Printing out a Gear Vase on the Alpha with proto Zen Drive while getting the betas together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCQKYsf2Dik
What kind of nuts are you using on the screws? They seem awfully noisy. I know I’m spoiled by the super-quiet machines I use (I got rid of the majority of the noise my machine was making while printing today by replacing a fan), but those seem unnecessarily noisy. If you can get anti-backlash nuts made from UHMW, it should cut down the noise significantly.
Just straight POM. The sound is pretty quiet already, probably the mic is doing a good job.
Maybe, but I don’t think I could get that kind of noise from my machine if I pressed the mic up against a motor…
Is the POM at least lubricated?
Are you talking motor noise or mechanism noise? Most of what I can hear is just the steppers themselves making the typical stepper sound.
My steppers don’t make that kind of sound… though I haven’t run them that slow in a while, and they do tend to be more audible at lower frequencies, so maybe that is what I’m hearing. How many steps/mm do you have for X and Y?
400 steps, using 16 microsteps.
There is a bit of buzz occasionally, mostly during longer and fast moves. I think a little lubricant or possibly a slightly different material would eliminate that. This whole system is run dry without lubricant right now.
sounds like “normal” stepper motors. pretty much like my cnc, when the router is off 
I think I need to shoot some video of my printer…
There’s a lot that can be done mechanically to mitigate “normal” stepper noise.
That would be interesting.
Here is the final output and removing the print from the bed: http://youtu.be/S2HsXTjoMGw
Sounds like a broken vinyl… slow and high speed mode 
but nice video
i’d love to see a sound check benchmark
btw. have you tried PLA by now or are you letting the Betas do that?
Also how are you gonna cope with all the filament orders? As I understand it you wanna produce the filament in house?
We did PLA earlier, and will do some more soon. Been focusing on getting ABS first since it is trickier.
Filament, we will build out a filament farm, the daily output doesn’t have to be that high. We are also looking into doing filament output in different regions.
@Whosa_whatsis , any quick tips on exactly what to do to mitigate stepper noise? I sort of like their “music” when running slow
I don’t know about quick. Stepper current tuning is quick and is definitely important, but a lot of it is construction (rigid frames that won’t resonate, no wood boxes), smooth bearings (most of the noise my machine makes now is bearings themselves), choice of belt profiles, feet that won’t transmit vibration, material and smoothness of contact surfaces on moving parts, stepper driver microstep ratio and off-time settings, most of which are complicated to tweak after a machine is built…
That is pretty much what I have done The most noise comes from the Y-Plate on my Prusa 2 now. Will soon change it to something else.