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Help with strange diagonal banding on Ultibots D300VS+ ?!

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  • undefined
    wwmotorsports
    last edited by 11 Oct 2018, 13:04

    @Phaedrux : I really wanted you to be right because that would be an easy fix, so I broke down the extruder last night to check the bearings, but unfortunately, both bearings were smooth as butter...

    @Alexander-Mundy : My last printer (that I sold to build this one) was a Rostock V2 that I had put a Duet Wifi on and a Zesty Nimble as well. I had some growing pains with that extruder including the bad gear mesh inside of the extruder, so that was one of the first things I checked when I had this problem. Last night when I had the extruder apart, I even used an old Nimble trick and added some 30K diff lube to the gear mesh to make sure that friction in the gears was not my problem.

    To be sure to eliminate the belts/gears as the source of the issue, last night I double checked the alignment of the frame top to bottom, checked that all of the bolts in the frame were tight, shimmed the gears and idlers so that the belt was within +/- 0.1mm parallelism to the towers across their whole length and removed the guiding flanges from the pulleys. One of the belts was rubbing on the flange of a drive gear a little, so I was optimistic that this change would be the magic fix. Unfortunately, even with all of the above checked and tweaked, the ribbing still persists...

    The only other thing I might try to completely eliminate the belt/gear interface as the source of the issue is to try to run smooth drive and idler pulleys on the back side of the belt, but that is obviously not a long-term fix.

    I was starting to think I might just be crazy, but then I picked up a project I had printed with some parts from my old Rostock and some from the D300VS, and unfortunately, there is a visible difference in print quality between the parts. In the picture linked below, the upper portion was printed on the D300VS and the lower portion was printed on the Rostock using the same slicer and the same roll of black PLA filament.

    D300VS vs Rostock Print Comparison

    I'm 100% sure that the geometry and design of the D300VS is better than the Rostock, so I'm really stumped as to what is still causing my issue.

    @dc42 : Is it possible I just have a bad stepper driver?

    Just in case I'm missing something obvious, here's a link to my config file if anyone wants to comb through it.

    D300VS Config File

    Thanks again for trying to help everyone!

    undefined 1 Reply Last reply 11 Oct 2018, 18:07 Reply Quote 0
    • undefined
      JoergS5 @wwmotorsports
      last edited by JoergS5 10 Nov 2018, 18:41 11 Oct 2018, 18:07

      @wwmotorsports

      Your image seems more to be a matter of underextrusion. And maybe you had a smaller layer height with the Rostock.

      I am no Delta specialist, but 0.1 mm could be relevant, if you have deviations of around 0.1 mm.

      In one forum thread the frames were dicussed to flex. So I would try to fix them at a wall and connect the three aluminium frames horizontally in the middle with something stable (temporarily for testing).

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • undefined
        wwmotorsports
        last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 13:18

        Well, everyone who had money on the extruder as the source of the problem can cash their chips in.

        @DigitalVision and @JoergS5 , thanks for pushing me to take a closer look at the extruder, because I was dead convinced it was an issue with the motion system.

        I considered that under extrusion might have been the issue, so I just cranked up the extrusion multiplier during one of my test prints, and sure enough, the pattern immediately changed. Interestingly, there was no actual under extrusion as the printed width was exactly what was requested, so I did another test.

        In the image linked below are three test prints at different layer heights with otherwise identical slicer settings. On the largest layer height print, the imperfections are so close together they are almost hard to see, but as the layer height gets smaller the "ripples" get farther apart and at a shallower angle. I repeated the test at all kinds of amperage and micro-step combinations and got the same result. For grins, I also tried another extruder stepper and different filaments but got the same result. So, as far as I am concerned, there must be some mechanical issue with the E3D Titan Aero that repeats at a constant volumetric extrusion amount, causing the issues I have been having...

        Layer Height Comparison

        For now, I'm going to take this to the E3D forums for some more focused discussion, but if anyone has any other suggestions, I'm all ears!

        Thanks again for the help everyone.

        undefined 1 Reply Last reply 15 Oct 2018, 15:06 Reply Quote 0
        • undefined
          garyd9 @wwmotorsports
          last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 15:06

          @wwmotorsports said in Help with strange diagonal banding on Ultibots D300VS+ ?!:

          For now, I'm going to take this to the E3D forums for some more focused discussion, but if anyone has any other suggestions, I'm all ears!

