MakerGear Forum

I had this print running last night (about an 10 hour print). When I woke up this morning, this is what I found ↓.

The filament was still feeding but the z-axis was bottomed out. The pieces I was printing are less than 1/2" tall. I didn't notice whether the z-axis was trying to move or not.

After I cleaned up the mess, in S3D I moved the z-axis up and down just as I usually do, with no problems.

I ran a print for testing and everything came out just fine.

Have you seen this before, where the z-axis just drops out during a print but the machine keeps running like nothing happened?

I bet you bumped a binder clip during a Z move and the stepper gave out and it buzzed itself to the bottom. I've had that happen before.

insta wrote:I bet you bumped a binder clip during a Z move and the stepper gave out and it buzzed itself to the bottom. I've had that happen before.

Yep! I've done it too. I had to get medieval with the clips - giving them a little stretch at the black clip area to make the opening wider and the prongs lay down flat. (It does affect the gap if you do that - there is less tension on the glass. You have to reset the Z-stop.)

ahh yes the old binder clip collision. if you look at the pic the bar comes right up to it on all 4 corners. this is why i made my adjustable corner clamps. you wont need binder clips anymore.


http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:602194

Thanks guy!

I'll print out your clamps Jim, thanks.

If you want to try again before installing jimc's corner clamps, might try putting the binder clips on the sides instead of the ends. Gotta watch the moves near the front left corner, though, when homing. Might need to leave that one off. Also, I remove the handles from my binder clips. Easy enough to do -- if you look closely, there is a position where you can squeeze the legs of the handle together and it comes right out. Don't know if this will help you or not...

Thanks for the suggestion Dale! This is the first time I have run into this. I would take the handles off for a short term fix, but I remove my aluminum plate pretty often to re-apply hair spray. It's nice being able to take it off and put it back quickly.