Losing orientation during printing

[tstage 0]

Greetings,

 

We have a Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo printer operating on Ulitmaker Cura 5.7.0.  I printed a small PLA panel for an enclosure this morning with no issues.  I've been trying to print a 2nd panel (w/different cutouts) but our printer keeps losing orientation during printing.

 

What happens is the printer hesitates/chatters for 3-4 secs during printing then continues the print at a slightly different location.  (See photo)  And it doesn't happen at the exact same point of the print.

 

I have tried...

 

• Rebooting the laptop - No change
• Clearing cache and registry using CCleaner - No change
• Reinstalling STL file - No change
• Creating new STL file from original SolidWorks part - No change
• Printing 1st panel again - Lost orientation within the first 2 mins of print

 

If anyone has any other suggestions to try, I'm all ears.  Thanks ahead of time for your help...

 

Tom

[Dustin 175]

Hi there,
This is the UltiMaker community.. While there is UltiMaker Cura users here with 3rd party 3d printers as well.. 
You appear to be having hardware issues with your machine, you would get better help reaching to Creality or their users communities. 

[GregValiant 1,409]

@tstage Check the cable management for the bed and print head.  If the cable hangs up on something then you can get belt slippage (a chattering noise) and so the stepper motor loses it's position causing a layer shift.

The problem is more prevalent with the Y axis, but check them all anyway and make sure there is no binding and everything is free to move back and forth.

Check the belt tension as well.

 

Reddit has a large Ender 3 user group and you should be able to find support there.

[Slashee_the_Cow 480]

14 hours ago, tstage said:

• Rebooting the laptop - No change
• Clearing cache and registry using CCleaner - No change

Please tell me you're not printing over USB from the laptop. Seriously, please. Printing over USB is a vestigial remnant from the days when printers were too stupid to be able to read memory cards and is no longer supported. It could also be the source of your problem if the laptop is unable to keep sending commands at the required rate.

 

Yes, the memory card that comes with the printer is a POS with generally less than one week to live by the time you get your hands on it. Yes, it's %^#@ing picky in that it wants a microSD card 4-16GB formatted as FAT32 with a sector size of 4,096 bytes. But I can tell you from personal experience that it works much better printing from the memory card than over USB.

 

Also: Piriform (the company that makes CCleaner) got bought by a company with a pretty bad track record of collecting user data without asking for it (or despite people opting out of it) a few years ago. Use BleachBit instead. It's free and open source.

 

As @GregValiant said, check to make sure your printer is tuned properly. Out of the box my E3V2Neo had the belt for the X axis loose, the belt for the Y axis very loose, and one of the wheels on X axis gantry on too tight so that the gantry actually started going at a tilt. Also the screws that hold the filament holder on are softer than than Play-Doh and I managed to strip them just by looking at them too hard when screwing them in, but that shouldn't affect your print quality unless it starts leaning over, the spool falls off and slams into the bed.

 

Also considering Cura didn't ship with a definition for the E3V2Neo when I had one lemme just check that out.

{
    "version": 2,
    "name": "Creality Ender-3 v2 Neo",
    "inherits": "creality_base",
    "metadata":
    {
        "visible": true,
        "platform": "creality_ender3.3mf",
        "quality_definition": "creality_base"
    },
    "overrides":
    {
        "gantry_height": { "value": 25 },
        "machine_depth": { "default_value": 230 },
        "machine_head_with_fans_polygon":
        {
            "default_value": [
                [-26, 34],
                [-26, -32],
                [32, -32],
                [32, 34]
            ]
        },
        "machine_height": { "default_value": 250 },
        "machine_name": { "default_value": "Creality Ender-3 v2 Neo" },
        "machine_start_gcode": { "default_value": "G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG28 ;Home\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up\nG1 X10.1 Y20 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to start position\nG1 X10.1 Y200.0 Z0.28 F1500.0 E15 ;Draw the first line\nG1 X10.4 Y200.0 Z0.28 F5000.0 ;Move to side a little\nG1 X10.4 Y20 Z0.28 F1500.0 E30 ;Draw the second line\nG92 E0 ;Reset Extruder\nG1 Z2.0 F3000 ;Move Z Axis up" },
        "machine_width": { "default_value": 230 },
        "retraction_amount": { "value": 4 },
        "retraction_speed": { "value": 25 }
    }
}

OMFG how does this %$(* pass a PR? For the love of all things beefy open your machine settings in Cura and change the print volume to 220x220x250. Yes the printer can technically print a larger area than that, but for that you need to set it up in advance to do so. And it's not really worth the hassle. @GregValiant can you please run a git blame on this for me. And @nallath when you're working on the printer linter please stop it from letting people do it quarter-arsed like this. Why couldn't they at least inherit from the base E3/E3V2 profile? The only meaningful difference is that the Neo has ABL and this profile doesn't even take that into account.

 

But seriously, change the print volume. If it hasn't been set up in advance to try and print in an area larger than 220x220 then it's entirely possible it'll go out of bounds on at least one axis, the motor will try forcing it when it doesn't want to go any further which will make it slip which will move it out of position and cause layer shift.

