@ Zortrax team
I had a chance to run a test print today shortly after getting the printer unpacked and assembled.
The build quality of the M-200 is stunning, I am really happy with the quality of the build, but i have some issues.
I followed the instructions to the letter and got the Firm-wear upgraded, ran my model through the slicer without a hitch and started to print.
Almost as soon as the printer made its second pass of the raft print I noticed that ABS was not adhering to one quadrant of the platform, and began to curl, and kept curling.
There is no Halt, E-Stop or Pause mode button (every cnc machine should have some kind of E-Stop or option to achieve an unscheduled Halt).
My only option was to switch the power off, effectively halting the machine in situ. So now what? the build platform is stuck near the top of its vertical travel with the print head stopped in place, there’s no way to get the build platform off by re-powering, at least it was my experience, everything just sat there waiting. Shouldn’t the system go through a homing routine on power up, and zero position, (head away from platform) on re-boot after an e-stop?
I powered down again, unplugged the power and let everything cool down. After the build platform and print-head had cooled enough, I was able to reach into the back of the chassis and manually crank the z-axis to lower the build platform away from the print-head enough so that i could remove the build platform.
The ABS Raft was badly curled in the lower left quadrant (-x,-y) and i noticed that the material deposition was thicker in this area, leading me to believe that the build platform was considerably out of calibration. I noticed another thing about the build platform, it is made from 2 different types of material, the thick aluminum plate, and the perf circuit board material. The perf material was not sitting flush against the heated aluminum plate, it bulged up between screw positions and was a little wavy across the surface, these two dis-similar materials must heat at different rates and this causes the perf to warp and become unevenly heated as gaps occur between it and the heated aluminum platform thus causing the lack of adhesion and irregular cooling of the ABS material. I took the perf board off, of the aluminum plate and it instantly was sprung, it is not flat and its natural position is somewhat bowl shaped. The Screw count is too low to hold the perf completely flat against the heated aluminum plate, hence the bulging of perf material between screw positions, and when it gets heated the situation becomes even more exacerbated.
I cleaned the two parts, perf and plate, and screwed them back together, i applied the screws from one side across the plate to the other to get the perf to lay as flush as possible, it looks ok, but i have a feeling that once it gets heated up again it will pull the same trick. I checked my aluminum plate for flatness with a ruler that i had available, it looked ok, but i will check it again tomorrow with a better one.
To manually calibrate, I think that I first have to ensure that the machine itself is sitting level before i can accurately manually level the build platform using the thumbscrews, As the print-head assembly is attached to the chassis, once the whole machine is level, then i should attempt to level the build platform.
Have you seen/encountered this behavior before, can you advise on a reasonable course of action to remedy this. Has anyone else had a similar issue?
The warping perf material concerns me as it may never sit completely flush, will auto calibration take care of this in the future when it builds the raft?
I will give it another go tomorrow, but in the meantime any wisdom you can throw my way would be greatly appreciated.
All the Best Guy’s
Andy M
Awesome!