My machine started making a strange noise.

[celso-santos 11]

[IRobertI 520]

Something could be vibrating in the fan shroud such as the fans themselves, or the fan shroud against the rest of the print head. Try going into the tune menu and turn the fans off during a print and see if that makes a difference.

Next, try unscrewing the fan bracket and either remove it completely by disconnecting the fans (you'll likely have to screw apart the head slightly to get the connectors out as well) or hold it in your hand while doing a test print. If you go into the tune menu right after you start the print and turn down bed temp and nozzle temp you don't have to wait and it will also start "printing" without actually extruding any plastic.

If the noise still remains my money is on the bearings in the head (this was my first thought but the two things above are easier to check). I think those can be bought fairly inexpensively online. Or you might be able to convince Ultimaker to send you a new pair (your printer looks pretty old though).

[JohnFox 25]

I am getting exactly the same noise in the same situation.

It occurs when retraction is on AND the head moves from right to left. The sound does not occur during normal printing/extrusion and you can hear from your video that no noise when the head moves from left to right.

any ideas anyone?

I can't locate the source of the sound other than the general head area, no vibrations from the X Y axes.

[celso-santos 11]

My machine is in excellent condition and is brand new (I have for a little more than 1 year). Maybe the problem really is in the bearings. I shut off the fans but noite remained the same.

Now I feel the noise is becoming worse.

[stu_le_brew 42]

have you ever lubricated the rods, my printer is a little older and have oiled all of the rods maybe five times.

do you feel any roughness when moving the print head around manually ?

[jwilkins 0]

Our machine has ~1000 printing time on it. I just solved a sound similar to yours just today. It was only left to right and had gotten progressively worse over the past few months. I oiled the bearings at the end of the rods top back left/right. Try oiling them and moving it manually (Machine off). If it's the bearings, you'll hear it when you move it by hand. Since it was coming from both left and right sides, it was hard to pinpoint. I used a syringe to get oil right at the top of the bearings, then moved the head to make it spin and work it in. Might as well hit all 8 of those bearings and all the rods while you're there. Hope this helps.

[celso-santos 11]

Just to give a closure to this problem. I finally decided to sent my machine to Wishbox, a competent workshop that represents Ultimaker in Brazil. I had even to design a special wooden packaging (with some foam padding inside) to guarantee that it would fly safely to Santa Catarina State from Rio. After a thorough research they discovered that the problem was in the toothed belts that were a little bit waisted. I remember seeing some black powder acumulating on one side at the top rear of the machine. They changed the belts, adjusted the tension and my Ultimaker is now working as it were brand new.