Thursday, September 27, 2012

WhiteAnt 3d Printer Build- Calibration

I spent a long time working out the calibration on my Mendel Prusa 3d printer. I had numerous problems with the electronics and the software and I didn’t have a working reference point to help solve them. This is one reason why I kept many of the familiar systems of my Prusa Mendel printer as a part of this modified WhiteAnt printer.

The calibration for the modified WhiteAnt hasn’t been difficult.

I'm using Kiliment-Sprinter-a352585 firmware with  Pronterface. Here are the following changes I made from my Prusa Mendel setup:
In Pronterface, I increased the print bed. This can be done by opening the options window from the settings tab and changing the build dimensions. In my case, instead of 200mm x 200mm x 80mm, I placed the values 360mm x 240mm x150mm.

In the firmware, I changed the build envelope size. Under the tab Configuration.h these values were substituted:
Const int X_MAX_LENGTH = 360;
Const int Y_MAX_LENGTH = 240;
Const int Z_MAX_LENGTH = 150;

Next I set the calibration for the X,Y,Z, and E steps. For my Prusa Mendel they were:
axis_steps_per_unit[] = {79.207, 80, 2568, 1394};
For the modified WhiteAnt the values were substituted with these:
axis_steps_per_unit[] = {39.9, 40.90, 329, 1300};

Interestingly, the X,Y values are half of the original values when the stepper motor is increased one size up. The Z-axis is way off due to changing from a metric 8mm rod with a 1.25 pitch to a SAE 3/8" lead screw with 10 threads per inch. The extruder is basically the same since no change in that system was made.








These are all of the changes that I made. All my previous Skeinforge and Pronterface settings I left in place. There is always room for improvement, but for now I’m happy to keep my setup at it’s present configuration. 





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