Revisting my FT-5

Discussion of the Folger Tech Large Scale 3D Printer Kits, such as the FT-5, FT-i3 Mega, FT-6 and others
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LePaul
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Joined: February 7th, 2016, 10:26 pm
Location: Bangor, Maine USA
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Revisting my FT-5

Post by LePaul »

Over the past few days, I've dusted off, lubricated the rails and gave my FT-5 a little TLC

I have purchased the 713Maker replacement bed platform and bed. I still need to purchase the heated silicone mat and SSR to make those upgrades.

But with Marlin 1.1.9 and babystepping, I wanted to see if that would help with my warped melamine bed. I have a dip in the center of the bed and despite every surface, manually bed leveling the edges ... that center was still a good distance away from the nozzle.

Someone offered their Ft-5 R1 firmware to the Facebook group, so I figured...why not? I enabled babystepping via the 2-button press on the LCD menu button and did some tests. I found the firmware had to be adjusted for the Y motor stepper direction and the extruder. Easy fixes. I also decided to figure out why the LCD encoder knob was reversed for navigating the menus and entering values in the sub menus. Fairly easy to fix.

(Why they were not by FT, I'll never know!)

I also wanted to fine tune the Titan Aero, which is equipped with a pancake motor (lighter than a stepper). Calibrating esteps on a direct drive is always a challenge. The extruder moves way faster than it ever would be for a print, so slippage is going to happen. And that was the case. I could get about 90% through but never 100% due to slipping. I opted to do the math, provided by E3D and the degree/rotations the motor was rated for. I set to 418.5 and decided to do a series of extrusion multiplier test prints to see how close my settings would work. In short...quite close!

I plan to try some larger prints and see how the accuracy is as well. I still need to do the mechanical checks, using a ruler to verify the esteps are correct for the XYZ movements...but seeing how just the firmware has helped the bed issue gives me hope the bed upgrades will be worth while!
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