SD Press - Under the Kimono (Page 1 of 12)

Looking forward to seeing the comparison!
Thanks for taking the time to get into the printer enough to get us some pictures.

What motherboard is that?

edit: read it wrong

Alright, cool. What does the firmware banner say in RH?

I am very happy to see a vet with a Press. I look forward to your probing

No pun intended

It's a pity that they didn't take the opportunity of a controller board redesign to upgrade the extruder driver.   A couple of other users' sample prints still showed the typical Solidoodle moire.

Now that a Press is in the hands of someone who isn't brand new, the best thing you could probably do is create a RH profile for it that we can sticky.  I suspect that Soliprint will be a disaster for awhile, and new users have enough to deal with just learning about 3D printing without dealing with major software bugs on top of it.

+1 it would be really nice if we could help these guys out!

What do you mean by "since you can't physically level the bed" ? There are four M3 screws under the glass. I've had to adjust mine cause bed was sagging at the front of the bed.

I sure hope all the Press noobs read this thread to get a different perspective on how to deal with what most of us would call minor issues.
Please keep up the good work!!!

I guess a status update is in order. My experience so far.

Unit came in about 11am yesterday. Unboxed & setup. Connected a RPi to it and powered the printer up. Since they ship the printer with the bed in the middle (With a foam block to hold it there) I figured I should home all the axis. So I decided to home Z first. Which then promptly shoved the bed deep into the hotends face.

Which I didn't know then but what I know now- You HAVE to home X/Y before you can home Z. As I stated in an earlier post. The probe for Z-Offset is also the Z-Endstop. BUT there has been 4 ~ 5 times where I DID home X/Y first- But for some reason it did not do the motions to extend the z-probe. In which once again the hotend gets a face full of heated bed. Seriously, I've had more head crashes in the last couple hours then I've ever had with my SD2. (Let that comment sink in for a second.)

Which leads me to another issue, There is some kind of software issue going on internally in the printer. The two prints that I attempted stopped mid-way thru. The other thing I noticed is the M105 call-backs (basically where your host control software plays marco polo with your controller with temp info) is sporadic. If you start the printer (or restart it) they come back in regular intervals. Once you do a movement command. Then the interval changes. If you home anything or issue a G29 for the Z-offset function, Then it has this sputtering like action. 

And the knocking sound I was getting from the extruder. Now this is where QC is kinda a issue. Now supposedly all of these printers did a test print before they left the factory. After printing for about 20 mins I was getting this thumping/knocking sound.
I killed the print and home everything. Move all the axis slowly to figure out what it was. I noticed if I tell it to extrude <5mm. No thump. Anything more. Thump, Thump, Thump... When I took the shroud off the extruder you can see the stepper shaft spinning and hit the grub screw in the hobbed gear. Like I could spin the gear around the shaft with my finger.

So this is where I'd like a repair/maintenance doc from SD (Yeah I know, Mostly like will not happen) You have to remove the entire assembly to to get to that. But what I noticed is there is a 'key way' that is near that gear which I was hoping it was there to tighten/loosen that gear. But nope. Goes to nowhere. Doesn't line up.

I figured while I had it apart I took a picture of it.

Anyway, After taking that apart I notice it was 2:30am and I needed to crash. I'll pick back up later today.

Thanks for the detailed write up!  It's a great help to those of us new to 3d Printing.

I have a quick question about Repetier Host that maybe you can answer... Do we have to use the Solidoodle version?  I notice that they are at version .85, vs 1.006 direct from Repetier.  The solidoodle version available for download does include a profile for the Press, but can I just use that same profile with a newer software version?

Also, I was also hearing a similar "knocking" sound from the feed gear.  raising my temperature a few degrees seemed to help, but if I need to disassemble everything to tighten the set screw... were there any springs or small parts I need to watch out for?  Someone mentioned on another thread that they had a spring pop out when they were disassembling it.

Seems like you might be able to get a shortened "L" shaped hex key in there to the left side clearance area of the drive hub...

I have tried the press with Repiter Host and while it tries to print. It print's about 5mm above the print bed. I tried running the offset utility in Soliprint and setting it in the e-prom. But nothing.
I updated the e-prom and then homed the Z I didn't observe a change. I tried but 5 and -5.