Printhead has fore and aft wiggle

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I have two UM3E printers. The newer one has developed, or rather I should say I noticed today, that it has a wiggle in the fore and aft direction. The older one is tight. What can cause this and what can I do about it?

 

Thanks :)

[fbrc8-erin 283]

Do you have a video of it?

Is it an issue with the printhead shaft's fit in the plastic sliding blocks? 

Or are the perimeters rods loose in the frame?

[kmanstudios 1,120]

The rods are fine as well as the blocks.

 

It seems to be something in the fit of the printhead on the rod itself. It is printing right now, but here are some pics of the current prints I have been making.

 

Two colour, no supports. All seems to be lined up ok and no issues with leveling.

 

As soon as I get finished with this current print in the morning, I will try to make a quick vid to show it. And as soon as I finish the series, I will be trying a fine detail print to see if it holds that well.

 

[Smithy 1,144]

Beside you issues with the print head, these are fantastic prints, looks amazing!

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Thanks. But I posted them here to show that I am getting decent results with just the type of prints I am making at this time. Everything is lining up and the prints from front to back are ok too. Note that I am not doing high detail prints on this machine at this time.

Here is a quick movie of the movement. It takes no strength to wiggle it.

 

Fore Aft Wiggle

Edited November 24, 2018 by kmanstudios

[Smithy 1,144]

Strange, I can check it on my UM3 but it is busy at the moment...

[kmanstudios 1,120]

My other UM3E and S5 do not have this wiggle.

 

Edit: and yeah...it is strange.....

Edited November 24, 2018 by kmanstudios

[gr5 2,192]

There is a bearing inside.  It's pretty short because there isn't much space for it in that compact print head.  UM I believe improved the design (changed the part number) of that bearing I think 6 to 12 months after the UM3 first came out.  So you probably have the newer design yet still have movement issues.  If it were me I would take the head apart and look at the bearing but @fbrc8-erin probably knows a lot more about this than me.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

Since FBRC8 is my support group, I await her input. It is still under warranty so, would not want to affect that.

[Smithy 1,144]

5 hours ago, kmanstudios said:

My other UM3E and S5 do not have this wiggle.

I checked now my UM3 and the S5 and cannot see this issue too.

 

But I am sure @fbrc8-erin has a solution, as always! 🙂 

[fbrc8-erin 283]

I'll take a look at some printers when I'm back in the office for comparison, but it's likely part of the natural variation in tolerances between parts--if one part is at one end of the specs and the other part is at the other end you could see something like this. It might be worth swapping the printhead shaft from your other printer for comparison if it's a tolerance issue between the bearing and shaft. 

 

That said, I think at least one of the printers I run regularly does the same thing; no printing issues with it so far. Even if it's towards the edges of the tolerance, it shouldn't impact the printing. Do you have visible movement in it during printing?

[kmanstudios 1,120]

36 minutes ago, fbrc8-erin said:

That said, I think at least one of the printers I run regularly does the same thing; no printing issues with it so far.

That is what I am seeing too. So far, everything seems to be lining up. I have a series of prints I am doing on that machine like the ones I posted. All seems to be just fine. Everything in its place, so to speak. But, they are very low resolution objects. Using a 0.8 and the CC .6 with very large layer heights to maximize transparencies to see the super duper cool gyroid pattern as a design element. So, arge layer heights mean a lot less pressure on the printhead...or at least as I theorize.

 

41 minutes ago, fbrc8-erin said:

Do you have visible movement in it during printing?

Actually, I do not. But I would wait on that assessment until I get a chance to do some fine detail prints.

 

Due to the larger layer height and large bore of the nozzles, I am heating beyond my usual printing temps and putting 110% flow to make sure it is nice and liquidy when printing....get a good tube of filament going straight down, slow printing to get a 'rope' effect and melt very well with the layer below it. Very, very little fan. Maybe that extra flow is keeping it aligned...I dunno.

 

44 minutes ago, fbrc8-erin said:

It might be worth swapping the printhead shaft from your other printer for comparison if it's a tolerance issue between the bearing and shaft. 

Not sure I want to mess with success unless I must. I am getting decent results with the type of prints I am making at the moment. But will reserve judgement until I get to go back to a standard, high def print.

 

I have some things coming up that will prevent me from getting printing done about the beginning of the year, so I am trying to get a bit ahead so I can spend time painting and finishing up a bunch of other prints I have made and am making.

 

But, will follow up when I get a chance to print a different type of thing. I am running out of transparent filaments, so that will probably be when I switch gears, again, on printing things.

[geert_2 558]

On 11/24/2018 at 7:20 AM, kmanstudios said:

 

 

Completely off-topic: these are nice prints. They look like sort of ceramics or glass. I wouldn't think they were 3D-printed. Is that the gyroid infill shining through? And which materials did you use, looks like Polyalchemy Elixir?