Ultimaker out of control

[someguy 0]

Hi,

my Ultimaker goes out of control after a few layers of every print recently. What might cause that?

It prints a few layers just fine, then it goes crazy and slams the nozzle back and forth between the endstops with insane speed. It makes a noise that makes me fear that it the forces at work might break something.

What can be the cause of this? It printed just fine in the past.

I have already upgraded to the most recent firmware. I experience the same behaviour with both CURA and NETFAB GCODE.

This really makes me sad. Please help me cure my Ultimaker :sad:

Is the electronics are overheating? That's the only thing I can imagine.

 

[gr5 2,206]

Is the electronics are overheating? That's the only thing I can imagine.

 

Is the fan running and blowing air across the electronics?

Can you post a video please?

[valcrow 145]

I recently had a similar problem in the middle of a print. it hit an end stop and grinded on the side, made a terrible noise.

It turned out to be one of the pullies on the short belt and axis bar got loose. I replaced the black setscrew with the silver ones that came in a little bag, and tightened it a LOT.

when, off try spinning the motor on the X and Y and see if it directly drives the print head, if there is slippage, your pully is loose. Tighten it and run it again.

 

For me, it was this pully on the left side.

 

Best of lucks.

 

[someguy 0]

Hi guys, the problem persists and it reliably appears on every print after 30 to 40 minutes (even if I restart again immediatelly). The UM prints fine and then starts to go out of control, catches itself again, and continues printing displaced (asf.). Dunno what causes this.

The last thing I did before this happened was a firmware update via CURA (standard version which is recommended by CURA). The cura endstop test also does not work, but when I test the endstops via the jog menu of cura, they're working just fine.

What might cause this behaviour? Where can I find old firmware?

Edit: Please note, I have no downgraded to firmware that comes with CURA 12.12A and will try again with this one. I also use an Ulticontroller, maybe that causes incompatibility? To me the symptom seems like some sort of buffer overflow if it starts working again with the old firmware.

Edit 2: Same problem with old firmware, this time after only 10 minutes. I doubt its the belts. I experience no grinding. I am not sure if I should really exchange the electronics.

 

[someguy 0]

I remidied the problem in the following way:

I noticed that one of the stepper drivers was getting extremely hot (after disassembling the electronics). I changed the one that was getting so hot and apparently could not take the heat (x-axis) with the one on the z-axis. Afterwards, it printed just fine.

 

[gr5 2,206]

On your electronics board under the UM are drivers for each of the steppers. There's a little potentiometer on each one. They can turn. See if one of them is at a different setting than the others. It may be that it got bumped or wasn't adjusted properly and is putting out more current than the other 3. More info here:

http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Electronics_build_guide#Tuning_the_stepper_motor_drivers