To sum up, key things to know about the E3D modification (Page 3 of 4)

The beveled edge at the top of the E3d sends to be pretty good at guiding the filament in,  alignment may not be as critical.

Wiki page is now here:
http://www.soliwiki.com/E3D_extruder

The whole middle is going to be undergoing a major rewrite assuming Sanjay gives me permission to incorporate bits from his instructions.  That way you won't have to flip back and forth between his and mine, which gets confusing.

I've incorporated the page for updating firmware in the same way.  I am very hazy on how this process goes for those with the newfangled Solidoodle proprietary circuit board, so I hope someone will fill in the gaps there.

Lots of rewrites throughout, additional instructions for things I encountered during my install, added pictures.

It got to 86 and I went ahead with the PID autotune.  My numbers seem like they changed a lot:

Kp from 22.20 to 13.20
Ki from 1.08 to 0.71
Kd from 114.00 to 61.66

But I've never done this autotune before so maybe they've been bad all along.  Or maybe it's normal for it to change that much when you do the E3D install.

Bed heating back up, still seems slow.

On the positive, filament does go through it and come out... so if I can ever get the bed to heat, I can probably try printing.

2n2r5 asked me to post my configuration.h in case something's funky about it.  It's the one that comes with the download recommended on the "update firmware" page, only altered as instructed for E3D.  Attached here.  Maybe something else got changed that's related to the bed heating slowly?

If your bed heated above 85 before it still should unless there is a bit in the firmware update about that. Although mine goes 100+ no problem. DO you have Printrboard or the Sang?

The E3D install seems to have gone fine, but a few other seemingly unrelated problems since I did it are keeping me from printing.  I am not sure if they're related to one another, and I'm stumped and, again, frustrated.

1) The heating bed slowdown reported above.  It does eventually get to the mid-80s, but it takes so long.  Nothing has changed that I can see, unless the firmware did it, or unless the extruder heater draws so much current that there's not as much left for the bed?  But the bed takes longer even with the extruder heater turned off.

2) Not a problem so much as an annoyance: the tendency of the LED lights inside the case to flicker seems to have increased.  I mean, a lot; it gives me a headache to be in the room with it.  Does this, combined with #1 above, suggest that my power supply is now inadequate -- either because of the heater drawing more, or just its own general decline?

3) It seems that the X and Y home/park location is in some way "out of synch".  The locations shown in RH don't necessarily correspond to actual locations, and the manual controls won't work.  If I try to make it move the wrong way, it'll grind up against the limit switch, but RH updates its location and now it can move.  However, the X, Y, or all-axis Home buttons just recreate the problem, as does starting the print job (the print head is already in the far back right, but it acts like it's trying to move more that way when I start the job, making a grind noise, then it starts printing properly).  I've had this before when I've had the power off and moved the head around, but I was never sure what cleared it.  (Powering the printer off and back on, disconnecting, etc. doesn't do it.)  This seems like a very simple thing I should know by now, but I can't figure out what to search on, or even how to describe it.

4) The one that actually keeps killing my print jobs, which may be related to #3: I keep having a Y offset on the second or third layer where the whole thing starts printing about 10mm farther towards the back of the printer.  I've had the same print job do this by the same distance at the same time into the job three times now.  I don't see any way it can be the print head getting stuck anywhere, though I haven't been able to catch it happening to see the moment.  I wonder if it's related to #3 because there's a grind noise just before it, like when the head moves to the limit and then can't move past it but RH thinks it is still moving.

During the E3D install, I did not knowingly change anything related to any of this stuff!

Already have a fan, and this is the same printer I had just before the E3D install.  As noted, homing isn't clearing the problem mentioned above.

I didn't change configuration_adv.h (or make any other changes but the ones in http://www.soliwiki.com/E3D_extruder) but of course I have no way to confirm that the copy linked to from http://www.soliwiki.com/Updating_Solidoodle_Firmware matches what was in my SD3 before I started this.  Is there any chance that the firmware linked there actually is an older version than what I actually was running, and that's causing these problems?

ENDSTOPS_ONLY_FOR_HOMING is, indeed, defined:

#define ENDSTOPS_ONLY_FOR_HOMING // If defined the endstops will only be used for homing

And yes! -- when I push the endstop for X movement by hand, and then ask RH to manually move in the X direction, it does move.

As noted above, this has always happened to me before this, since I first got the SD3, any time I have to move the head around when the motors are off or the printer is unplugged.  However, usually it clears itself up soon after.  I'm not sure which thing I do has cleared it in the past, but it has always happened within one or two tries at printing; and it must be something I haven't done this time, or whatever it was previous times doesn't do it anymore.

When I did those steps, it moved a tiny bit to the left (away from the endstop), like a fraction of a second of movement, then stopped.  So it stayed in the middle.  I assume that means it's not ignoring the endstop.

After that, I released the endstop and hit Home X again, and it moved to the endstop and stopped.  Just for kicks I did the same for Y, and it moved back and stopped.  RH now shows Y=0.00 and X=0.00 even though it is at the far right corner.  If I try to move the head with RH, it won't move anymore.

It seems like RH just thinks the far right corner is 0 0 when it's actually 200 200.

At this point, I pressed Park.  The motors made a grinding noise for a few seconds but of course the head had nowhere to go.  Now RH correctly shows Y=200.00 and Y=200.00.  And now I can use the manual controls to move the head.  So right now, everything works as it should.

However, if I start a job, the first thing it's going to do is home, and that'll get RH thinking that the far right is 0 0 again, and then everything'll go wrong again.

It seems like the printer is doing the right thing but RH is confused about where the head actually is when it's parked.

There are no changes in RH's Printer Settings about this: Park Position is still X 200, Y 200, Z 0 in the Printer tab, and Printer Shape is still saying Bed Left and Bed Front are 0, X ranges 0 to 200, Y ranges 0 to 200, and width, depth, height are 200..

...and what does ANY of this have to do with the E3D upgrade which is the only thing that changed?  (Gaaaaah... the wife is giving me a disapproving look.  All this time and I've just made yet ANOTHER trade from one problem to another...)

This shouldn't have anything to do with the E3D upgrade AFAIK.

It could be worse.  Very shortly after I got my E3D connected my Sanguino died; so I traded that problem for a RAMPS/Mega upgrade.  But things are good since then.