3DPrinting

15794 readers

403 users here now

3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.

The r/functionalprint community is now located at: or [email protected]

There are CAD communities available at: [email protected] or [email protected]

Rules

No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
Do not create links to reddit
If you see an issue please flag it
No guns
No injury gore posts

If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)

Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Layer shift sanity check (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by Sticky to c/3dprinting

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Curious if I can get a sanity check off my problem diagnosis (or alternate theories!)

I tried a long print today and wound up with a 1/2 inch layer shift on the x-axis near the end of a long print, taller than most I've done, not certainly not the tallest.

It occured on a spool I just opened a few days ago and printed two other ~250g pieces with. I'm very certain that I never lost control of the filament end. My spool in mounted using the stock ender 3 mount on the left side is the gantry and a filament guide arm.

After reading a bit, I'm thinking this was due to the filament on the spool loosening up from a large travel and then binding on itself. Seems the easiest way to fix this might just be to put more space between the spool and the printer so the slack can absorb the shifting without pushing back on the spool and loosening several turns off filament.

I don't think it's heat or any general axis binding as the shift only happened at a single layer, at a hight that I've been able to print through before, and the motion generally appears smooth when I exercise it.

So... Experimentation will probably prove me right or wrong, but before I sink another day of print time... Does that sound reasonable or am I missing a common problem?

Edit: Solved, see comment by @[email protected] for the actual problem. Many thanks to all who provided their thoughts!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Filament spool issues won't cause layer shifts in bowden printers, it's a risk only with direct drive.
At the root of it, there are only two possible causes for a layer shift like this - either the motor skipped steps or the belt slipped on the drive pulley, and judging by this gap, my guess would be the belt slipping because it's not tensioned properly - and even if it is, you should seat that belt correctly anyway.

[–] Sticky 1 points 2 years ago

I don't seem to be able to really fix that gap, at least not to the degree that the clamp is perfectly flush. I think it was exaggerated a bit by a somewhat loose belt. I thought a loose belt would exhibit problems throughout the print, and honed in on the spool issue without realizing it was describing direct drive behavior.

I've got the belt tightened a bit more, and fixed a little bit of wobble in the bed. We'll see if that's enough...

Thanks for the sleuthing and willingness to help!