Topic: Press Calibration Instructions
Included documentation says to perform calibration, but does not provide any instructions to do so. lol. Below is what I've gathered.
Getting Started
1. Install drivers and soliprint software
2. Open the printer lid and examine the extruder head, locate the small hand tab on the left side. This will dock / undock the Z-axis sensor sled. Press this down to manually engage the probe.
3. Connect printer to PC and power on.
4. Open soliprint and begin heating up the printer
Calibration Steps
5. Tools > Printer Config
6. Use the axis sliders to ensure that the printer responds to GCode commands.
Note: Beware the Y axis as the head moves backwards, the cable bundle can get caught. Manually lift the cable bundle out of the way as this occurs during calibration.
7. Press the Home button for each axis individually. Wait for each one to complete before continuing. The head will move to each extreme, pressing into the zeroing switches.
Note: The Z axis needs the head probe down (Z-axis sensor sled). Manually press this down before sending the Z axis to Home.
8. Leave the Config window open so you can watch the command log
Z-Offset Calibration
9. Your printer should be heated up now. Run the Z-Offset Calibration.
Note: The Z-axis sensor sled should automatically lower / raise during this. If not, you will need to manually push it down before running calibration.
10. Wait for calibration to run and finish while watching that rear cable bundle, lifting it out of the way as needed.
11. The Z-Offset window will fill with numbers. Calibration is complete when the window will let you restart calibration "Run Calibration Test" button is active.
Choosing a New Z-Offset Selection
12. After running the calibration test look at the pattern that your press printed. Choose the line that looks the best, click the corresponding checkbox, then click Set New Z-Offset.
In the example picture below, you would choose +0.1 as the best. Look for good adhesion and flow. No curling. Even strip of plastic with little smearing. Good rule is to pick the longest and most bold line.
Fine Tuning your Z-Offset
After saving your initial z-offset calibration, you can run the test again and fine tune your calibration from 0.1mm to 0.01mm.
13. Clear your glass bed of the previous print and prepare to print again.
14. Click the Fine Tune checkbox.
15. Click the Run Calibration Test button again.
16. Choose the best printed line and press the Set New Z-Offset button.
Note on Retries
If at any time you restart the calibration process or pull power, you will need to both restart the soliprint software and unplug / reconnect the usb cable.
Reset Printer to Factory Settings
The calibration data and z offsets are stored in the printer's eeprom and will be remembered after power cycle, or switching printing software. To erase you calibration data and start over, use the gcode console and send codes M502 and M500.
More Information
The firmware for the Solidoodle Press is open source and has its own wiki. The wiki page for Marlin has lots of great info.
http://github.com/MarlinFirmware/Marlin … eveling.md