constant re-calibration
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I'm actually having numerous issues but I'll try to narrow it down.
Using a mac to connect to a pulse xe e-223s
Went through the whole calibrate and leveling. Wasn't getting good quality and also had mattercontrol crash a few times (maybe just tried printing too big at first go). Switched over to sdcard, not much improvement.
Since I am printing with PETG, thought maybe the nozzle was to low (along with tweaking temps). Went through calibrate again but made sure paper was more loose. (I've since found the z-offset in MC but never used it)
I exported to an sdcard and for some reason it decided to go lower than what was just calibrated. Scratched up the garolite. Luckily I caught it fast. But shouldnt it auto-magically add all the information when exporting?
So I switched garolite (glad I bought a spare). Deleted the printer and wanted to start from scratch again. Went through the whole calibration, and used the temp settings I learned to try again, printing directly to it. It was pretty good. Needs a few more tweaks. Shutdown the printer and put my laptop to sleep. Today I was going to print again and now the nozzle is trying to print maybe like 1cm off the bed.
I am scared to re-calibrate because I don't was to ruin another garolite and I shouldn't have to.
I also have a PEI sheet that I tried out at the beginning and of course I re-calibrated then too, which makes sense when switching beds.
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@plew you shouldn't have to recalibrate. Only if something on the bed changes but you might have to adjust the Z offset from time to time especially if you are switching material. Now PETG I don't print unless I put blue painters tape on the bed. You get things wrong with PETG it might become a permanent part of your build plate - tape you can always scrape off especially if you make it wet. Now MC is wonky. I use Prusa slicer to slice and do all my settings and then load the gcode file it generates in MC and have it apply the bed leveling. So I can leave all offsets alone as I figured them out once
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@mpirringer
Thanks for the reply. My confidence in MC is starting to waiver.
Although I wish I could test it on my win10 box but its too far away. I'll compare some of the gcode files to see if its a hardware or software issue and try out another slicer for giggles.
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@plew You need MC for bed leveling but not for slicing. So slice with whatever and then instead of loading the STL load the Gcode file generated by the other slicer and run it from MC. If you run it from the sd card - at leas my pulse - does not have filament out detection and power resume etc. If your head starts over sudden high - delete the printer and create a new one - not a big deal if you are using a different slicer for slicing. I personally liker SLIC3R/Prusa Slicer as it has a lot of neat features like Max volumetric E and you easily can configure layer width. Keep the layer height between 25 and 50% nozzle diameter and the outside perimeter at 110% nozzle diameter and if you use a genuine E3D nozzle you can go on the inside perimeters and infill up to 200% of the nozzle diameter. (speeds up printing) If you use a nozzle >.5 read these tutorials about establishing flow
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ohhhh the old " i hope its not going to carve thru my garolite again " feeling. dont i know that too well
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@plew Dual z - axis steppers, even connected in parallel, they will never stay calibrated.