I’ve had a 3D printer problem…
When I returned from Florida a few weeks ago I tried to print something and it failed miserably. The nozzle would bump into the print, knock it off the bed, and start moving it around while spewing plastic all over it.
At that time I spent a day trying a whole bunch of things to fix it and nothing helped. It caused me to feel very sad, disappointed, and frustrated. I’m still such a newbie at this whole business. And I just want the printer to just work, because I consider it to be a tool and not a toy to tinker with.
Because of that it’s took me several weeks to finally get up the courage to address what is wrong. This past week I said to myself that I’d look into it this weekend. On Saturday, still feeling bad and not looking forward to working on it, I procrastinated all Saturday morning. Finally around 1:30 PM I tried some things to get it working. And slowly it seemed to work, but I had done very little to fix it. Yet it wasn’t bumping or spewing. It did have one issue – the left-right edges were slanted, but the top-bottom ones were fine. Hmmm, what does that mean.
To check it out I printed a 1 inch cube and that worked OK. Looks good. Nothing was slanted here. Maybe it’s not a problem!
Then I printed a larger piece overnight. This morning it was done. The nozzle hadn’t done it’s mischief. But there were problems, the part had shifted layers in one direction.
Yesterday while I was hunting to understand what was wrong with my printer, I saw a YouTube video about X-Axis Shifting. Hmmm, that sounded and looked similar. I followed its advice I tightened up some critical screws, and I found one that was loose. It needed a quarter turn to get snug. Whoa! I immediately started the printer re-printing that larger piece and after 5+ hours it was done. And it was perfect. I fixed it! Woohoo!
I just had to tell somebody about the trials I’m going through as I learn about how to do 3D printing. So I think I’m about ready to start printing Katie’s second drawer divider now.