Setting up my new Wanhao Duplicator i3 Plus, the Desibot 2.

When I set up the Printrbot Simple Metal (Desibot 1), I didn’t keep any notes about what I did. Now that I’m setting this new printer up (and especially because I have a lot of time to myself right now because I’m down with a cold), I’m writing it all down this time around.

This maintenance log is separate from the 3D printing articles I normally post. Articles are fully-developed documents, with these log entries will be more extemporaneous, probably half-considered and incomplete in places.

Assembling Desibot 2

Gosh only four screws to hold the bed to the tower. I can see why people feel that a Z brace mod is necessary.
Checked X- and Y-steps and looks okay. They may not be exact, but my measuring method needs work, and movement-steps are not super high priority anyway. Print accuracy comes after getting prints in the first place.
I used to adjust first layer height using M212 (‘Set bed level sensor offset’) with the PBSM, but I can’t use it without an inductive probe. So I’ve been using the feeler gauges to set the gap.
Bed leveling using a feeler gauge is reasonably easy, but nowhere near as accurate as the Printrbot Simple Metal’s inductive probe.
I’ve printed up a dial indicator mount as an alternative, I dented the bed material a bit when I levelled with the dial indicator and inadvertently raised the bed by just a hair too much.
Dial indicator levelling is very accurate (notwithstanding the quality of my dial indicator), but it’s much slower than feeler gauges. It also seems like heated beds are more forgiving of levelling deviation anyway, which makes feeler gauges more practical.

Ringing issue

There is a TON of really bad ringing on printed parts.

Wow ringing, Desibot 1 never had this. Had a look at the acceleration and jerk settings (by default accel is 3000 X/Y, jerk is 10 X/Y) and they seemed high, but going all the way down to 750 accel didn’t improve the prints at all.