Ultimaker 2012 problem

[sambo 3]

Hi,

I have a venerable UM1 from 2012 - one of the first 25 built in-house by Eric and the team and it’s pretty much a stock machine.

But I’m now getting problems with the printhead randomly jumping sideways 2 or 3mm on every print I try. The image below shows what happens as the printhead jerks suddenly to the right. You can see how the infill doesn’t align with the perimeter.

The problem used to happen occasionally but now it’s every print. I’ve cleaned the rails, tightened all the bolts and added machine oil to the metal rails - (no there’s none on the belts). The belts seem fine - but I can’t be sure if they are at the right tension - I’ve never adjusted them.

I not really sure what to do. Is it the belts or perhaps the rails are bent (I can’t see why though).

Any ideas what I should do?

[gr5 2,172]

This is most likely a slipping pulley. Whichever axis moves left/right in this photo. Probably the X axis. Most likely the pulley on the motor itself. use a 2mm hex wrench and tighten the hell out of all 6 pulleys on that axis. But especially the 2 pulleys on the motor. They should be much tighter than you think is necessary. So tight that the wrench twists a little.

[sambo 3]

Great gr5 - I will do this.

I've already tightened the easily accessible pulley screws on the rails - but I didn't get to the motors as it looked hard to get to the black screws - I'll have a look tomorrow.

I should have mentioned that the LCD comes up with: endstops hit: X

[gr5 2,172]

I should have mentioned that the LCD comes up with: endstops hit: X

 

Yes! You should have! That's definitely the problem then. There are 2 endstops on the X axis. First of all the one on the right isn't needed so you can just disconnect that one. One of them is triggering when it shouldn't be. Maybe wires or something are tangled in it? Or the wires are shorting? Something wrong there.

[peggyb 170]

also check if your electronics fan on the bottom is working. When this one dies, it is making skips also. Especially in the first/second layer.

My machine is from Feb. 2012 also, and had a loose wire on the fan lately...

[sambo 3]

also check if your electronics fan on the bottom is working.

 

That's an interesting call - I had a look at the fan and I saw it was moving very slowly - no cooling going on there...luckily I had a spare fan in my box - so I stuck it in and voila - the electronics board is now getting cooled. I will do some testing and report back later.

Gr5 - thanks for the suggestion - I'll see how the new fan impacts on the problem - hopefully I won't have to do anything else - I've tightened everything up and keeping my fingers crossed that I can get back on track.

[sambo 3]

If anyone's interested - this is a pic of the old girls undercarriage...

Edited June 24, 2015 by Guest
spelling!

[gr5 2,172]

UMO porn!

[sambo 3]

UMO porn!

 

- Perhaps I should have added a parental advisory...

[peggyb 170]

Nice!

take good care of her <3

Edited June 25, 2015 by Guest

[sambo 3]

peggyb - I'm trying my best

A general update - the addition of a new cooling fan for the main circuit board seems to have sorted the endstops hit: X problems so far. - I just did a 14 hour print with no problems. Many thanks for the suggestions - it would never have occurred to me that it was an electronics problem...

[gr5 2,172]

It may have simply been a loose wire and moving the printer around fixed it.

[sambo 3]

It may have simply been a loose wire and moving the printer around fixed it.

Dammmit - you may be right after all - I've gone from a endstop hit X to an endstop hit Z even when the prints just idling - what do you think I should do?

[sambo 3]

Hmmm.

Things not improving - now I've got an ERR MAXTEMP mid print ( I realise this is to do with the temp reading thermistor and could easily be a lose connector on the hot end) but the whole machine is electronically locked up - so I had to power down - my memory of previous maxtemps was that it was possible to still use the Ulticontroller.

Now I'm wondering as I'm having MAXTEMP and ENDSTOP X and ENDSTOP Z problems in successive prints if there's a problem with the Arduino and or the shield. Is there a way I can test?

[peggyb 170]

things to watch for:

are all the wires good, all connections, especially on the printhead. The two going into the little green block, and the white connectors.

The blue light must be steady when fiddling around, if this one is flickering, that is bad.

[gr5 2,172]

It's probably all caused by a single loose wire - but I have no idea which wire.