Taz Pro - Wont Print on Bed and Can't get Support

I have reached the end of my patience with lulzbot and my inability to get someone to call me.

I fell for their upgrade offer and upgraded from my reliable original Taz Mini to the Taz Pro (dropping another 4k into their pockets)

I have yet to get the printer to successfully print anything it refuses to auto level and all i get to do is play email tag with the support team.

Essentially, after wiping both extruders it acts like it going to probe, but instead of lowering for the nozzle to touch each corner it raises up each time.

Then is starts to print about 20 MM from the print bed.

I have redone z offset, loaded profiles, upgraded firmware.

Honestly at this point i just wanna send it back and get my money back. I have yet to get a call from them after repeatedly leaving my cell phone and asking for them to call me.

Any advice appreciated.

I assume you are using Cura LE? I would try using a different slicer (like Cura itself and not the LE version) to see if the gcode instructions for probe and wipe work correctly there. I have the begin and end gcode for my Taz 6 but that might not be compatible for the Pro.

The start gcode and end gcode in CuraLE when configured for the TAZ Pro should be used in all slicers. You won’t find “better” (or “any”) somewhere else.

The start gcode is fairly well commented and if it was my TAZ Pro, I’d make a copy and print it (on paper). I have extracted the start gcode from CuraLE 3.6.22 and attached it here so I can give some line number references.

TazProStartGcode.gcode (8.4 KB)

In CuraLE, switch from Prepare to Monitor and near the bottom of the window, click the Console button. On the Printer control window, check the Show debug messages box. Now you can enter commands manually and observe the printer’s response.

Using your printed copy of the start gcode, you can enter the commands one at a time (you can skip lines with temperatures) and observe the actions of the printer. Pay particular attention to G28 on line 7, the T0 on line 14, and the T1 on line 19. The G28 should establish where the X, Y, and Z origins (zero) are. The T commands should raise and lower the nozzles.

The G1 command on line 27 should move one of the nozzles over a wiper pad and the G1 command on line 32 should push the nozzle into that wiper pad. The G1 command on line 67 should position the other nozzle over the second wiper pad and the G1 command on line 68 should push the nozzle into that wiper pad.

Finally, the G29 command on line 105 should execute the auto-leveling sequence. Instead of just a G29, use a G29 V4 which will print out the progress. You can click in the Printer control window, type ctrl-A and ctrl-C and then paste the output (with ctrl-V) into an editor to examine it, clean it up, or upload it here. It’s kind of messy with all the temperature reports.

At some point in this process, your printer should do something unexpected. Let us know what you expected (i.e. which command) and what it did.

I did all of the above on my LulzBot TAZ 6 in an attempt to provide decent instructions in this reply. If anything is unclear, feel free to ask.

Need more info on your start gcode and what the printer is actually doing before it fails to level. Have you called support yourself instead of emailing? Have you tried manually leveling the bed?

Hook up a laptop and send an M119 and check your endstops. Then either touch your nozzle to the washer or use an allen wrench or something to bridge the gap for the nozzle and washer and check M119 again.

This is the exact behavior I have seen when a switch channel gets blown on a board and the machine thinks its already on the washer so its trying to back up off the washer when leveling is activated.

You didn’t scrub your nozzles with a brass brush at all did you? Bridging the heater to the block is a really common cause of this happening.