Brand new S3 printhead wobbles along Y axis

[xiaosong 0]

Hi, I have a brand new ultimaker S3 printer and I notice that the printhead wobbles along the Y axis but not the X axis rods. I tried tightening the four screws at the top of the printhead and it did not make a difference.

 

Do other people's printheads on the S series have this wobble as well? This causes the printcore tips to probably shift about 1mm along the Y axis. I would have thought this is just my printer but this is the second S3 that I recently tested (the first one had to go back for a few hardware issues) and that printhead had the same wobble along the Y axis.

 

See attached video of the printhead here. https://photos.app.goo.gl/SUVT3uRKrhnbMhVt6

 

Thanks.

[Carla_Birch 116]

I think moving the print head by hand in that manner would make the print head move, the big question is does normal use of the printer printing make the printhead move and give bad prints?

 

I think printing would give far less movment forces on the printhead so it would not be a problem, mine's printing right now so i can not test, but i seem to recall both my S5's and S3 have a small movement if moved by hand but all 3 print totally fine.

[Torgeir 248]

Hi @xiaosong,

 

During time those sliding bearing will be worn (as they are consumables), however this is to much play for a brand new printer. If the sound was a "clicking" type of sound, it would mean a bearing/shaft wear or dimension issue, but here this sound is "kind" of soft.. I'll think that the bearing is not properly attached/seated to the housing itself, -so maybe a damage or "reposition" issue during transport..

I would contact the reseller about this.

 

Thanks

Torgeir

 

[xiaosong 0]

Hi Torgeir and Carla,

 

Thanks for your input. So far, it seems to be printing ok. I can get tolerances of 0.15 with the Maker's Muse calibration test with some effort to break it apart. When I try printing calibration cubes or cylinders, I end up getting slightly too short on the x-axis and too long on the y-axis (20mm calibration cube x-axis: 19.9, y-axis 20.1, 20mm calibration cylinder x-axis: 19.85, y-axis 20.05). This is after I have tightened the short belts and realigned the axis, on engineering profile in Cura, but I guess this is within the +/- 0.2mm accuracy of FDM printers.

 

I have reached out to the reseller with the video. It's just odd that two different S3 printers display the same behavior. Ultimaker NA support thought that last one was a bad bearing but this replacement printer has better print quality compared to the last one so I don't know if it is an issue with a batch of bearings or this is by design, which is why I figure I'd ask about it on the forums. 

 

Thanks,

Xiaosong