Ultimaker S5 - Backlash Correction

[jkcz 12]

I'm having issues with part accuracy with our S5 - have had these issues since day 1 but tried to live with them till now. Almost all parts I print are 0.10~0.15mm too large in the Y axis. The material used doesn't seem to make a difference; neither do the speed and acceleration settings in Cura. Is there any way to compensate for backlash other than resizing each model after importing into Cura? Or is there anything else that I can do on the printer itself to calibrate/correct this issue? I checked the sample part supplied with the machine and made by Ultimaker, it measures 25.05x25.18 so I know the issue always existed. I'd appreciate any tips or suggestions; this is supposed to be a professional machine and it has been quite reliable till now but options for calibrating should be a standard feature in this price bracket.

[P3D 46]

Hi, the topic of your post is slightly misleading, as it isn't a backlash issue (hopefully). 

 

The lack of user-accessible calibration is something quite some people (including myself) have criticized for a loooong time, but it seems Ultimaker isn't willing to change that. Your best bet would be contacting your reseller and asking for a solution, I think. Until it is solved, I fear your only option remains correcting for this manually...

 

I totally agree with you that this is not what is to be expected from a professional machine! Even if they were super-accurately calibrated coming from the factory, there's always the possibility of something changing along the way - and if you don't have the level of customer support where the manufacturer/distributor will actually re-calibrate the machine for you, then the user ought to have access to the calibration IMO.

[jkcz 12]

If it was an incorrect step/mm setting then parts twice as big would have twice as much error. Which isn't the case; that's why I suspect backlash.

[P3D 46]

Humm.. interesting, I see your point. Still, I would contact your reseller.

 

One idea though - maybe a belt isn't tightened correctly? See https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/52607-check-the-tension-of-the-short-belts

 

Or it could be one of the axles: https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/52606-check-for-play-on-the-axles

Edited January 24, 2020 by P3D

[uncle_bob 21]

Hi

 

There are several belts and drive gears between the head and the stepper. Dimensional errors in any of them can throw things off a little. However if that's the case, you should get a scale error ( = it's off by 0.5%). If it's always 0.1 mm, even on a 0.5 mm part then indeed it's some sort of play / slop issue.

 

Bob