Simplify3D User Forum

I've noticed recently I've tried to print an object and I'll go back later to check on it only to find the bed has lowered and the print has not completed...

Is there a way to determine what caused the print to stop as if it had finished (even though it hasn't) ?

There's a good chance the bed might have lowered due to the Z-axis timeout on the Marlin firmware. So if something happened with your computer that caused the build to pause, the firmware will eventually realize the Z-axis hasn't moved in awhile and disable the current to that motor. It's intended to be a energy savings, but the Z-axis on many machines is positioned such that this will actually cause the build plate to fall (or worse the extruder to fall into the part!).

There are some known issues with computers going to sleep during a build, which can disrupt serial communications. We tried to add a prevention mechanism for this in v1.1.2, but you could also ensure this doesn't happen by setting your screensaver/sleep time to be longer than the build time. To make things much simpler, we usually suggest just running long builds directly from the SD card on your machine since it will continue running regardless of what happens to your computer. It's much more reliable that way, and we usually do that for anything more than a 30 minute build.

Let me know if that helps!

Yes it does...The MakerGear folks mentioned running long prints off of the SD card will be more successful...and it was..additionally the print seemed faster as well!

Thanks for your reply!

On the M2 the Z-axis is so smooth that the bed will fall to the bottom if the Z motor is unpowered. I've only had my M2 running for a day and find this annoying. It's not a problem on machines like the mendel where the threaded rod will hold the Z axis in place when unpowered. It can be changed by increasing the time in the firmware Configuration_adv.h file:

#define DEFAULT_STEPPER_DEACTIVE_TIME 60

I'm also going to change "#define min_software_endstops false" in the Configuration.h file to be true.

Check out this link:

http://makergear.wikidot.com/m2-firmware

Here are the changes I made to the firmware posted in the link above so that it works with 1/16 microstepping (http://makergear.wikidot.com/m2-firmware). I noticed that the z-axis homing speed is very slow in the above firmware link so I changed that to something closer to the factory setting. I'm impressed with the print quality!

Configuration.h

#define PID_MAX 140 // limits current to nozzle; 255=full current

#define min_software_endstops true //If true, axis won't move to coordinates less than HOME_POS.

#define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {88.88,88.88,400,471.5} // steps per unit for M2 with 1/16 microstepping

#define HOMING_FEEDRATE {50*60, 50*60, 20*60, 0} // set the homing speeds (mm/min)


Configuration_adv.h

#define DEFAULT_STEPPER_DEACTIVE_TIME 300