Solidoodle 4 issues

I have a new Solidoodle 4.

Initially I had the same issue everyone has out of the box... part adhesion.  Thanks to the forum, I grabbed some 8x8 glass & Aqua Net.  No more sticking issue!

Now it is on to other problems.

1st, The Solidoodle 4 does not seem to have 200 x 200 travel in X & Y.  I have not tested Z.  Is this common?  When traveling in X, the left extruder fan crashes into the printed rod holder on the left.  I didn't get an exact amount of travel, but it seems like about a 8-10mm limitation. 
In the Y - direction, the carriage does not crash into the door, but rather the same left-side rod holder impacts a printed (Y-stop??) that is cliped on the left Y-Rod to limit travel.  Again, I am not sure of the exact point of impact, but its between 5-7mm short.

2nd issue... Cube corner bulge.  When printing a 40mm cube, I get corners that are bulging & rounded.  I expect there to be some rounding of course, but the bulging is strange.  When I measure the cube corner to corner, it is 40mm, but between the edges (on the flat walls) I see 39.8mm.

Back info:
- I have calibrated the extruder.  It seems to consistently extrude the correct length of filament.
- I have set all of the extrusion widths to .48
- A single wall cube does print at .48 thickness, per my caliper
- The left Y-axis belt was looser than the right, so I tightened the left belt to match the right.  (this seemed to improve some circle issues, but not fix them entirely.

renee wrote:

I've noticed I'm unable to reach the full 200mm on X and Y as well on the SD4. Its only a few mm but I noticed right away I wasn't going to get the full 200 and sadly I kinda needed to... Not much I can do except modify my design or use a different printer.

My circles were also dented. Belt tension and the pulley alignment took care of that. There is a Solidoodle video online and while I didn't follow his procedure completely (personal preference) there is a bit you can learn and gain from watching. http://vimeo.com/55031028

Other than that keep on adjusting your settings until you get what you want. I'm not an expert but I don't use a .48 extrusion width on a .4 nozzle so you might need to make some changes to your calibration routine.

What extrusion width are you using?

zlagger wrote:

I have a new Solidoodle 4.

Initially I had the same issue everyone has out of the box... part adhesion.  Thanks to the forum, I grabbed some 8x8 glass & Aqua Net.  No more sticking issue!

Now it is on to other problems.

1st, The Solidoodle 4 does not seem to have 200 x 200 travel in X & Y.  I have not tested Z.  Is this common?  When traveling in X, the left extruder fan crashes into the printed rod holder on the left.  I didn't get an exact amount of travel, but it seems like about a 8-10mm limitation. 
In the Y - direction, the carriage does not crash into the door, but rather the same left-side rod holder impacts a printed (Y-stop??) that is cliped on the left Y-Rod to limit travel.  Again, I am not sure of the exact point of impact, but its between 5-7mm short.

2nd issue... Cube corner bulge.  When printing a 40mm cube, I get corners that are bulging & rounded.  I expect there to be some rounding of course, but the bulging is strange.  When I measure the cube corner to corner, it is 40mm, but between the edges (on the flat walls) I see 39.8mm.

Back info:
- I have calibrated the extruder.  It seems to consistently extrude the correct length of filament.
- I have set all of the extrusion widths to .48
- A single wall cube does print at .48 thickness, per my caliper
- The left Y-axis belt was looser than the right, so I tightened the left belt to match the right.  (this seemed to improve some circle issues, but not fix them entirely.

I am glad to hear the glass and Aqua-Net is working out for you.
As far as your other concerns...
It is common that the stated 8x8x8 is not exact.  You should measure what you are actually getting.  Just start at home and click across while keeping track of the distance.  If it is actually crashing and the motor is still trying to push past then you need to decrease that axis limit as shown in the picture below.

The front corners of your build area on each side will hit the pulley brackets but rarely cause any issue in real world printing.  So that is just an excepted limitation of this particular design.

When it comes to circles adding a pillow block with bearings to the Y-axis drive shaft is the only way I know of that will have a dramatic impact.  This is because of the deflection of that shaft caused primarily by the belt tension to the Y-motor.
First post of this thread has a good picture.

Of course this assumes you have the belts aligned properly.  Having the y belts equally tensioned is one thing but you really need to then loosen the set screw on the rear right pulley (the one on the drive shaft).  Then move things back and forth until it rests in as neutral position you can find.  Then tighten the set screw.

The bulging you are mentioning will probably also be greatly reduced after all of this.  That is usually caused by backlash or possibly over extrusion.  I have even seen hot ends have a little play in the mount cause this as well.

Hope this helps

My extrusion width is .48
It was explained to me that to get good layer to layer adhesion, the extrusion width had to be larger that the nozzle diameter.  This is to smush the new layer on to the old.

With a .4 nozzle and a .4 extrusion, wouldn't that make a completely round (no squish) extrusion?  A friend of mine was having delaminating layers and this was the conclusion.