          Can you please post a link to your E3D forum thread? While I don't think I have anything to contribute in regards to a solution, I'm very interested in the problem and what solutions might be suggested.

          Thanks
          Gary

          "I'm not saying that you are wrong - I'm just trying to fit it into my real world simulated experience."

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • undefined
            Phaedrux Moderator
            last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 15:35

            In my experience with the aero there are a few things that may be your issue.

            The aero gears need to be perfectly aligned to mesh smoothly. The whole body has to turn slightly to get them just right.

            The bearings are fickle. Even though you say it turns smoothly my learned instinct says never to trust them. I'd replace them out of spite. 😉

            The large gear may need to be adjusted on the hobbed gear to get the filament path lined up on the teeth.

            The idler tensioner tension has a sweet spot of not too tight and not too loose.

            Just throwing some ideas out there.

            Z-Bot CoreXY Build | Thingiverse Profile

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • undefined
              wwmotorsports
              last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 19:04

              @garyd9 , sure thing. See the link below:

              https://forum.e3d-online.com/threads/titan-aero-repeating-pulse-pattern-on-prints.3138/#post-32237

              @Phaedrux , thanks for the tips! I definitely agree that this thing appears to be pretty picky. I have already clocked the body and adjusted the large gear on the hob to get the hob and filament path to align. I have replacement bearings on their way as I type this, so I can eliminate that as the issue soon.

              The only other thing that I can think of is where the stepper shaft gets centered into the heat sink. Since there is not a bearing in there and I'm sure that the idler is moving the shaft around a little, I wonder if the shaft is actually making contact with the aluminum housing and causing a repeating stick-slip condition? Hmmm...

              If I can't get this resolved shortly, I'm probably going to nuke the Titan Aero and go get an effector from 713 Maker and put an E3D V6 and a Zesty Nimble on it since I had such good luck with that basic setup in the past. I'll report back on whatever I find that actually fixes this!

              undefined 1 Reply Last reply 15 Oct 2018, 19:51 Reply Quote 0
              • undefined
                JoergS5 @wwmotorsports
                last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 19:51

                @wwmotorsports You have two bearings inside the stepper, so non-centered bearings could be a cause.

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                • undefined
                  kuhnikuehnast
                  last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 20:27

                  As I read this thread today, I did also a test:
                  I printed a 50 mm diameter cylinder in vase mode. Identical settings. On the left, 0.13 mm layer height, on the right 0.2. On the right, you see like a twisted symmetrical spiral all around the print (in live- version even more than on the photo) which is absolutely gone on the left... Really strange!
                  0_1539634985232_20181015_221851.jpg

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • undefined
                    wwmotorsports
                    last edited by 15 Oct 2018, 23:01

                    @JoergS5 : that's definitely a possibility, but I have tried two different brand new E3D steppers (compact and pancake) and had the exact same defect so I doubt that's my issue in this case.

                    @kuhnikuehnast : what kind of extruder are you running?

                    undefined 1 Reply Last reply 16 Oct 2018, 06:38 Reply Quote 0
                    • undefined
                      kuhnikuehnast @wwmotorsports
                      last edited by 16 Oct 2018, 06:38

                      @wwmotorsports said in Help with strange diagonal banding on Ultibots D300VS+ ?!:

                      @JoergS5 : that's definitely a possibility, but I have tried two different brand new E3D steppers (compact and pancake) and had the exact same defect so I doubt that's my issue in this case.

                      @kuhnikuehnast : what kind of extruder are you running?

                      It is a zesty nimble. Really strange! Has anyone an idea how this is possible?

                      undefined undefined 2 Replies Last reply 16 Oct 2018, 16:25 Reply Quote 0
                      • undefined
                        wwmotorsports
                        last edited by wwmotorsports 16 Oct 2018, 15:39

                        EDIT: I had the extruder gear ratio in the wrong place in the calculations, please see my comments in the next post

                        Well, I am not 100% sure, but I think this may all stem from a full step positioning error of the extruder stepper, at least in my case.

