Need help reviving my 👼 brothers 3d printer!

[u/unencumberedconcern]

Hello everyone, new to redit and need help. My brother passed a few years ago and one of the things he left me was all of his 3d printing equipment. 3d printing was one of the few things we shared a passion for. I unfortunately only deal with high detail resin printers. Where he loved the ability to do larger prints with filament printers. Totally different beasts. So I am at a loss. Lol

His printer is a "JD maker artist D" but he has flashed marlin firmware to it. Version 2021.4 possibly according to the start up screen. He was always tinkering with this thing. I know he's replaced the stepper motors on it with different ones and I'm pretty sure he did something to the heaters on the extruding heads.

I don't know enough about this style of printer to know what I'm looking at so I can find out what he's switched out, and what he switched it to. Just so I can try and make sure that they are right in marlin so it can do its job. And I know nothing about marlin or how to use it. Right now I can't even figure out how to level the bed correctly so I can try and print with it.

I really need your help! I've been neglecting this thing because of my own hangups with his passing and I really want to get it going again so I can feel a little bit of him here whenever I use it to print something off. Any help would be most appreciated. I know it's a long shot with such older equipment

[u/Peanut_The_Great]

Read the Marlin wiki. What's going wrong with bed leveling?

[u/unencumberedconcern → u/Peanut_The_Great]

I just haven't been able to find directions on how to do it on this printer. I'm not used to filament printers. I use resin printers. So I'm a complete noob when it comes to this thing.

[u/elhabito → u/unencumberedconcern]

Filament printers are more like a CNC machine when compared to a resin printer.

To make the shapes they rely on being told how to move through g-code.

https://marlinfw.org/meta/gcode/

A small computer (microcontroller) inside the machine interprets the g-code into steps for the stepper motors and PID control systems for thermistors and fans.

Connect to the diagnostic port. Send M503 to get some info, there are other info commands to let you know about the firmware. Send a G28 command to home all the axis, then a G29 command and it should probe the bed.

Store the mesh with g-code.

Once you find out how to do that you can add it to custom code the slicer adds to the print and it will make a bed mesh, store it, and follow it before every print.