[EDIT] To be perfectly clear, I’m still very new to 3D printing, and while I understand how they work in theory, and have a bit of experience with electronics, I might not know the exact, proper terminology for everything. I apologize if I get anything wrong!
After a whole lot of searching and a few false leads, I am at a loss. As my title says, my mini’s print bed no longer seems to work. As a result, when I try to start a print, it zooms to the very front of its range, and then it tries to go through the cleaning process, and it seems to get stuck at the bottom. There is a loudish grinding noise, and at that point I turn the printer off for fear of breaking something. I’ve tried it a couple times, and it seems to do this every time.
I can upload a video of what happens if that will help.
The printer has been in use for just over a month, and it isn’t heavily used. I’ve already had to troubleshoot a few minor problems, but I’m worried the printer might actually be broken. The manual has been very helpful for my other problems, but it doesn’t seem to be able to help me with this one.
If you guys can’t help me, can anyone give me a tl;dr on Lulzbot’s warranty? From what I undeerstand of it, it looks to me like it is covered under warranty, as I don’t think a month of usage counts as “normal wear and tear”, and I haven’t made any modifications. The store I bought it from has a 15-day return policy, and it’s been too long for that. Which is a good thing, as I don’t want to return it. I would much rather fix it (or get it fixed if it’s a warranty issue).
Thanks in advance for your time, guys. Hopefully I’ll be back to printing soon!
A video might help diagnose it. I would also suggest you contact support. From what I’ve read, they are responsive and will likely get you going under warranty. It was one of the reasons I chose a Mini, though I’ve never had to contact them.
You’re doing the right thing turning it off when it makes that noise. Something’s wrong.
Contacting support for some one-on-one assistance is probably the best course.
A video may help others (forum members and support) visualize exactly what is happening.
There are a lot of possibilities. The first two things I would look at would be:
Is the printer homing to the correct position, and are x-axis steel rods level? If the rods aren’t level, the Z-axis can bind and cause nasty noises. Also, the home position is used as a “starting point” for the XYZ positioning commands for the wiping/cleaning – so if the Z (or XY) home position is wrong, it will make the cleaning/wiping positions wrong.
Is the proper start script being used? If you’re using Cura Lulzbot edition, and have the correct printer selected, this should be automatic. But you could check by choosing “Expert, Switch to Full Settings, Yes”, then click the “Start/End-GCode” tab and view the Start.gcode section. The beginning part of that script should look like the following (this is partial – there will be more lines after this, but you said the problem was when cleaning occurred so I’ve snipped out just that part):
G21 ; metric values
G90 ; absolute positioning
M82 ; set extruder to absolute mode
M107 ; start with the fan off
G92 E0 ; set extruder position to 0
M140 S110 ; get bed heating up
G28 ; home all
M109 S150 ; set to cleaning temp and wait
G1 Z150 E-30 F75 ; suck up XXmm of filament
M109 S170 ; heat up rest of way
G1 X45 Y174 F11520 ; move behind scraper
G1 Z0 F1200 ; CRITICAL: set Z to height of top of scraper
G1 X45 Y174 Z-.5 F4000 ; wiping ; plunge into wipe pad
G1 X55 Y172 Z-.5 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X45 Y174 Z0 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X55 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X45 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X55 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X45 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X55 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X60 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X80 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X60 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X80 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X60 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X90 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X80 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X100 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X80 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X100 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X80 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X100 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X110 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X100 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X110 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X100 Y172 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X110 Y174 F4000 ; wiping
G1 X115 Y172 Z-0.5 F1000 ; wipe slower and bury noz in cleanish area
G1 Z10 ; raise z
G28 X0 Y0 ; home x and y
Take a look at those things, and post a video – and/or give Lulzbot support a call. They are very good at pinpointing problems.