MatterControl Automatic Bed Leveling Problem

[Nath5]

Hello,

I have finally gotten my new e3d v6lite installed and heating up. I did my initial calibration using the screws and want to now use the mattercontrol automatic bed leveling to finish off my calibration as it worked well for the stock hotend. My problem is that I can't get the printer to go low enough. Initially when running the auto calibration routine I would get an error in matter control saying it could not lower the printer any more. After enabling the option in settings to allow negative z values I can get lower but the printer head still stops before going low enough. I can hit the z- button in the calibration routine but the printer doesn't move. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Nathan

[drunkenmugsy]

Not familiar with the matter control auto stuff but you probably just need to manually set the z level from the LCD on the printer. The build manual covers this on initial set up.

Basically use LCD to lower effector. Manually set effector to bed level using knob. Set z. done.

[Nath5]

I have gone through the z height calibration using the lcd twice and made sure the printer height is properly defined in the eeprom and the matter control settings but I still get this problem.

[Nath5]

Guess I should also mention that I mounted the hotend directly to the effector plate so I lost a few inches of build height are there any settings that have to be adjusted for that other than reseting the z height.

[drunkenmugsy]

If you have reset manually and checked the eeprom then it sounds like matter control has a default hard set somewhere?

In MatterControl - Settings/Printer/General what is your build height set to?

[derzaubererer]

there is something like allow negative Z
i activated this but i still got the same problem
i even g0s0 for deactivationg collision detection(or was it g1s1?)

[Nath5]

I have the print height set to 357.34 which is what I got from doing the z height calibration on the printer. I have enabled allow negative z value but no luck.

[Nath5]

I was able to get the auto bed leveling routine to work by setting the build height to 360 ( 3mm larger than I calculated ) I figure the bed leveling would adapt for the fact that the build height isn't actually that tall and it appears to have worked. However now I can't get any models to slice in matter control using slic3r. Everytime I click print it says slicing error. Only things I changed was the nozzle diameter to .4 and the filament width to 1.76.

[Nath5]

I tried resetting the eeprom and the matter control slic3r profiles back to stock to see if it would fix the slicing problems but it hasn't. I can successfully slice with cura or the mattercontrol slicer but not with slic3r. These same models sliced find before I made the modifications to the printer but I don't see how those modifications could be affecting the slicing since I reset everything to stock settings.

[jram]

I tried resetting the eeprom and the matter control slic3r profiles back to stock to see if it would fix the slicing problems but it hasn't. I can successfully slice with cura or the mattercontrol slicer but not with slic3r. These same models sliced find before I made the modifications to the printer but I don't see how those modifications could be affecting the slicing since I reset everything to stock settings.

I talked to The Matter control people and they said that they have bug they are working out regarding Slic3er.However I have been using Mattercontrol for 10 months and haven't had a single print work with Slic3er.

[blackrabt]

I was having this issue as well. The workaround I found tonight was to take my entire slic3r folder from my repetier-host install and replace the one in matter control with it. Just delete the whole thing and paste in the new one, then restart matter control.

From limited testing it seems like the Slic3r installation is faulty from MC installation. The slic3r.exe and slic3r-console.exe executables will not run if opened via windows explorer.

Also in my case it is setting all my prints so they hang off the edge of the bed. So there's still for tinkering to do.

Seems that is not an uncommon issue either. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... JBpebJZqkY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As far as I can tell the issue exists between the 6/20/2015 and 7/23/2015 versions of slic3r.

The issue seems further isolated within the slic3r-console.exe. It exports g-code that does not match what you will get if you slice the same STL with slic3r.exe (the GUI version)
I emailed the developer about the issue so see if he will look into it or provide some guidance.

My very rough solution was to set my bed center to 100,100. It knows the center is nearly off the bed now but the print itself is centered over the build plate. Weird.

[barry99705]

I was having this issue as well. The workaround I found tonight was to take my entire slic3r folder from my repetier-host install and replace the one in matter control with it. Just delete the whole thing and paste in the new one, then restart matter control.

From limited testing it seems like the Slic3r installation is faulty from MC installation. The slic3r.exe and slic3r-console.exe executables will not run if opened via windows explorer.

Also in my case it is setting all my prints so they hang off the edge of the bed. So there's still for tinkering to do.

Seems that is not an uncommon issue either. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic ... JBpebJZqkY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As far as I can tell the issue exists between the 6/20/2015 and 7/23/2015 versions of slic3r.

The issue seems further isolated within the slic3r-console.exe. It exports g-code that does not match what you will get if you slice the same STL with slic3r.exe (the GUI version)
I emailed the developer about the issue so see if he will look into it or provide some guidance.

My very rough solution was to set my bed center to 100,100. It knows the center is nearly off the bed now but the print itself is centered over the build plate. Weird.

Noticed that as well. I can get them sliced with slic3r, but it puts them outside the print area. I can however, browse over to the slic3r folder in mattercontrol and bring up the gui. Have to click the gui button twice though. First time does nothing, wait a couple seconds, and the second double click brings it right up!

[samschad]

Did anyone ever figure out the centering on the bed issue for slic3r? I tried putting the bed center at 100 x 100, but no luck. Still goes off the build plate

[geneb]

If you want to use Slic3r, you're better off just downloading it and running it stand-alone.

g.

[RandomFactor]

The problem of not getting the head close enough to the base in MatterControl print leveling is discussed in the comments here:
https://www.matterhackers.com/articles/ ... t-leveling

If your firmware allowed it, then "Allow Negative Z" would allow you to move lower than Z0, but the repetier firmware for the Rostock has software endstops in place.

If you have gone through the initial delta calibration in the rostock manual, then you can manually add 1-2mm to your Z height in the EEPROM. Then run the software leveling wizard. This should allow you to pinch the paper to the glass. If you still cannot, then you should go back through the initial delta calibration to get it closer.

Note that he then talks about what appears to be a horizontal radius problem so this process may take a while.

[captainpotatofudge]

Haha yeah...and my Max is still in pieces right now being completely rebuilt! I have a thread on that process going and I'll get back to it soon I hope.
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?t=10333

As for the Z height, yes you must manually add height to the Z in firmware, allow negative Z doesn't work. I actually turned that off after manually adding height and it works for me. But as RandomFactor said...I ran into some serious HR problems and other things as discussed in my thread that resulted in the rebuild.

As for Sclic3r, I second the replacing the whole folder as blackrabt described. That sort of works, but I honestly never liked the way it behaved within MatterControl and I always got way better results with MatterSlice or Cura. Even as geneb suggested and running it stand alone it still didn't stack up to the other two for me.