                        I was updating to the 2.02 firmware last night when I noticed that the StealthChop mode was now available, so I thought I would give it a try. First thing, it was really impressive how much quieter the printer was with that chop mode enabled. Second, there was a noticeable difference in the print quality changing the chop mode, which I did not expect. In the picture below, the part on the left was printed with StealthChop and the part on the right was printed with an old firmware version using constant off time chopping. The difference isn't dramatic, but it is noticeable:

                        StealthChop vs Constant T-Off

                        I wondered why that might be and I did a little research about that chopping method and saw that they claim it helps minimize zero-crossing positioning error. That got me thinking and I calculated the volumetric flow of the Titan Aero per full step of the extruder and compared that to the length of extrusion required to consume that same volume of filament (accounting for the fact that the edges of the extrusion are actually radiused). Lo and behold, the spacing between the ripples in my prints match the volume of extrusion per full step of the extruder almost exactly for all of the layer heights I have tested. See a screengrab of my calculations below (note: I'm tessting with a 0.6mm nozzle):

                        Extruder Ripple Calculator

                        I figured this all out pretty late last night, so I haven't had time to experiment more, but my next step is to switch the extruder stepper to the other driver that I am currently not using to see if that helps. However, after a little more math, I'm not wildly optimistic that even the most precise stepper driver would fix this.

                        I have a 400 step/rev stepper with a 16 tooth pulley on my towers, giving me 12.5 full steps/mm of travel for the motion components, which seems reasonable that the human eye would not likely detect the stepping error at that close proximity.

                        The extruder, on the other hand, with a 400 step/rev stepper, a 3:1 gear ratio and a 7.3mm hob printing with a 0.6mm nozzle at a 0.2mm layer height has a 2.86 MM/STEP ratio when you compare the volume of extrusion per full step to the motion required to consume that volume. In other words, even with a geared extruder and a 0.9° stepper, the extrusion is 35.75 TIMES less accurate than the motion of the carriage...

                        It seems to me that the only way to remedy that is to run an extremely high gear ratio on the extruder which would cause significant speed issues, or run a filament diameter smaller than the nozzle diameter to alleviate the natural "inverse gearing" that happens when you squeeze a 1.75mm filament through a 0.4mm hole (inverse volumetric ratio of roughly 19:1 by my math).

                        Someone, please tell me my math is wrong because otherwise, this is a pretty sad realization...

                        @dc42 , any thoughts on this?

                        undefined 1 Reply Last reply 16 Oct 2018, 16:28 Reply Quote 0
                        • undefined
                          tech-raton @kuhnikuehnast
                          last edited by tech-raton 16 Oct 2018, 16:25

                          @kuhnikuehnast

                          I had a ripple similar to yours
                          It was the flex cable on the extruder.

                          But your extrusion problem looks more cyclic than mine.

                          alt text

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • undefined
                            JoergS5 @wwmotorsports
                            last edited by 16 Oct 2018, 16:28

                            @wwmotorsports Your findings are very interesting and I am curious what the others will say.
                            Instead of your expected reason I can think of another reason also: the delta segments the movement into small linear movements, and maybe your extruder stepper changes directions between the segments, resulting in backlash - and backlash resulting in underextrusion. I don't know how to test it: maybe it's possible to make a constant extrusion for the whole line and segmented movements for the axes.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • undefined
                              wwmotorsports
                              last edited by wwmotorsports 16 Oct 2018, 16:43

                              @JoergS5 Thanks, I am interested to see what the community thinks as well. While that may be a great explanation for other controllers, the Duet Wifi hasn't used segment approximation for delta movements since 2015, one of the major reasons that it has taken the delta printer market by storm. There may be some funky back torquing going on for other reasons, but I don' think it is as a result of segmentation.

                              It also turns out that I was moving too fast when doing those calculations and put the gear ratio of the extruder in the wrong place (how embarrassing), and the volume/step doesn't line up with the ripples at all... Sorry for the red flag folks... See my updated calculations with the gear ratio in the CORRECT place below:

                              CORRECTED Extrustion Ripple Calculations w/ Extruder mm/Step

                              The extruder is still roughly 4X less precise than the movement of the print head, but not nearly as bad as I was thinking. I guess I'm back to digging for a mechanical issue and I'll come back if I find any solutions.

                              undefined undefined 2 Replies Last reply 16 Oct 2018, 17:33 Reply Quote 0
                              • undefined
                                Phaedrux Moderator @wwmotorsports
                                last edited by 16 Oct 2018, 17:33

                                @wwmotorsports I think I have seen the same surface finish as you show in your last picture here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipP0LgD2KayuBlFW1rtLkxyyz1ocY5nyEo4LoMh0iB94N_AW0Mr4rREXntzW---4GA?key=SkZRTkRHdE9Md0ZQWGp4ZVZfbE9veGc3MTlqVWZR

                                I'll snap some photos later today to compare. I have the same Titan Aero setup as you.

