Don't forget to tighten your screws periodicaly

[Simon2.4]

When your print quality starts to degrade after hours of printing, the first thing to check is that all the screws are sufficiently tight. I've had to do I've been doing this every 50 hr or so of printing. The ones that tend to loosen the most are the ones holding the carriage together.

I'm putting this here because it took me while to figure this one out by  myself. I'm sure it's common knowledge with experienced 3d printer users but if you are new to 'high performance' printing, it's really good to know.  Cheers!

[H4kunaMatata]

On 3/28/2023 at 11:23 PM, Simon2.4 said:

When your print quality starts to degrade after hours of printing, the first thing to check is that all the screws are sufficiently tight. I've had to do this every 50 hr or so of printing. The ones that tend to loosen the most are the ones holding the carriage together.

I'm putting this here because it took me while to figure this one out by  myself. I'm sure it's common knowledge with experienced 3d printer users but if you are new to 'high performance' printing, it's really good to know.  Cheers!

Every 50h??? I am not the most expert since this LDO Trident is my first Voron but I am past 200h and the quality just gets better and better as I tweak the slicer here and there.

It sounds like a) the screws weren't tightened properly in the first place or b) it is screwed into plastic instead of heat insert.

[Simon2.4]

20 minutes ago, H4kunaMatata said:

Every 50h??? I am not the most expert since this LDO Trident is my first Voron but I am past 200h and the quality just gets better and better as I tweak the slicer here and there.

It sounds like a) the screws weren't tightened properly in the first place or b) it is screwed into plastic instead of heat insert.

check every 50 hour or so and you'll find one that needs love, once in a while.  I do tend to under tighten screws in plastic assemblies.

[Todd]

On 3/28/2023 at 8:23 AM, Simon2.4 said:

When your print quality starts to degrade after hours of printing, the first thing to check is that all the screws are sufficiently tight. I've had to do this every 50 hr or so of printing. The ones that tend to loosen the most are the ones holding the carriage together.

I'm putting this here because it took me while to figure this one out by  myself. I'm sure it's common knowledge with experienced 3d printer users but if you are new to 'high performance' printing, it's really good to know.  Cheers!

So right @Simon! I started seeing "waves" on my top layers. Tightening belts and slowing speeds down totally eliminated the issue.

[bdejong11129]

Cannot agree more. I recently had to replace the X Carriage slide and in the process I did not tighten the screws holding the extrusion to the left hand Y carriage rail. Well, partway through a long print that end dropped off and well, I had the then replace both of the Y rails. It pays to double check these things on a routine basis. I now do that.  We are all still humans and will make mistakes. Takes a few minutes to PM the machine ever once In  while to make sure. It's a topic that probably could use some discussion as these machines, when up and running can easily put hours down fast.  Just this weekend I had mine running close to around the clock printing parts for its brother. 

[claudermilk]

Yeah, the hours can pile up fast. I put probably 60-75 hours print time just this week.

[Aaron]

I would note that if you do find loose screws and tighten them more you should probably unscrew them entirely and re-apply loctite or similar (assuming they had it to begin with) since that's obviously been broken loose by the process.