print bed misalignment

[paulsroom 2]

My Ultimaker 3 recently started to make crunching noises and stopped working. The display said that there was an X-Y error. I decided that getting to the tiny screws was awkward and as I wasn't entirely clear about what to do, I would send the printer off for professional repair. I used an offical authorised UK Ultimaker dealer.

A week or so later it was returned supposedly corrected. But despit using the orginal packing for it protection in transit when I unpaked it I found that the guide rod at the left was hanging and not fitted. It told me to recalibrate which was not what I wanted to do since I had paid for the service. I couldn't prove that this rod had become disconnected by rough handling by the courier but I didn't really believe this.

So then I sent the printer to another UK Ultimaker dealer for them to recheck and correct. When it came back last week everything seemed okay and the print head moved far more smoothly. I always enable the PrimeBlob and in most cases I use a skirt adhesion. These are to ge the filament flowing if it shows signs of reluctance.

I noticed with initial models that the skirt printed half way round then faded off. The models were too small to seem to have any major effect. But then I decided to print a min escalator and the attached images show what should have printeed and what actually was - after a few layers.

This suggests to me that the print bed is tilted and not 100% aligned. I wonder if anyone can confrim that this is the case? I will now have to send the printer away for the third time.

[MariMakes 198]

Hey @paulsroom,

 

This really looks like wrong bedleveling to me. 
Did you try the manual leveling from the support page: 

https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011471740-Build-plate-leveling-on-the-Ultimaker-3

It suggests:

After performing the manual leveling process multiple times, the springs under the build plate may have become too loose. This means that the build plate is too high, which could cause problems during active leveling.

Reset the position of the build plate to the factory position. To do so, use a spacer tool or a ruler. Adjust the three thumb wheels under the build plate until there is a distance of 14 mm between the bottom of the heated bed and the top of the base plate. After this, run through the manual leveling process once more.

I also heard stories about bad springs influencing the bed leveling. Are you getting proper resistance trying to press the buildplate manually or does it give easily? 

Can you let us know if this helps? 😇

[Enigma_M4 119]

Hi,

 

for your interest, the mentioned spacer tool can be found here:

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/um3-buildplate-distance-tool

 

Regards