1

Hi there,

We have just purchased a black widow 3d printer and have completed assembling it. However, when homing, only the Y axis homes correctly. The X -axis moved in the opposite direction of the limit switch and the Z axis did not move at all.

We were under the impression that the printer should automatically home in the direction of the limit switches when it is turned on. We have thoroughly checked all hardware connections and found no fault (based on the assembly videos online). Now, this was happening when using their built in marlin firmware. We have tried downloading existing codes online and played around with the ‘mechanical configuration’ part on the configuration.h file but nothing seems to help. Its been almost two weeks and we still haven’t got the machine to home properly. Is there a specific part of the code that we should be looking at? If so, which part of the code should we tweak? Any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks and regards,

Hayati

2

In Configuration.h search for:

// Sets direction of endstops when homing; 1=MAX, -1=MIN
#define X_HOME_DIR -1
#define Y_HOME_DIR -1
#define Z_HOME_DIR -1

But it seams like your X is going the wrong way so:

#define INVERT_X_DIR false // for Mendel set to false, for Orca set to true
#define INVERT_Y_DIR false // for Mendel set to true, for Orca set to false
#define INVERT_Z_DIR true // for Mendel set to false, for Orca set to true

Z (like your X) may have some pins in you harness wired wrong. There is 2 scenarios, 1. It’s wired backwards in which case it goes the opposite direction, 2. One of the Phases of the stepper is swapped in which case it does not move or jitters uncontrollable when you command it to move. The third option (depending on the driver type) the current control potentiometer is set way to low and therefore the driver is not putting out enough current to drive the Z axis.

Hope that helps

3

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply, the problem now is that the x axis homes in the right direction, but completely ignores the limit switch (it still gets activated when profile passes sensor but gets ignored) so much so that it hits the side profile of the printer. Another issue with the z axis is that it still homes in the wrong direction, but when manually jogging the axis it moves in the correct direction relative to the positive and negative of the axis. When i tried to invert the home direction for Z, i had a whole bunch of fatal error messages that pop-ed out saying that i should enable my z max limit switch (i dont have a z max limit switch, only a min). I tried that anyway and it still didn’t help.

regards,

hayati

4

Homemade printer or store bought kit? Opto or switch type endstop?

5

its a black widow store bought printer. i believe they are opto endstops

6

Assuming it’s premade harnesses we can assume the wiring is correct. Why are you charging firmware from what came with it? Does the opto have an led indicator on it? If so, and it’s wired correctly, insert a piece of paper in the opto gate with the controller board on and connected and the LED should light. If that all checks you could have the endstop sense direction in the firmware inverted.