Stuttering in y-axis. grinding sound heard.

[jareneo 0]

Hi guys, I'm new to both Ultimaker and this forum. I just fixed my Ultimaker set few days ago and have been using it to print a couple of items and it was totally fine.

 

However, moments ago, it suddenly started to make a lot of grinding sound as the extruder head moves in the y-axis. It was so bad till the entire machine was vibrating.

 

At first I thought it was probably because the head was touching the platform and so I lowered the platform to such that the head was definitely not touching it anymore. Then I used "Bed Leveling Wizard" in Cura once more to test the movement of the XY Axis again. But the stuttering and vibration still exist.

 

Then I thought maybe the pulley was loose.. I doubled checked it's tight and pretty sure it's not due to the pulley's looseness as well.

 

I have been examining this issue for a couple of hours now, but still couldnt have a reason for the grinding sound and vibration.

 

I've recorded a video but the audio isn't that great, may need you guys to volume up a little and hopefully these will not trouble you too much.

 

You can hear the grinding sound difference especially at the part between 0:50 to 1:05 when the extruder head was moving across the front right corner.

 

 

 

And as you can see from the picture below, the result from the bed leveling wizard often ends up this way.

 

 

Please assist me on this, I will really appreciate it. And thank you.

 

[gr5 2,235]

I couldn't hear it. Sorry. Whatever it is -- it is very quiet compared to the printer. It doesn't sound serious. Consider removing the extruder servo from the back of the machine while doing this levelling wizard to see if that changes the sound.

 

[jareneo 0]

Hey thanks gr5 for the reply! well, i just tried that but it still didn't solve the problem. the extruder head always move to this certain position then it will get "stuck" at the same place. and that only happens when its moving in the y-axis.

:/

 

[gr5 2,235]

So if you look at the extruder motor - can you see if it is turning or not when it makes this sound?

The extruder motor is normally MUCH stronger than it needs to be.

Try this:

Lower the bed 2cm or more so the nozzle can extrude into air.

Heat up the nozzle to 200C (either with ulticontroller or with Cura print dialog or with pronterface)

Once temp gets above 180C, turn the extruder gear by hand and watch the filament come out. Feel the amount of pressure needed to get filament to come out. Rotate completely at least 3 times - see if there is a "bad" spot. It should be pretty easy to rotate the extruder gear as long as you go slow but if you go too fast the pressure builds up in the nozzle and it has more trouble. This is normal. But once a bit of filament comes out for a few seconds it is easy again.

If that seems broken then you might need to fix something on the extruder gear.

If that seems fine then turn the extruder with the stepper motor. You can do this with ulticontroller or panel. Don't go too fast. Maybe 6 seconds for a full rotation. Or slower. See if the motor makes the sound.

If it does, it is probably the stepper driver or maybe your power supply is defective (not enough current). Maybe there is something wrong with your Y stepper that draws too much current.

The amount of current sent to the stepper motors is controlled by a tiny little potentiometer on each stepper driver. Maybe the Y stepper driver is turned up too high. Google about how to play with the current on the steppers and how to test if it's turned up too high - something gets too hot - I forget what (maybe stepper motor or maybe the stepper driver?).

 

[jareneo 0]

Yea man, I believe the stepper motor is a lot stronger than what it seems to be.

Anyway, I finally got it fixed with a few nights of tinkering. It wasn't the extruder gear or the power supply that was causing the huge vibration. But thank you so much for your help, it helps me to learn about quite a few new stuffs!

Really appreciate it! (:

 

[sta1n1 0]

hi, I think i have the same problem that you had. What did you do too fix it ?