Layer shifts sometimes
Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 9:10 am
<r>My printer was working really well for a long time. I'm running a 0.5mm nozzle and the prints were nice and I was getting very few problems with the filament.<br/>
I then started to print a project which has a wide base and thin walls rising from the base. I was getting contraction problems with parts of the print. So I built an enclosure to keep the whole print warmer. I don't have an extra heater, I just rely on the hot end and the bed heater to keep the interior warm. The temperature gets up to about 45 deg C, I also have a temperature sensor on the outside of the X stepper motor and it gets up to about 58 deg C. The contraction problems are much reduced with the enclosure.<br/>
<br/>
However, almost immediately I am got x layer shifting, some of it is major with a layer shifting 5mm gradually over about 10 layers then suddenly shifting back to almost the correct location.
<br/>
I have tried a lot of different things and I have had no consistent improvement.<br/>
I have reduced the maximum current on the stepper motors in the firmware - to reduce the stepper temperature.<br/>
I have cleaned and lubricated the x and y rails and the z shafts.<br/>
I have reduced the filament multiplier in case the nozzle was getting bumped by an overfill of plastic <br/>
the last thing I did was reduce the printing speed. I'm using Slic3r and I halved all speeds.<br/>
After slowing the printing I printed a tower that for me was almost perfect.
<br/>
So I tried to print my wide and thin walled project with the same slow speeds - and I am back to x-shifts only about 1mm and some very slight y-shifts and lots of stringing.<br/>
<br/>
So I slowed it down further and the print is better in that the x and y shifts are smaller but still not acceptable but stringing was worse.<br/>
<br/>
I'm wasting a lot of filament and time and could really use some help to fault find this problem.<br/>
<br/>
By the way I can print a perfect 20 x 20 x 20 spiral vase calibration model. and a 5 x 5 x 50 solid tower which is very nice. <br/>
I only have problems with prints that run for more than about an hour.<br/>
Some other thoughts, I am printing with 1.75mm Black ABS.
I am using Octoprint - and I only started using Octoprint after I built the enclosure.
I wanted to add some images, but I can't figure out how to add an image to this post.
I then started to print a project which has a wide base and thin walls rising from the base. I was getting contraction problems with parts of the print. So I built an enclosure to keep the whole print warmer. I don't have an extra heater, I just rely on the hot end and the bed heater to keep the interior warm. The temperature gets up to about 45 deg C, I also have a temperature sensor on the outside of the X stepper motor and it gets up to about 58 deg C. The contraction problems are much reduced with the enclosure.<br/>
<br/>
However, almost immediately I am got x layer shifting, some of it is major with a layer shifting 5mm gradually over about 10 layers then suddenly shifting back to almost the correct location.
<br/>
I have tried a lot of different things and I have had no consistent improvement.<br/>
I have reduced the maximum current on the stepper motors in the firmware - to reduce the stepper temperature.<br/>
I have cleaned and lubricated the x and y rails and the z shafts.<br/>
I have reduced the filament multiplier in case the nozzle was getting bumped by an overfill of plastic <br/>
the last thing I did was reduce the printing speed. I'm using Slic3r and I halved all speeds.<br/>
After slowing the printing I printed a tower that for me was almost perfect.
<br/>
So I tried to print my wide and thin walled project with the same slow speeds - and I am back to x-shifts only about 1mm and some very slight y-shifts and lots of stringing.<br/>
<br/>
So I slowed it down further and the print is better in that the x and y shifts are smaller but still not acceptable but stringing was worse.<br/>
<br/>
I'm wasting a lot of filament and time and could really use some help to fault find this problem.<br/>
<br/>
By the way I can print a perfect 20 x 20 x 20 spiral vase calibration model. and a 5 x 5 x 50 solid tower which is very nice. <br/>
I only have problems with prints that run for more than about an hour.<br/>
Some other thoughts, I am printing with 1.75mm Black ABS.
I am using Octoprint - and I only started using Octoprint after I built the enclosure.
I wanted to add some images, but I can't figure out how to add an image to this post.