¿Cómo calibrar el PID de una impresora?/ How to calibrate the PID of a printer?
Hello Hive Makers community a while ago I had commented that I had to do a PID calibration to my machine, but this time I would like to explain in depth how it is done.
But before starting with the explanations I would like to explain what is the PID, when we should calibrate it and how to realize that it is necessary to correct and make this calibration.
The PID is a temperature control that uses integrals and derivatives to generate a continuous variation in the mechanism, which in this case comprises the thermistor, the heating resistor and the fan of the printer, clearly these components are not the only ones that affect, but they are the ones we can control through the software. In this way we can precisely control the temperature and cooling, eliminating temperature oscillations to increase efficiency and improve the performance of our machine.
SOMETHING TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT, with the passage of time our machines wear out, the fans spin slower, our aluminum block wears out or the thermistor or heating resistor begins to fail, this may be some of the causes, but also change the barrel for another model, change the aluminum block for one that is not original to the machine or also buy a different fan, as the machine is configured with the other parts to perform the calculations.
By having the PID uncalibrated what we can see on the screen of our machines is that the temperature of the nozzle or the hot bed oscillate, in my case for example change the aluminum block of the Ender 3 for one that is not original and change the barrel for one ALL METAL what gender that the printing temperature oscillates +-5 degrees, I usually print PLA at 210º and the temperature went up and down between 205º and 215º the problem is that when these changes are generated the machine never achieve a balance and does not start printing or if it does it will most likely throw a temperature error with a beep while printing.
After this introduction to what the PID is, the problems it can generate and the reasons why it is generated, I will explain how I manage to solve the problem.
To start, we have to download the program called PRONTERFACE and with a cable either USB or USB A/B (depending on your machines) connect it to one of the USB ports of our PC, at the same time we have to have our 3D printer connected to the power network because the PRONTERFACE program what it will do is to raise and lower the temperature of our machine to calculate the necessary values for it to work properly.Una vez tenemos todo conectado debemos elegir el puerto y los baudios, en la esquina superior izquierda los elegimos. Nota: Voy a ser sincero yo voy probando hasta Lograr que mi maquina conecte ya que nunca entendí bien que puerto es el correcto ni la cantidad de baudios que tiene, pero con prueba y error siempre logro conectarlo.
Once we have everything connected we must choose the port and the baud rate, in the upper left corner we choose them. Note: I'm going to be honest I'm going to try until I get my machine to connect since I never understood well which port is the correct one nor the amount of baud that it has, but with trial and error I always manage to connect it.
To realize that the machine was successfully connected we will have to see that in the right column it says PRINTER IS NOW ONLINE, once we are sure that it is connected we will have to send the following command writing it in the left column at the bottom where it allows us to enter text. We will place M106 F255 this command what it does is to make the fans work at maximum capacity.
Now we will have to send the following command M303 E0 S210 C8 with this command we are telling the printer to raise its temperature to 210º 8 times starting the PID calibration. We will see in the graph that the temperature is going up and down, this takes a while and once it finishes it will give us three P.I.D values which we will have to replace in the memory of our printer.
So we write this command M301 P(Value) I (Value) D(Value) it is very important to respect the spaces when placing the values, we write the number after the P and the D with a . (Period) instead of a , (Comma) and after the i we must leave a space and place the value. I EMPHASIZE AGAIN IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO RESPECT IT because I have written it wrong and I have no result.
Finally and to finish we use the M500 command to save the new values in our machine, there are printers that do not allow to update the memory of this wood so another solution would be to place the values obtained in the PID in the Gcode of our laminator, this is also another possible solution.
And that's it, in this way we would have managed to calibrate the PID of our 3D printer and have it back in optimal operation.
ANOTHER CLARIFICATION I WANT TO MAKE, sometimes there are computers that do not have the CH340 driver which makes it very difficult to connect our printer to a USB port of the PC so what we will have to do is look for this driver on the internet and install it manually, thus solving this error. It happened to me and it took me a long time to solve it.
I really hope it can be useful, sometimes we do not find a solution to certain errors and this may be a way to fix it. If you already know how to do it, I invite you to share this post if you have a less experienced maker friend, it could save you a lot of headaches and exhaustive internet searches.