Geoff Makes some pretty good suggestions. The quality of the plastic you are printing with does matter quite a bit, also if you are printing with PLA, make sure to use a oiler with it. Another thing to look out for is cooling, with ABS don’t let it cool down while printing, turn off the cooling fan completely and have the bed as hot as you can make it go. While with PLA you want the cooling always on but a decent hotend temp and bed temp. I’ve found that Aquanet hairspray that comes in a purple can works amazingly. Just spray the bed when the printer is off, let it sit about a hour or an hour and half before printing. It even works for PLA, although I only heat the bed to about 55C with PLA and hairspray.
If you haven’t done it all ready, grease the Z axis rods with white lithium spray or another machine grease. This will reduce friction and will make sure that your printer is moving to the correct height.
One last thing, the little wires that run to the Z-axis stoppers. A red and black wire for each rod that have a plastic casing over there connection to the stoppers. They are badly designed and pop off super easy, I always double check that they are connected properly (red wire on the far left, black on the far right, nothing in the center). If they aren’t it will mess your print up every single time because it won’t know exactly where the bed is.
Geoff, I never tried the thread that came with it. I went straight to hatch box pla right off the bat. I do have a session set up with one of their online techs this afternoon. I’m guessing they’re on pacific time so it’ll be a bit. And I’ve had better success with repetier but it still fails ultimately. And now the PLA won’t extrude and I’ve had to superglue the pully attachments underneath the base plate as both sides are now broken for some reason. Talk about a black cloud.
Richard, I haven’t ruled you out yet. But I am very hesitant with giving out emails & phone numbers online.
But the metric rod thing sounds promising. I’m running version 1.3.1 but can’t tell where it says metric rods with the firmware.
I did read the thread and re read the thread and what I see is that Eric has not been able to print a good part on his Robo3d machine. He asked Robo for help and got an unsatisfying answer. He has prints that do not stick or have thin weak walls. He has a clogged extruder for which I sent my $0.02 worth of solution which is different than anyone else’s. He also has broken printer parts that he asked for STL files and was provided a link by Vacrin . He got suggestions on better materials sources and contacts and ways to contact Robo tec’s. Robo finally agreed to repair, replace or refurbish the unit and he is shipping it back. As far as I can tell the printed parts quality issue has not been solved. Getting a new machine might do the trick however If it does not then part of the problem may be in the slicer settings. There are many settings in the slicer programs that can affect how well parts stick and how thick and strong the walls of the part turn out. I have had similar issues that Eric is having and found some of them to be slicer settings related. Where in this thread has he answered the above questions about his slicer settings? If there is a different thread related to this one I missed it.
One of his posts says he used the Medium detail settings in Matter Control, the other says he had slightly better results with RepetierHost but it still ultimately failed.
Slicer settings are largely irrelevant though if he’s still dealing with things like broken Y-belt clips and other parts that were damaged but not obviously broken until closer investigation.
For bed adhesion with pla I simply use malt vinegar or cider vinegar to clean the glass, no mess it sticks every time and it smells like fish n chips!
i heat the glass to 60 c and wipe it down with a small amount of vinegar on a lint free face pad, allow about a minute to dry before hitting print.
Aside from parts breaking ( gutted for Ya there) your other issues sound like a partially plugged nozzle… Causing rough weak walls and perimeters, I have found with the cheaper heads from China that the Teflon tape often extends to far into the chamber and little pieces heat up and break off causing minor clogs, I disassemble all new hot ends and generally re do the terrible job they did in the factory.