                                Z-Bot CoreXY Build | Thingiverse Profile

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • undefined
                                  jwalker55 @kuhnikuehnast
                                  last edited by 16 Oct 2018, 17:44

                                  @kuhnikuehnast said in Help with strange diagonal banding on Ultibots D300VS+ ?!:

                                  @wwmotorsports said in Help with strange diagonal banding on Ultibots D300VS+ ?!:

                                  @JoergS5 : that's definitely a possibility, but I have tried two different brand new E3D steppers (compact and pancake) and had the exact same defect so I doubt that's my issue in this case.

                                  @kuhnikuehnast : what kind of extruder are you running?

                                  It is a zesty nimble. Really strange! Has anyone an idea how this is possible?

                                  Diagonal banding seemed like a common problem with the Nimble back when I was using it. I could never fully get rid of it on mine, and that's why I no longer use it. There was a fairly large thread in the Zesty forums discussing it and people were trying many things to fix it, but I never found a definitive fix. Maybe that's changed since then (mid-late 2017), but with as much time as I spent with it, i'm not confident in it.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • undefined
                                    dc42 administrators @wwmotorsports
                                    last edited by 17 Oct 2018, 10:23

                                    @wwmotorsports, does the period of the banding correspond to one band per revolution of the hobbed shaft in the extruder? If so then I suggest replacing the large gear + hob in the Titan. OTOH if it corresponds to one band per revolution of the motor, try replacing the small gear.

                                    Duet WiFi hardware designer and firmware engineer
                                    Please do not ask me for Duet support via PM or email, use the forum
                                    http://www.escher3d.com, https://miscsolutions.wordpress.com

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                                    • undefined
                                      wwmotorsports
                                      last edited by 17 Oct 2018, 13:48

                                      @dc42 The period of the banding corresponds with 0.17mm of linear filament movement into the extruder, or roughly 0.405mm^3 of volumetric extrusion. As far as I can tell, that coincides with the following movements in the extruder (roughly):

                                      • 9 full steps of the stepper motor/pinion gear
                                      • 8.2° degrees of rotation of the stepper motor
                                      • 2.7° of rotation of the large drive gear
                                      • 1/2 of the pinion gear pitch

                                      The only thing that I can relate any of those numbers to (and this is a stretch, I'll admit) is that there appear to be only 2 teeth meshing between the pinion gear and the drive gear, so it is possible that this phenomenon is related to every time a tooth in the gear drive makes or loses contact with its mating gear. I wonder if switching to a helical cut gear set of the same size would eliminate the issue?

                                      @Phaedrux FYI: I replaced the bearings in the extruder last night with brand new replacements from E3D with no impact to the banding. Nice to have that eliminated as a possible cause though.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • undefined
                                        Phaedrux Moderator
                                        last edited by Phaedrux 18 Oct 2018, 05:33

                                        2_1539840495825_IMG_3214.JPG 1_1539840495824_IMG_3213.JPG 0_1539840495823_IMG_3212.JPG

                                        0.2 layer height, 0.68 extrusion width, 2 perimeters, PLA at 195c, 900mm/min jerk, 450mm/min accel, 35mm/s speed.

                                        Was meant as a test print for ringing, but instead I noticed these diagonal bands.

                                        Look similar? They are hard to capture, but you can kind of see them in the reflections.

                                        Z-Bot CoreXY Build | Thingiverse Profile

                                        undefined 1 Reply Last reply 18 Oct 2018, 13:15 Reply Quote 1
                                        • undefined
                                          wwmotorsports @Phaedrux
                                          last edited by 18 Oct 2018, 13:15

                                          @phaedrux YES! That looks identical to the pattern I'm seeing, glad I'm not the only one.

                                          Out of curiosity, can you tell me the length of one of the straight walls and count the number of bands you see where they interesect the top edge? I'll throw your numbers in to my calculator and see if we are getting the same volume of extrusion/band.

                                          If it turns out that the volume/band is the same on your CoreXY as on my Delta, then we may really be on to something.

                                          I ran a print last night that really shows this issue as clear as day. Normally, I would immediately say it is an under extrusion issue, but my single and double wall test prints come out at the exact right wall thickness, so I don't think that's the. See the link below to see what I'm talking about.

                                          Extrusion Pulse Photo

                                          Anyone else have further thoughts?

                                          undefined 1 Reply Last reply 18 Oct 2018, 18:33 Reply Quote 1
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