Huge X Y calibration issues on initial assembly

[Mick_geeetechi3]

Hi, I am hoping someone else has encountered this problem or can provide some advice.

After initial assembly of my aluminium I3, I attempted to level the bed and noted that a x axis movement input of about 60mm was greater than the size of the bed (200mm). After fixing some other issues, i tried a quick test print of a 20mm diameter circle in the centre of the bed using cura and noted it tried to print a massive ellipse on the x axis perspective starting about 1/3 of the way across the bed, confirming my concerns about step calibration.

X/Y steps = 078.74, z steps = 400

I understand minor adjustment through calibration (i am guessing something less than 10 steps might be the norm?), but this is a very extreme value and i am wondering if there is something major wrong or if i just divide the seemingly correct factory set steps by a factor of 3 or more.

Any ideas or suggestions would be hugely appreciated. Thanks.

Mick.

[William]

Hi, Are you referring to the printed circle becoming an ellipse?

You can try to adjust the tightness of the belt,

perhaps the belt is too loose and this happens.

[Mick_geeetechi3]

Yes, the circle which should be 20mm is printing as an ellipse that is over the bed edge approximated at about 100mm wide. I noted a similar distortion in movement values using Prepare/Move Axis/X/10mm increments, where i inputted 60mm and it moved over 200mm. I factor the calibration issue to be off by a factor of 3.2x, rather than around 1/10th of the factory set values or less. This seems too wild to be just belt tightness to me. I have not had any issues of this magnitude on other machines and I am trying to work out what it could be. I could recalibrate the steps down to about 20 from their current value of 74, but this seems too extreme to make any sense and I fear a larger issue is at play.

[William]

Hi, You may need to adjust the tightness of the belt to a moderate level;
Then adjusting the distance between the hot bed and the nozzle;
Properly reduce the printing speed.

[Mick_geeetechi3]

I would think a slipping belt would have it move less, not 3 times as far but mmmni am no huge expert. Any other possibilities like an incorrect stepper motor or something?

[_kaktus_]

Hello.


In the first step I suggest to check if the stepstick modules have properly configured jumpers configuring the resolution of the engine.

[Mick_geeetechi3]

Ok thanks. I will try to check that (a bit unfamiliar but i can see there are some discussions out there. How many steps should the geeetech be? The article shows configs for 1:16, 1:32 etc.

[Mick_geeetechi3]

The board was missing a jumper on the x axis. Placed another in its place. Testing to follow

[Mick_geeetechi3]

Update. With the third jumper firmly in place on the board, the x axis skew is fixed. All I had to do was work out what a jumper was!!! Thanks for the help. Mostly printing well now, just had some mintemp errors and extruder clicking (upped the stepper motor driver via the potentiometer from .8 ish to 1V and it is working fibe now) and the like but found other posts to address that.

[_kaktus_]

Hi.


Bravo for working on your own.
A little self-confidence and a little patience can do miracles.