Printer Quality issues? Try these 7 tips!

[@nobodytoyou4887]

Just a heads up Bondtech made a new drive gear for the orbiter style extruders to fix that exact concentric issue you noticed, may want to look into that before moving it to the CR-30.

[@wildfox1994]

2:14 I don't think You should calibrate e-steps by pushing filament through the nozzle. E-steps calibration should be purely mechanical and every material behaves differently. So I would calibrate E-Steps by pushing filament "without any resistance" (so without the nozzle on direct drive or with bowden tube taken out), and than check and calibrate flow through the nozzle with each material.

[@otroe]

issues like those for me, on i3 style machines, have been either extrusion based or z based. since you have a dd orbiter, i feel that the filament control is probably fine. however, every time i see someone use the dual z axis upgrade, it introduces huge z artifacts similar to what you’re seeing. if you have a spare i3 or just love to tinker, i would compare single correctly set lead screw, dual lead screw, and belted z. after about 10 i3s, all mine that can be are belted z

[@otroe]

if you arent into belted z, i would recommend throwing on some oldham couplers to both z’s

[@DesktopInventions]

Good suggestion. My setup is pretty easy about 5 minutes to convert back to a single Z axis lead. But maybe I’ll have to get a belt setup as well to compare

[@Ec1ipse..]

It seems to me like you probably have a bent lead screw. Other possibilities include friction caused by the drag chains (they are unnecessary with proper strain relief), the weight of the tool head causing sag, or that the z screws are simply out of alignment. Even with all of the upgrades this printer has, in my experience even a stock ender 3 can print better than this machine at comparable speeds.

[@nachtdiertje1972]

Have you checked the backlash in your Z-nut? To me, the problems seems to be coming from your Z-axis. Your printquality is far from what I'm getting from my 3V2, despite the fact that it si becoming better.

[@otroe]

most printers don’t have z backlash due to gravity I believe

[@DesktopInventions]

Since the print continually moves in one Z direction I don’t think there should be any backlash issue. The quality isn’t as bad at the end I think just matte filament + vertical lighting is a really harsh combo

[@nachtdiertje1972]

@@DesktopInventions I had something similar a while ago and it was my z-axis giving the problem. First I added an anti-backlashnut, which helped a lot. After replacing my T8-Z-axel, the problem was gone. My z-axel was just a little worn out, not much.

[@Roobotics]

Oh gosh, please don't unplug your steppers while they are activated/enabled. That's a really good way to fry the drivers, it can randomly cause a catastrophic failure if the energized windings induce a strong enough inductive kickback at the wrong times (while making/breaking contact, the current control pulses it gives can exceed the max voltage ratings of the driver at random, due to contact bounce at the connector's terminals and the motor shoving voltage back in) It's totally fine to gently turn it by hand while it's energized, just don't spin it aggressively like a dynamo is all. The flex coupling is a great place to get a little extra grip to index it to the next position it wants to lock into, and de-energizing it won't help you reset those positions, fyi. It will always snap back into them when you plug it back in, or get stuck somewhere in-between which is also bad because it will later jump position to the nearest energized stator.

[@DesktopInventions]

Good tip! Definitely don’t want to fry anything on the board! When the machine is powered off if I turn one motor the other one turns the same amount. It’s like they are electromechanically coupled. So this is why I unplugged one motor.

[@Roobotics]

@@DesktopInventions That makes sense, the turned motor is indeed acting like a generator to keep them stepping in-phase with one another. Even at very low speeds they are good at doing that. As per a few other's I'm a big fan of belted dual-z as once it's set it's basically locked in, I will say that it's not perfect without some extra hardware like thrust washers and 8mm shaft locks that aren't part of the common kits sadly. These days a SV06 is a better investment, but an cheap ender3, is still an endless tinkering opportunity and great to learn on.

[@dotintegral]

Wow. My comment about my last comment making it to the video, also made it to the video! That is some seriously cool inception going on here ❤️

[@DesktopInventions]

Keep it up, pretty soon I’ll just have a whole video filled with this commentception 😂

[@andris6378]

Very good!

[@DesktopInventions]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@leszekzajac7772]

Never,Never unplug steppers with power on, drivers tend to die when you do!!

[@DesktopInventions]

Yes good tip! Nobody wants a fried main board!

[@crazylolsbg]

Lets go

[@DesktopInventions]

We're going! 😆

[@ricardocardoso5423]

This is like the blind following the blind. I get better prints on a $150 kp3s with 2 months of experience.