tekkydave

Glad to help

I only noticed it cos PP sent me an ad for the V2 Orion about an hour ago on FB. Strange - as if they knew you had a problem

What version of Orion pcb do you have? According to their website the V2 pcb has an analog and digital output. You have to ensure you connect to the correct pins.

Good plan. Will you need to pull the sig line up?

That's correct.

4 minutes ago, Gina said:

Continuity from Sig pin on Piezo to Duet connector on end of cable is good.  Not the cable.

But is it connected to the correct pin at the Duet end?

I've had 3 different products from PP and the wiring has been different on each one

I would double check the wiring.

Just now, Gina said:

When Z probing the the XYZ values are 150, 150, -0.2.  The Z-Probe stays on 0.

The Duet is not getting the signal for some reason.

Look for 'Z-Probe' in the status section. It shows a number 0-1000. When triggered it should go to 1000 if you have it in a digital mode.

Worth upgrading at some point but not the cause of your homing issue.

If you tap the nozzle with something during homing can you get it to trigger? If not I would check the wiring of the probe. It should show in the 'Probe' section of the UI when you trigger the nozzle manually.

Its worth reading the notes Here to pick up any differences between versions.

If nothing is happening when you press the 'Home Z' button you need to home x and y first.  What versions of firmware do you have on the Duet. The later ones require an extra parameter on the G1 in your homing files in order to allow z movement in the homex.g, homey.g and homeall.g before z is homed. 

It is S2 or H2 depending on the version

My homex.g:

G91                    ; relative positioning
G1 Z5 F600 H2          ; lift Z relative to current position
G1 H1 X-320 F4000      ; move quickly to X endstop and stop there (first pass)
G1 X5 F1800            ; go back a few mm
G1 H1 X-320 F360       ; move slowly to X axis endstop once more (second pass)
G90                    ; absolute positioning

See Duet G-code

Here's a crop from mine, currently still on the bedroom window sill. I think the local police were out looking for someone last night.

Is he contactable to find out?

With dpkg running in another window (via the Synaptic Package Manager) I get:

$ sudo dpkg -i /dev/zero
dpkg: error: dpkg frontend is locked by another process
$ echo $?
2

This correctly returns a non-zero result. No idea why it doesn't when dpkg isn't running.

12 hours ago, Gina said:

After a quick check to see if we're ready, the script starts off with a test of dpkg and the error message is coming from the script.  Script file is HERE

This is the relevant section :-

## check if DPKG database is locked
dpkg -i /dev/zero 2>/dev/null
if [ "$?" -eq 2 ]
then
    echo "dpkg is currently locked, meaning another program is either checking for updates or is currently updating the system."
    echo "Please wait for a few minutes or quit the other process and run this script again.  Exiting now."
    exit
fi

 

I suspect this dpkg command will always return a status of 2

On my Ubuntu 18.10 system:

$ sudo dpkg -i /dev/zero
dpkg: error: archive '/dev/zero' is not a regular file
$ echo $?
2

Try commenting this section out and try again.

In case anyone is unaware the command echo $? returns the exit status of the last executed command. A command that executes successfully should return a zero

5 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

nope, before I connected the motors, I spent some time (2~3 hours) fine tuning the inner frame so that it runs silky smooth vertically, with no twists, rocking etc. And only then did I connected the motors & fettled some more to ensure they introduced no errors, jumps, etc.

You've obviously had better luck than me with it. I got very frustrated with it which is why I went down the 3 leadscrew route. 

I notice your 3-wheeled z-axis wheels are the opposite way round to mine. I have the 2 wheels on the outside and single wheel on the inside of the frame. Not sure if it makes any difference.

This is what I have now:

The 4020 frame is levelled (automatically) by the 3 leadscrews, but the bed is also set level wrt that by the 4 corner adjusters.

I did try that method as mentioned before but I still found the bed would rock about a line between the two leadscrews. Even with 4 sets of wheels. Do you get any of that?

Now it is levelled there is no manual intervention unless G29 shows anything up. If I have been fiddling with anything and the z motors have got out of sync it will automatically set them correct when I turn on.

1 minute ago, Gina said:

The non-flatness of the glass having levelled the bed at three points.

That was when I tried the 3-point levelling. It was due to the heated bed itself not being stable and dipping in the unsupported corners. Now I have 4-point levelling back it is pretty level.

Just now, Gina said:

But it isn't.  You're manually adjusting the corner bed levellers.  I too like everything automatic if possible but I'm not averse to adjusting once if the adjustment stays put.  It's having to continually adjust things that I object to.

Once the 4 corners are set they hardly ever need touching. After that the levelling of the combined z axis frame & bed assembly is done by the automated leadscrew calibration.

The G29 Mesh Compensation is just a check that all is level and to iron out any minor variations. It probably could be taken out but I like to know what's going on

19 minutes ago, Gina said:

Just thought of where the error may be coming from, Dave.  You have a thick aluminium plate with glass plate on top.  I guess if the ali plate is not perfectly flat it could bend the glass to its profile.  Why not have the heater pad stuck directly to the glass?

Which error? Since reinstating the 4-point bed adjustment everything is working perfectly.

I don't like the idea of sticking the heater directly to glass. I have heard a few horror stories of shattered glass that way.

20 minutes ago, Gina said:

How about :-

1. Have the three Z motors controlled as one say by connecting the windings in series and running from 24v. 
2. Adjust the bed height by turning the motors by hand before any power is applied. 
3. Then level the bed manually with the four corner adjusters, if necessary. 
4. Finally, if you're really fussy, run the Mesh Grid Compensation.

TBH though, I would have thought a glass plate would be flat enough.  I have a 500mm x 500mm x 4mm float glass plate on my Concorde printer and having manually levelled the bed I found it showed only 0.1mm RMS error on Mesh Grid Compensation, probing a 400x400 area.  I consider 0.1mm accurate enough.

No reason why not. I just like everything being automatic - that's just me really

5 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

I have a 300x300 6mm ally plate bed, SSR driven & a 0.2 mm PEI sheet on top, with 2 Z-motors driving the 2040 frame within a frame setup....

Do you have any pics? Sounds interesting.