Interesting Print Quality Improvement

I have two identically configured printers sitting side by side. They have been printing 24/7 for years. One of the printers had a slight chatter for lack of a better word on the prints. Still shippable but not quite as good as the other printer. The chatter printer all of a sudden seized in the Z stepper, it took out the stepper driver and the system board. I use the Znuts that are two parts with a spring between. I use the Partsbuilt board and could just swap out the parts.

The Stepper Znut had worn out and somehow grabbed the Z stepper and would not let it move. I put in a new Znut, replaced the destroyed boards and was back printing.

To my surprise, this printer was now giving me noticeably better prints than even the other printer.

Apparently the Znut is far more important to print quality than I would have expected. It seems as the Znut wears the print quality goes down, but so slowly it is not noticeable.