 

@jaysenodell if you bring up what I know you want to bring up here I'll grab a golf club and use it to send your mini PC out the nearest window and the last time I tried using a golf club was at a driving range and I was hitting balls sideways so I'll miss the window by a mile and hit something valuable. What you want to add just complicates things when the message we want to send is don't print over USB. Also don't be on the same level as me at a driving range.

[jaysenodell 18]

I was just going to add that "new" does not mean functional. And that "assembly", even when limited, means that you still have to verify all 90° are 90° and all things are properly tensioned. I spent days chasing a too loose build plate carriage on my E3S1P. 

 

As to the USB printing thing... i will hide my little toys that solve those problems and have names with golfball shaped letters very rapidly. Just remember that YOU STARTED IT!

 

Feel free to abuse your assistant moderator powers and fix this message exercise restraint and not "fix" someone else's right to post reasonable content.

 

😛

Edited May 25 by Slashee_the_Cow
Technically not broken. But always room for improvement.

[GregValiant 1,409]

I try to catch definition errors in pull requests when I see them.

People keep trying to sneak through "Personal Preference" into the definition files when they should be customizing their own files for their use.

My problem is the same as UltiMaker's problem in that neither of us have these printers to check them.  Some of the Elegoo and Sovol defintion files appear to have definite errors, but it would require a field test in order to tell if it is something that should not be in there.

 

The Creality Ender 3(x) bed measures 235 x 235 and the typical "printable area" of official definition files (as authored by "trouch.com") is 220 x 220 and leaves a safety border of 7.5mm all around the periphery.  It is certainly possible to increase the Printable Area to 230 x 230, but it does require close attention to the printer itself, and careful adjustment of the Home Offsets.  That is not in the definition file because it depends on how each printer was put together.  It is also not something that any pull request that increases the printable area bothers to explain to anyone.

 

Other definitions:

Universal - Means that a cutting torch and a sledge hammer will be required to get it to work.

Ambidextrous - It will not work in any way, shape, or form no matter how you twist and turn whatever it is.

Easy Outs - Aren't.

Tap Extractors - Don't.

Edited May 23 by GregValiant

[Slashee_the_Cow 480]

On 5/24/2024 at 3:35 AM, GregValiant said:

The Creality Ender 3(x) bed measures 235 x 235 and the typical "printable area" of official definition files (as authored by "trouch.com") is 220 x 220 and leaves a safety border of 7.5mm all around the periphery.

It's not just a safety border - without adjusting the offsets on the printer, it generally won't exceed its software endstops. And I don't know about the E3V3KE or the E3V3 but the E3V3SE has parts physically stopping the print head going too far to the right or the bed going too far to the back.

 

Although I know that an E3V3SE can go to negative X co-ordinates. How do I know this? Because whatever clown doctor with rabies is maintaining the E3V3SE definition has made it do its nose wipe at X -10. Fortunately I use a custom definition, but I tested to see if it'd move that far. It does, but it's also hard up against the homing switch for the X axis, which is probably not going to do wonders for it in the long term.

 

On 5/24/2024 at 3:35 AM, GregValiant said:

Other definitions:

Universal - Means that a cutting torch and a sledge hammer will be required to get it to work.

Ambidextrous - It will not work in any way, shape, or form no matter how you twist and turn whatever it is.

Easy Outs - Aren't.

Tap Extractors - Don't.

Idiot Proof - They used MENSA as the test group.

Lifetime Warranty - The lifetime of the product, which is however long it is until it breaks.

Money-Back Guarantee - You are guaranteed to never get your money back.

Cordless - There's a custom battery inside that you can never get to anyway so you'll have to buy a new one when it wears out, because of all the proprietary accessories you bought.

Portable - It is not fixed in place. It can technically be moved.

Easy to Assemble - The instructions are entirely pictorial and so unclear it would make an Ikea employee throw up a dozen meatballs. And it's missing two screws and a dowel.

No Experience Required - Someone's life will be in your hands.

Salt Reduced - They didn't add as much as the regular version.

Edited May 25 by Slashee_the_Cow
Bork bork.

[LauraBrown 0]

On 5/22/2024 at 12:53 PM, tstage said:

Greetings,

 

We have a Creality Ender-3 V2 Neo printer operating on Ulitmaker Cura 5.7.0.  I printed a small PLA panel for an enclosure this morning with no issues.  I've been trying to print a 2nd panel (w/different cutouts) but our printer keeps losing orientation during printing.

 

What happens is the printer hesitates/chatters for 3-4 secs during printing then continues the print at a slightly different location.  (See photo)  And it doesn't happen at the exact same point of the print.

 

I have tried...

 

• Rebooting the laptop - No change
• Clearing cache and registry using CCleaner - No change
• Reinstalling STL file - No change
• Creating new STL file from original SolidWorks part - No change
• Printing 1st panel again - Lost orientation within the first 2 mins of print

 

If anyone has any other suggestions to try, I'm all ears.  Thanks ahead of time for your help...

 

Tom

It sounds like your printer is experiencing a stepper motor issue or belt slippage.