… finding your five-hour print is faulty
Hmmm. Yesterday I replaced the heater in the printer’s hot end, vastly improving printing. Today I replaced a faulty power switch, reducing the chance of the printer cutting out mid-print. There seemed to be no reason not to make a start printing some of the bigger components I’ve been working on. Here’s the first one:
Don’t worry what it is. All will be revealed eventually. it’s a substantial bit of plastic, and demonstrates why I wanted to build a 3D printer in the first place. How else could I make components like that without a proper machine shop? I still want a proper machine shop, by the way, but I love the fact that I can make lightweight, stiff components straight from CAD models. I mean, just look at it.
So, you might think all is well. This component took five hours to print, and the printer didn’t miss a beat. What it did do, however, is print the whole thing skewed. It’s not immediately obvious, but look at this:
and this:
Makes you want to cry, doesn’t it? Both of those sides should be vertical, in case you didn’t realise. In fact the whole thing has been printed with a slant on it. I’ve had this problem before, but I thought I’d cured it by increasing the tension in the drive strings (the fault being that one or more was slipping). Clearly I hadn’t. Back to the drawing board I go.
Always remember: that which does not kill us makes us really annoyed.
This happened to me with my self made prusa for about months and I couldn’t identify the reason. I replaced the X parts, replaced extruder, tightened any screw, realigned the frame. Everything I did just helped for about a day or two but then these problems appeared again. After all struggling I completely disassembled and rebuilt the printer and only since of that the problem is gone. Hope this helps you a little.