fischertechnik community forum

Hi FT team,

3D printer looks great, danke. But, Software is as always not 'fertig'. At least it's not helping me getting the printer to start...

Some simple remarks, and I do hope to get some assistance, I am afraid to break the 'build-tak' or one of the motors!

1. it would be wise to see the wiring in full detail, e.g. page 16 of the building instructions talk about MY for the table movement.
--> pretty scary that the other Motors are not mentioned the same way! So Mx of Xz for that matter can only be concluded out of page 41... Why?

2. So let's assume the cabling is done correctly... Where is the TEST application or pre-home routine?
--> the Begleidheft, is talking about 'Justierung der Z-Achse', What a joke procedure, really too simple to get the printer going. Worse: it does not get the show on the road!

result: my printer is running like crazy, not executing the routine as mentioned in the begleidheft! It's turing the other way, damaging my FT parts, MY motor and chain.

3. There is NO-WAY in the 3D software program to determine if the switches are working on the controller.
--> How How How? It's disturbing not knowing if the controller stops in time,

NOTE: the emergency STOP button in the program did not do ANYTHING! Why why why? And how to break the <home> calibration routine?????

I do hope you have some kind of debug / test program available so the printer can be calibrated with normal handling in stead if the dreadful 3D printing control.

hoping to hear from you soon.... Gruss Richard

rbudding hat geschrieben: NOTE: the emergency STOP button in the program did not do ANYTHING! Why why why? And how to break the <home> calibration routine?????

Yes it does. But not before all commands queued between the PC and the printers controller have been processed. This is a common problem as you can read e.g. here https://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin/issues/190

Actually all of your problems are pretty common ones which is not surprising as the software used by the FT printer is the same used by all those "normal" DIY 3D printers as well. So it's likely that it's only the documentation that lacks a little bit.

A little googling e.g. gives this for testing the end stops (the switches): http://reprap.org/wiki/Endstop . I'd assume the same procedure also works on the FT printer as it's a derivative of the reprap.

Dear Richard,

we are sorry to hear that you are having problems with our 3D Printer. I would love to give you assistance.

1) The three motors are all the same. So we thought that it would be sufficient to declare them on page 41. How would you have done it?

2) You can use the manual control as a pre-homing routine. If you drive the motors in positive direction, they should move away from the switches.

3) You can follow the instructins of the link that MasterOfGizmo has posted. In addition: the switches are used as "normally closed switches", in contrast to other fischertechnik models, which use "normally open switches"! I am afraid that this could be the reason why your printer does not work properly.

And, as MasterOfGizmo has already mentioned, the commands are send sequentially. Therefore, there is no possiblity to cancel a command. Unfortunately, we have no possiblity to change this behaviour.

If you need further assistance, please let me know.

Best regards
Markus

Markus Burkhardt hat geschrieben:In addition: the switches are used as "normally closed switches"

This is actually a very clever thing to do as this way any broken connection (e.g. an accidentially pulled plug) will result in an "end stop reached" signal and the printer will stop moving. This way the printer does not get damaged if such an error occurs.

I don't know if the documentation highlights this but this is a very fundamental design principle when trying to deal with possible faults on a device like this.

Hallo!

Es wäre schön wenn diese wichtigen Informationen hier auch in Deutsch gepostet werden.

Gruß
Sven

Hallo,

ich denke, diese Frage wurde (wenn auch auf englisch) ausreichend geklärt.

Grüsse

ft