Printable area vs. Actual dimensions
I don't k know if I'm used this forum correctly, but I'm having some issues figuring it out.
I bought the mk3 several years ago and after assembling the entire printer from the kit and a few teethgrinding moments (weeks), I, with much help from the prusa team, finally got it working great. I did notice something peculiar in the beginning that sort of perplexed me. But after thinking of all the excitement (frustration) of the initial calibration, I decided to just pretend it went there. Besides, it might bed to be there. The issue is the enormous amount of wasted space on the print bed. Full disclosure: in the beginning I decided to send my printer to prusa to fix whatever I included in the initial assembly. With that in mind, I decided that the strip of the right side of the print bed must be untouched for some reason. But after completing the upgrade to the mk3s+, I noticed that space was still there. Furthermore, due to the way upgrade and surprisingly simply calibration, I decided I should invest the time and effort into finding the answer or explanation.
So, during initial startup of the newly upgraded mk3s+, I am 100% certain that I saw the e-mail axis travel considerably farther than is ever used for printing. If you look at the PEI print sheet you will see 5 column and 4 rows (looking from the front of the LCD panel) marked onto the surface. My printer has never printed in that area. At first I thought it might be to avoid crashing into the right side of the x-axis. But when initially leveling the bed for the first time after assembly or upgrade, the e-axis remained well over 1.3" from a possible collusion with the right side. In fact, I could see light between the right side of the extruder body and the left edge of the vertical z-axis frame when it decided to change directions. I understand that the super pinda needs to descend over the print bed in order to know when to stop, but it could have still moved to the right considerably and still have been able to sense the bed. So is the bed purposely bigger on purpose? Why can't I use more of the bed? Any help/advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
P.S. Just the facts: I do have the latest and greatest firmware as of 07OCT2021 for the mk3s+. Beyond this issue, the printer is printing correctly. Also, there were no error codes during startup and no cables were getting in. the waycausing binding. If the super pinda is what's holding things back, then maybe it would be prudent to add some lines of text that would allow the on-board brain to use the super pinda to watch the plate as the carriage travels to the right and simply mark the point where the probe no longer registers a metal plate below it as the edge of the build space, instead of some seemingly arbitrary location that ignores such a large chunk of real estate.
Again, any help would be awesome!
Try to print there
I don’t have an MK3 so I don’t know the dimensions of your print area vs the print bed, but on my Mini, the printable area is advertised as 180x180. So, if I were facing your problem I would use PrusaSlicer to create a 180x180x1mm object to print, and just see what happens. (And I’d stick around to quickly power it off if there are any terrible grinding noises or it bursts into flames).
What values do you have in:
Printer Settings > General > Size and coordinates > Bed shape ?
Cheerio,
I think OP is confused by the fact, that SuperPINDA goes outside the bed area during printing -which has nothing to do with printing area.
[Mini+] [MK3S+BEAR]
One thing that tends to throw some users for a loop is that on larger prints, the slicers (PS and Cura) will generate an error if things like the skirt or brim exceed the specified print area.
If you set the skirt loops to 0 and the brim size to 0, you will be able to use the entire print area, or very close to it.
Purge line is outside the 25x21cm area
There is a small area in the lower left corner of the print surface that gets used for the initial purge line. It is just outside of the 25x21cm reported print area, but obviously the print head is capable of reaching that area.
I have seen reports of people editing something to allow an actual print to utilize a portion of the area. It was for a print that was designed to fill most of a 22x22cm plate and needed a tiny bit of extra room to fit on the Prusa.
Steve
More research
So I have done some more poking around, thanks in large part to what several have posted here, and have come to the conclusion that the advertised print bed size is being utilized by the software...or at least it says it is. I did finally notice the print bed dimension setting in Slic3r and it is what Prusa said it is supposed to be. Just seems odd to me that the extruder can still travel about another 2+ cm to the right before the pinda is over empty space. It just seems that it's wasted size. It's unlikely that I'll ever need that space, since the printable area is so large to begin with, but who knows? I was just curious. I appreciate the info everyone provided.
ps-the "teeth grinding" moment in the original post was my teeth, not the printer's.