I’m having some issues with my Davinci 1.0 running Repetier v.92. I recently got the thing working by switching the hotend to a Hexagon hotend and it is finally printing. I still have these lines along the Z axis that I am troubleshooting anyone have any ideas on what is causing this issue?
You have lines that are inset, but they’re not followed by ones going the other way (at least, not on the same scale), and they look pretty random. That combination rules out most problems with the Z axis. More likely this is a problem with the filament feed. It’s also not an issue where pressure build and then is released, so it’s probably your extruder skipping/skipping/grinding. Start by cleaning your drive gear and checking the set screw on your drive gear.
It could also be an X/Y offset, can’t really tell without handling the print. It does look like you have a lot of noise in X/Y, and depending on how your filament is fed, filament tension, which usually shows up as a Z artifact, could show up as an X/Y. Make sure your belts are properly tensioned. Spring tensioners are no good, and you should be able to pluck them and hear a note (doesn’t much matter which one). Whether it’s the cause of the banding or not, I’d bet your belts are too loose, and adding a feed tube wouldn’t hurt, assuming you don’t have one.
Thanks for the response! I recently realized that the extruder spring was way too loose and tightening that up helped out a lot, but I am still waiting to test out how well it worked. The belts are all tight, tightened by screws. There is a lot of noise in the X and Y, but that won’t cause the banding would it? I’ve tried everything with the z axis (different screws/motors, etc.) I’ll check on the extruder soon and add a feed tube to see if it helps. I think it could, as you said, cause a bunch of issues. The filament is coming from the back of the printer, and it could pull on the x/y axis of it is caught. I’ll post another benchy next week to see the results good or bad.
If your extruder’s idler was too loose, you were probably grinding filament. Be sure to clean the gear.
Noise in the axis means that something isn’t constrained very well. Could be the rods or the mounting of the extruder or the platform as well. Even the motors themselves are just magnetic springs trying to hold the shaft at a specified position. Anything on the extruder side could be affected by filament tension, and a feed tube mounted to a fixed point on the frame should mitigate that.
So here is a new benchy with the extruder spring tensioned more. What do I check now to get rid of the z axis lines? The filament path is as open as it gets. missing/deleted image from Google+