Solved *Read pg 8 if you use a Geckotek bed!* Changed power supply, now y axis waves

At this point, I'm ready to box up the machine and send it to somebody to tell me what the issue is! I'm actually shopping for a new machine at the moment while I try to fix this one. Hate to move on after all the upgrades done to this machine though, would rather it just work right.

I'll check out the middle plate and report back.

 

@Geof :
That is an extremely gracious offer. I will try a couple more things today, otherwise I will box it up. PM sending out shortly.

 

Riddle me this:

The one on the right is after I put in the new Z rods. The one of the left just got off the printer. The one from today is worse than it looks on camera, and not even close to the precision this machine had before this all started.

Today, I zip tied the bed to the Y carriage and rotated the smooth Z rods just a bit and I got this. Those black lines are where I started screwing with jerk/accel settings, but it made no difference.

I may be honing in on it, but I welcome any and all thoughts.

I am running a Geckotek aluminum bed and build plates. They have been running fine for some weeks up until this issue started all of a sudden.

The z wobble has gotten more erratic these last couple test prints. Instead of very smooth transitions, its all over the place per layer, and also effecting X axis now.

 

Well, I isolated the issue, sort of figured it out. I have been running a Geckotek bed for a while without issue (before this all started anyway). Right before I boxed it up to ship it out, I decided for grins to put on a stock glass bed and try a PLA model. PLA since I didn't switch the heater/temp sensor. To my great surprise, but much excitement, it printed perfectly. Actually, I've never seen this machine print this good, which is likely due to all the upgraded components I put in it trying to fix the issue.

So upon initial examination of the bed, I found that one of the steel pins was no longer glued to the aluminum bed (see pic), and possibly a second. It takes a good amount of effort to move them by hand, but I wonder if the wave pattern I was seeing was the results of the thermal cycling of the heater bed and the pin moving?

Anyway, the machine itself is GTG, and now I have to figure out what on the bed is to blame. I'm going to print some specially modified Y axis end pieces that instead of using a magnet, I have a hole and use bolts to secure the aluminum bed down (after I press out the steel pins).

This was a weird one, and I want to say THANK YOU for all the help I got. I now have a much better working knowledge of this machine, and enough spare parts to build a second