Ultimaker S5 Bed Drop After Finished Print

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

I bought the S5 for the company I work for about 6 months ago and haven't had this issue until recently. After every print, the bed drops rapidly as if in a free fall. It is pretty loud when it happens and I am worried this is causing damage to the printer. It is only after the print is finished that it does this. If I run out of material mid-print, the print bed will gently lower (like how its supposed to and how it used to lower after a finished print) and wait for you to reload material. I keep up on the lubrication of the machine so i don't think its an issue with that. I haven't been able to find any settings in Cura that would fix this. I also haven't seen anyone else post about this issue. Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks. 

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

I have included a video of this issue in this Zip folder. 

Thanks- Garrett

S5 issue.zip

[SteveCox3D 85]

This is pretty standard behaviour for the S5.

 

The S5 buildplate is quite heavy because it's a reinforced casting (and is much heavier than on an Ultimaker 2+ or Ultimaker 3).

Once the buildplate gets near the bottom stop at the end of the print the buildplate stops momentarily and then power to the stepper motor is cut. Because of the weight of the buildplate there's enough momentum, for it to freefall the last few mm onto the bottom stop.  That's what makes the loud noise.

It's a little bit alarming, but not detrimental to the printer.  You may not have noticed it at first because there's a little friction in the Z screw when everything's new that helps slow down that final drop.  As everything becomes free moving then the noise becomes apparent (lubrication of the Z screw is a good thing but it does contribute to this happening).

 

The noise is still a little disturbing even after using an S5 for some time, but I don't worry about it because I know it's not causing any damage.

 

Hope that helps to put your mind at rest.  

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

Thanks for the reply. That does put my mind at ease knowing it is not damaging the printer.

However, this printer is in an office environment and is located right on the other side of a couple of our employees cubicle wall. They have complained about this noise and I can't say I blame them as it is quite loud and abrupt. Is there a way to add a script to the end of the print that has a Z movement downward (at a slower rate) to near the bottom and then let it free fall from there? 

[cloakfiend 995]

I know what you mean, however is it possible to put some kind of pads there? I did leave something under the plate once and forgot about it and it made an incredible loud screeching noise when the plate tried to move down. Luckily the motors timed out and hopefully no permanent damage has occured, but I was scared for a moment. The bed moving up and down is the loudest thing on this machine. I cant have a print on with avoid other objects selected as I can hear that bed noise in my room two floors away. My poor neighbours must have have fun when I was printing my fabric with over 7000 bed moves! I fell asleep due to sheer exhaustion! The object look better with avoid parts disabled anyway as all the end stops looked a little unattractive.

 

Apart from that the S5 however is much quieter than my UM2. Its a solid machine and very versatile and just as reliable. the nozzles are slightly more difficult to clean however but I have figured out a few easy and simple techniques to make it painless.

[SteveCox3D 85]

@Garrett_Iverson  I'm making some enquiries regarding whether there's a planned improvement in the pipeline to reduce the noise, and I'll add an update when I know more. 

In the meantime some people have put a soft pad (something like a felt material) on the base of the printer to cushion the plate when it reaches the bottom stop.  So the suggestion at this stage is to use a "hardware" solution rather than try to deal with it in software or the firmware.   

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

okay thanks guys, ill give that a go for now and keep watching this post to see if any firmware or software solutions arise. 

[WesleyE 14]

We've made some changes to the end-print-behaviour in the next firmware update that will reduce the sound by a bit. However, it is indeed nothing to worry about. The build plate dropping down for the last few mm's does not damage the machine.

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

Thanks for the info. If you are able to watch the video I have included in the zip folder, mine does not drop for just the final few mm but drops for almost the entire height.

[WesleyE 14]

Ah, I missed that in your original post. Are you able to DM me the firmware version and logs after it happens? We'd like to investigate this further since this kind of behaviour normally only happens when there is an error. But looking at your video, it seems to finish the print just fine.

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

I sent you a DM. Yes, the parts finish just fine and look great.

[ScanHD 32]

On 1/31/2019 at 8:00 PM, Garrett_Iverson said:

I have included a video of this issue in this Zip folder. 

Thanks- Garrett

S5 issue.zip

 

i've never seen mine drop like that at the end of a print.

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

Its very odd. It seems like a post processing script but I don't have any set for my prints. I messaged WesleyE with my event logs and firmware and he forwarded it to their engineering team. If I hear back from them I will update this thread. 

[RudydG 62]

Mine does not do this. bed goes down like any other Ultimaker i own. Seems like an overspeed on the Z stepper motor.

The only times i get strange behaviour, is when i use the printspeed settings on the printer. Seems if you put that higher, all the movements are faster. 

Nowedays i always print with the newest version of Cura, and often with the easy settings for the um3 and ums5.

 

 

[cloakfiend 995]

I did wonder if the settimgs altered the behaviour of the machines before or after printing and found weird behaviour like ultra slow moves from the prime blob area with retraction turned off. Perhaps one setting is adversly causing this. My latest print skipped every other layer for 8 layers then printed fine? Looked ok after apart from the 4 weak layers at the start. I find tweaking things causes these issues. 

[Garrett_Iverson 0]

That is a good point, it didn't do this when I was printing Ultimaker material and using their pre-assigned printing parameters. It was only after I started using non-Ultimaker material and creating my own printing profiles that this started happening. I still am not convinced that it is a setting that I actually changed because the printing profile I created was made by copying one of the pre-made profiles in Cura and then changing some basic parameters such as printing temps, infill %, etc... 

 

I have included screen grabs of my speed parameters in Cura. Do you guys see anything in the pictures that would speed up the bed fall? 

If not, I am left to believe it is a bug that happens when you tweak printing parameters. 

 

On a different note, is there any gcode Guru's that can assist me in editing my gcode until I can find the root of the problem?

I'm sure there is a way to add gcode at the end of the print to tell it to lower the bed at a certain speed to a certain height but I do not know what that would look like. If I could do that, at least I could shorten the distance that it does free-fall.

 

 

[cloakfiend 995]

Im pretty certain its the tweaking. I even get freak models sometimes. Weird stuff. Im ill at the moment so am in bed but simply unchecking automaticly drop objects to plate created my issue. Along with manually moving it i think. And turning off prime tower which i never use (so i dont know why it was even selected). So im not doing major tweaking either.

 

Cura is like a good boy that becomes a teenager and starts doing it own thing. It has a tendency to alter settings after some period of use regardless and previously greying out options it shouldnt be (luckily i havent had this issue in 3.4 yet) . I would prefer options for infill, support, and all associated speed and temps on the main interface. Scrolling up and down that darn menu is such a time waster. On a high res touch screen.