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Solved Z axis not rising

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Mbisjr23, May 30, 2015.

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  1. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    I have had a few issues lately with my printer and this seems to be the last one needed to work out. I just installed an e3d v6 and printed a few calibration cubes to test it. Worked great. Now that I have attempted to print larger pieces the first few layers go down fine but after a few layers the nozzle starts to drag against the previous layer and you see the carriage bouncing and making an awful noise. The z axis has no problems going all the way up or down when using control. I made sure I have correct firmware. Steps are set at 2560. Fan is plugged in underneath. I also installed a full graphics display and watched the layers as it printed. It says it was going up properly but when I printed pla with parts fan off it just wiped away the previous layer away, fan on and started bouncing. this is not an out of box issue either. Was printing for months with no issues till lately. I have searched the forums and found a few people with same issue but some were like that when got it, fan on board unplugged, motor burned out or no answers. None of those seem to be my problem, any help would be much appreciated
     

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    #1 Mbisjr23, May 30, 2015
  2. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    What's your z offset set to? Have you lubricated your threaded rods?
     
    #2 Mike Kelly, May 31, 2015
  3. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    I
    offset is -1. Rods were greased. It has no problem going up and down manually. Not when printing. My comp and lcd screen say it's moving up .2 each layer but it hits previous layers and doesn't look at all like it's over extruding
     
    #3 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Assuming it is moving up correctly, here are two reasons it will hit the previous layers:

    1) over extrusion. Too much filament so the previous layer too thick (at least in spots)
    2) previous layer is warping or curling a tiny amount

    If the Z steps/mm is incorrect for your printer arrangement then that will (obviously) cause issue since the Z is not going 'up' enough. First few layers might clear, but eventually it will fail.
     
    #4 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  5. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    It doesn't look to be over extruding but I could be wrong. I definatey do not think the piece is warping. All the failed prints are flat, put a ruler to them. I used wolfbyte nano to stop any warping of pla. Here are my eeprom settings
     

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    #5 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  6. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Love the wolfbite. That eliminates warping (unless inner layers are warping, but really not likely with PLA).
    Try bringing down the extrusion % by 10% and see if that has an impact.
     
    #6 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  7. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    I have noticed a big difference in the look of the extrusion between matter control and s3d but both give same results. One on left is s3d, right matter control.Is the the extrusion multiplier in s3d what you mean?
     

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    #7 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  8. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yes, set it to 0.9 (or 90%) and see if the collisions continue.
    If that helps you can fine tune it.
     
    #8 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  9. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    S3D does some strange pathing when it slices. Not bad, just totally different than others I compared it to.
    It uses some really different logic.

    There are some ways in the process config to tweak it as well. I like it a lot better...
     
    #9 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  10. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    Ok, I'll give it a shot in a bit and get back to you. All this trouble I've been having with the printer has been making my wife very unhappy cause things have not gotten done around the house, lol. I really appreciate all the help, feel like an idiot with all the issues I've had with this thing
     
    #10 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  11. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Don't sell yourself short. It is a new tech that takes some serious learning curve to get up to speed on.
    Printer hardware, printer software, slicing software, cad software... yeah.. piece of cake, right?
     
    #11 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  12. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    Ok so here's what happened. I have been printing at 90% this hole time so that wasn't working. Tried 80%, first layer looked kinda thin but let it run. By third layer it was grinding. Next did 65%, first layer even thinner, made it to layer 4 and the infill started printing in the air. So for giggles, I tried 100%. The first layer looked beautiful but second layer grinded. Does any of this make sense to you? I feel like my z steps are off but looks correct in gcode. Watching the z rods while printing and they seem to be moving just fine, no grinding or weird noise
     
    #12 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    That almost has to be a Z steps issue or a over extrusion issue. There is nothing else that could be the cause and really it sounds like the Z steps are incorrect.

    You need to reload the current firmware for the printer that matches your configuration and make sure when you do that configuration.h has the Z steps set correctly. So manually do this: download it, edit configuration.h to make sure that is set correctly and then reload it.

    This is not something you can tell from the GCode generated by the slicer.
     
    #13 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  14. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    Will do, now the z steps should be 2560 I think, for r1 w/ 8mm rods, correct?
     
    #14 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  15. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yes, that sounds correct.

    Must be, I have the 5/16 and mine is the weird floating point value:

    #define DEFAULT_AXIS_STEPS_PER_UNIT {80,80,2267.72,723.38}
     
    #15 mark tomlinson, May 31, 2015
  16. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Your z steps look correct. If your rods are lubed properly it might be an issue with the stepper driver tuning not having enough current so it's skipping steps.

    Can you print a 15mm cal cube?
     
    #16 Mike Kelly, May 31, 2015
  17. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    Printed cube. Looks like it slightly puffed up the top but made it through without grinding or scraping previous layers.
     

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    #17 Mbisjr23, May 31, 2015
  18. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    How tall is it? Is the fan on the bottom of your printer running? Might be the case that the Z stepper motor is getting too hot, especially since it seems to be after a while before it happens.
     
    #18 Mike Kelly, May 31, 2015
  19. Mbisjr23

    Mbisjr23 Member

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    After I printed the cube, I took the bottom off again and the fan was not running, the connection was hanging off. I don't understand since this has been going on for a while and I've checked the fan before but I am going to run with it and say that was it with my fingers crossed, lol. I printed another 15 mm cube after I secured the fan again and I printed well. measured 14.9x 14.9 x 15.15mm tall. when I get home from work I will print a larger piece and see how that goes. assuming this was the issue, would I benefit replacing that fan with a larger one? maybe even an exhaust to blow out what that fan is blowing in?
     

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    #19 Mbisjr23, Jun 1, 2015
  20. Mike Kelly

    Mike Kelly Volunteer

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    Well it's good we at least found some solution.

    You could do what Novice Expert did here:~4:20


    for his cooling.

    Or if you want to stay less complex simply printing lifter feet is a good way to allow the fan to pull in more air. Or you can simply remove the bottom cover and print some Mother of all fan brackets for the ramps
     
    #20 Mike Kelly, Jun 1, 2015
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2015
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