the motor shouldn't affect microstepping so I dont think that is the issue either.
Have anyone encounter such problems before and have any other ideas how to troubleshoot?
Here's a long message describing my issues with my first 3D-printer built. Sincerly hope you can provide me with some help!
I have a problem with my newly built and first Reprap Prusa i3. Its assembled and everything is moving. However, at the accerlation and feedrates needed for printing (3000mm/sec^2 and 500 mm/sec, respective), the motors vibrate very much at 0.4V from the Pololu. I can largely overcome this problem by turning the potentiator on the Pololu stepper drivers to minimum and it moves okay - however, this is hardly normal behaviour and suggests that something is going wrong.
Also, it seems that the motors do not properly microstep, although the jumpers are in place, as the steps the motors need to take pr mm is as low as about 5 rather than the usual 73 or so (funny coindicidence: 73/16 = 4.56). Does it make sense that the motor requires less voltage when run without microstepping? If it does, then faulty microstepping might be the cause of the motor vibration. I should say that this problem is only evident for the X and Y axis. The Z-axis is moving smoothly and the default settings using 0.4V from the Pololu.
With 1 axis is moving fine, I have ruled out the power supply giving too many or too few amps as this should affect all axis. I have ruled out the Arduino electronics. So what im ending up with is the soldering of the pins for X- and Y-axis microstepping jumpers. I dont think that this is likely as I havnt got any other bad solderings, so should be extremely unlucky to have 12 bad ones in close succession. Is there any good way to test if these pins are working? Can the problem be with pin assignment in the Arduino firmware? I don't think the Pololu Stepper Drivers themselves are the problem as I order new ones when I first encountered the problem. Wiring to the motor shouldn't affect microstepping so I dont think that is the issue either.
Have anyone encounter such problems before and have any other ideas how to troubleshoot?
