The issue was leveling. We were finally able to use the screws with the springs below the bed to set the bed and the nozzle level to each other.

I also ran into an issue when my yellow ink ran out, I wasn't able to feed the new ink in. But somehow, when I pushed the green ink in enough, when I ejected the green ink to troubleshoot, the yellow piece that was stuck inside popped out, and I was able to use the tweezers to feed it out.

And I was able to set up repetier and the drivers on a new computer, after the one I was previously using for 3D printing was taken for another purpose.

Lastly I found the aquanet on amazon and had it shipped to me, it worked like a charm. No glue sticks needed, no acetone. Just Aquanet. It works.

Anyway, I'm just glad I finally was able to achieve this piece.

And thanks everyone for your invaluable help.

Aqua net, glad to see SD has been paying attention

LOL

As far as the friction issue, you can first try a belt and pulley adjustment:

https://vimeo.com/55031028

While belt tension may not be the direct cause of the friction, going through the above procedure may point you to where and why the friction is occurring.  Also make sure the guide rods are lubed with a nice thin coating of lithium grease.

As far as ABS not sticking to one quadrant of the bed, it seems that the Solitouch procedure is not working too well.  You may want to try manually leveling the bed.

I got help from my guy at solidoodle, and over the phone he heard a noise while the z axis was moving and thinks that's what's causing an inaccurate automatic z-probing. I'll fix the noise issue there and see if that fixes it. He mentioned that the plastic might be flaking off the bed because the head is either a tad too high or too low in certain areas of the print.

As for the y-axis, I added a bit of grease and it sounds better. I guess I need to grease more often than I thought.

Also, I'm going to try using his recommended adhesive:

I'll update you with how that goes sometime next week.

https://vimeo.com/55031028

While belt tension may not be the direct cause of the friction, going through the above procedure may point you to where and why the friction is occurring.  Also make sure the guide rods are lubed with a nice thin coating of lithium grease.

As far as ABS not sticking to one quadrant of the bed, it seems that the Solitouch procedure is not working too well.  You may want to try manually leveling the bed.

The only thing is, when the calibration happens, now for some reason, when the head backs up to do calibration points 5 to 8 (2nd row), there is a noise as it back up and it doesn't go as far back as it should. So the print job starts off the plate because the lower end is calculated too far forward.

How can I stop that noise from happening?

Edit: I got the noise to stop by playing with the Y coordinates and manually playing with the position of the print head.

Now the problem I'm facing is that just one quadrant of the print bed is not seeing the plastic stick to the bed, though I applied a lot of glue.

Edit 2: The piece was going nicely when there was a friction sound 0.5h into the job, and the thing started printing too far. I'm not sure how to fix this friction issue.

Edit 3: Sometimes during print the plastic flakes up as it dries up and the nozzle gets stuck on it and pushes it off the bed. Also, during calibration, the z-sensor scratches the dried glue and lifts it off the bed.

I think this will solve your issue!

4mm will be appropriate for such a large build area...it is a bit thicker than what most of us use, just make sure you give it some extra "soak time" (maybe about 5 minutes) after your bed temp reaches its target before you start the print.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Thanks! Will do.

Latest update about the glue. I found that the glue just becomes a dry white layer after the print bed heats up. I'm going to follow this video and make some ABS Juice. When it's ready I'll apply it with a clean cloth and hope that it works.

I'll post back in a few days.

4mm will be appropriate for such a large build area...it is a bit thicker than what most of us use, just make sure you give it some extra "soak time" (maybe about 5 minutes) after your bed temp reaches its target before you start the print.

Good luck and keep us posted!

About a month ago (June 10th) I called Solidoodle to tell them about the z-calibration video I was pointed to here (by IronMan). Over the course of the call they explained to me that the software in the video isn't supported by my model. Fortunately they showed me an alternative way to z-calibrate.

The only problem was, my printer didn't ship with a glass plate and I had been trying to print on the metal plate of the print bed all along. The support representative told me that with the glass surface it will stick and the glue will work. I can't remember what caused me to realize that something was missing, but during the phone call I had an itch, something wasn't right.

He promised to ship it to me but they are having issues with their shipping company. It's been over a month that I'm waiting and I still don't have the promised tracking number.

At this point I'm growing increasingly skeptical this will even work, but I am going to try to produce a 12x12 glass plate to at least hope to produce a piece. I don't know if there is any specific type of glass that I need other than it needing to withstand 110 degrees C.

What do you guys think?

Update: I just ordered a 4mm tempered plate for 25 dollars and it'll be ready to test on Thursday.

http://support.solidoodle.com/hc/en-us/ … alibration