Solidoodle… Try, Try Again.

Another day, another headache. The video above shows what happens when the auto-level feature of the Solidoodle Press 3D printer fails to pop down at the beginning of a print, causing the nozzle to collide with the print plate. It doesn’t sound good! The only way to stop that terrible noise is to cut the power. Unfortunately this isn’t the first time it’s happened either. The only way I’ve found to deal with this is to turn the printer back on and use the slider for the z-axis height in the settings to drop it down and relieve the pressure on the extruder. I feel like it’s thrown some of the calibration off though, and with the auto z-axis calibration not working in the current version of SoliPrint, I’m going to have to do some searching online for fixes. If you haven’t read my previous post, a great place to start looking for help with the Solidoodle Press is the SoliForum.

Some of you may also be asking what’s going on with my shiny print plate in the video. Well, as mentioned in yesterday’s post I’ve stuck 2 perforated PCB’s onto the glass plate to see if the prints will stick, much like the old faithful Up! Plus 2. So far it seems to only work moderately well (which is still a whole lot better than printing onto the glass), but since my collision problems it doesn’t seem like the nozzle is close enough to the plate anymore during the first layer printing. The video below actually shows the start of a successful print with the perforated PCB’s, although there are some major problems with the auto-level tool still not working!

In this video I manually dropped the auto-level tool just in time, however didn’t manage to raise it quick enough causing it to collide with the side of the printing plate. What a nasty grinding sound! Amazingly when I flicked the auto-level out of the way the printer actually went on to print something (almost) successful! The photo below shows where I had to stop the print as the small details beginning to snap as they collide with the nozzle, but the main point is that the print stuck to the perforated PCB plate. This gives me some hope! If I can only get the z-axis working properly again I might be able to get that magical first print out!

I also have hairspray at the top of my shopping list just to see if that makes much of a difference printing on the glass plate – one way or another I need to figure this all out ASAP! If you’ve experienced issues like this with Solidoodle or any other 3D printer I’d love to hear about it, please comment or subscribe to keep up to date.

– Posted by James Novak