I have my printer for 2 months now, and i made some good and some rather bad expiriences.
The most tricky part is to align the X and Y axis properly. The (now deleted) wiki article helped me quite a bit to get a smooth frictionless movement. The problem here is, as soon as i connect the carriages with the belts and thighten them it needs a lot more force to move the printhead. I also notice a small movement on the X axis ( about 1mm) when i move the Y axis. I already dis- and reassembled the whole XY carriage construction, always using the XY helpers when mounting the belts.
I am able to print, but X movements are quite noisy and Y movements are not. This leads me to the conclusion that the top part of the frame must be slightly trapezoid shaped. But i cannot check it with a angle bracket, because the plastic pannels are too bendy to get a proper measurement. Thist bendyness was already a problem while i assebled the frame for the first time.
The manual claims to tighten the pannels and avoid gaps as much as possible (http://manuals.velleman.eu/article.php?id=27)
The problem i ran in to was this:
The carriage rods are pushing the pannels outwards, as if there is not enough space for them or rather the panels are to close to each other. I think this might cause a slight trapezoid bend to the whole top of the printer. Did I miss something wile assemling? Is this problem common? How would you deal with it?
My other problem refers to the Z axis. I notice the threaded rod is slightly bent. I think this must happened because it may not be perfectly paralell to the back pannel. When i wanted to upgarde with a Z axis stabilizer (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:635751) to get rid of the vibrations, i had to move the hole 1.7mm(!!) further away from the back panel to fit it over the rod. I don’t know if this might also be caused by a bent backpanel. Do you have any tips, expirience or anything helpful to this problem?
[quote=“phenom113”]The (now deleted) wiki article [/quote]Actually it’s not deleted : you can find it [color=#408040]here[/color]. Must have changed the name as it appears :o
[quote=“phenom113”]The carriage rods are pushing the pannels outwards, as if there is not enough space for them or rather the panels are to close to each other. I think this might cause a slight trapezoid bend to the whole top of the printer. Did I miss something wile assemling? Is this problem common? How would you deal with it?[/quote]I remember people complaining some of their rods were too long so you should check yours to be sure their length is the expected one.[quote=“phenom113”]i had to move the hole 1.7mm(!!) further away from the back panel to fit it over the rod[/quote]That for sure is not normal but it’s hard to tell why without having experienced it.
I had the same experience, the rods were to long. I think you have forced yours into the perspex cube instead of shortening the rods. And if the rod is under so much horizontal pressure, maybe it will turn laborious. I suggest you to remove the rods and reassemble the perspex panels so that the corner parts fits nicely and there aren’t any gaps between the panels. Then from one side, move in a rod to the other side where you already have mounted an end cap. If the rod is to long for placing the second end cap, you have to shorten the rod with a grinder or grinding wheel till the end cap fits. It has to be rather exact because if to short, the rod will move back and forth a little in horizontal in length.
You can try to measure the length of the diagonals (front left to back right corner, and front right to back left corner), that will tell you how much it is out of shape, if it is difficult with a ruler, then you can use a piece of string.
I disasembled the XY carriages and checked every angle bracket and every edge for perfect alignment by loosing screws, alignign and thighten them again.
i also checked the top mounting part of the z axis, by doing basically the same thing.
I checked the rod lenth. They are exactly 35cm. All of them.
that’s exactly what i did.
I don’t have the proper tools to shorten a steel rod. My solution was much easier. I chopped off the plastic “nipples” on the endcaps.
It seems to work just fine!
[quote=“svdv”]It’s likely… Reassemble your perspex panels and try again.
[/quote]
Checking the panel alignment helped!
Thanks! It was totally worth it! Everything works now. I’ve never printed this silent.
I’m very happy with my printer again!
