X axis tilt

I've been using my printer fairly regularly since I finished it and everything has been fine until recently. My x-axis has started drifting to the left, not a lot and not consistently. I did find my grub screw had come loose so I tightened it but the problem persists. I printed the 10x10x50mm tower and it came out straight, but when I try to print the cover for a box it starts to drift. I've re-tightend everything on the x-axis but it still wanders.

I'm going to make sure everything is properly lubed and running free in case there's some friction causing it to lose a step, beyond that I'm at a loss to explain it.

In the attached pics you can see the nice straight tower and then the leaning case cover. You can see the last few layers of the cover started to straighten out.

Thanks,
Gyv

I guess you have checked your belt tightness? If you are running small steppers they might be missing steps or you could try increasing the current on that motor.

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Richmond, New Zealand
Thingiverse ~ YouTube

The steppers are 2.5A, so maybe you're right about the current. I did fiddle with the driver's current limit pot a bit recently but maybe I didn't get it back to the same setting it was working at before. I'll give it a whack and see if it fixes it. Thanks.

Looks more like pulley slip. Do you have flats on your stepper shafts with set screws? If not, you clearly need them. With skipped steps there is generally more discrete stamps than a smooth slant.

You're probably right. I don't have flat spots on my stepper shafts and I noticed my x-axis pulley has a small crack at the nut slot, probably from me wanking on it. I'm going to tighten the set screw down as much as I can, slow the print speed and travels down to about 15 and print a new one then I'll grind a flat on the shaft while I have it apart.

Pardon?

The new pulley came out fine, I'll tear it down tonight and grind the flat spot on the shaft.

@waitaki - I'm guessing your comment stemmed from my cracked nut slot comment and how I was wanking on it. I can provide pics if you're interested.

No thanks, this is a reprap forum.

I finally got around to changing the pulley. I thought I had the grub screw tightened down pretty well on the old one but it practically fell off the stepper shaft. I ground a small flat on the shaft and installed the new pulley and tested it out last night. It worked perfectly and I'm back in business.

BTW: I found out you CAN overtighten the belts and put too much lateral force on your stepper shaft. Do this and it will scream at you.

What are the symptoms of overtightening ? Louder run ?

I had that, my belt wasn't running straight.
My motor pulley was too far out on the mortor shaft. I had tyo reinsert it and file away at the motor mount so it would turn without the screw sticking on the motor mount hole.

After I adjusted it so the belt was aligned properly I have had no x-axis slippage.

For a quick and dirty fix you can add in slizer to home x-axis after each layer. You wont get straight edges, but each layer will be offset either right or left by a very little amount so overall mostly straight.