Unresolved Z Step not always occurring during prints.

Sooo not sure if people are still active here, plus I have quite an old printer atm. I've got a ROBO3D R1 from 2015, trying to get it back up and running.

I've got it working somewhat, I can do a print or so, but they always come out rather odd. Never of good quality, no matter how much I play with the settings. I believe the biggest issue I'm facing is that the printer does not always raise during prints. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. It usually ends up with the prints becoming squashed. Been doing the calibration cube to test my printer and EVERY single print is a different height.


I've tried a lot of different things, reflashing the firmware, cleaning the rods, checking various things. When I do the 100m test, it works now. Its moving exactly 10cm as it should.

During a print though, most of the time when it moves up a layer I see the steppers activate and move up, but not always, and it seems mostly random when that happens. I also step it to always do a Z lift on a move for a couple of prints, but the Z movements get so out of wack it'll overdo a Z movement back down and dig into the print or underdo one and start printing mid air.

Best print i've gotten so far is a print on a vase using the spiral vase feature so it tried to do it one continuous print. It came out a bit squashed but of decent quality.

 

Will poke around and see what I find, yeah that could definitely be the issue. Will probably do both, but that's just because I like tinkering lol, will probably need to replace them.

 

Might have to replace the whole board, more than just the small stepper ones... Noticed this, but thought it might not be that big of an issue because it still runs.... But yeah. (Chip on the yellow capacitor)

 

Hmmm am I doing anything wrong with the pictures? Do they have to be linked in any particular way?

 

Well that's good! Ohhh haven't seen a resettable fuse before, interesting to know. Yeah I've got a autolevel R1, with 8mm rods I believe, i have tried both 5/16 and 8mm firmware with little difference in behavior. So hopefully replacing those Z stepper drives helps.