Partially Solved I think the step motors are overheating

Hello,

Lately my printer has been a little lost when printing. If I click the home button, so it tries to home all axes to the bottom right corner, it doesn't always do it. It sometimes doesn't move the y-axis at all, and just homes z and x. Which is fine, I can manually home it in the y with the controls. But when it runs G29 it moves to the center of the plate (good) but then starts its 9 point leveling as if the build plate had shifted diagonally 1.5-2 inches.

I can still do my prints, as long as I make sure it isn't on the area off center. And I've just been living with it, because it's indicative of the step motors overheating. Now, this doesn't happen all the time, yet the time of day doesn't seem to necessarily impact it. But it does get hot here. Really hot. Yesterday morning it printed perfect, with G29 running correctly. Then in the afternoon it was WAY off, by about 6-7 inches.

Am I correct in assuming the step motors are overheating? And how can I cool them without splicing a fan into the electronics, as I'm not particularly confident in my ability to do that.

Thanks

 

It might not be the steppers, but the drivers on the RAMPS board. Either way putting some feat on the robo helps get air under there. If that doesn't help, make sure the fan on the arduino / RAMPS is running.

 

Alright, this will be a work in progress. I'll update after success, or failure.