Ringing Part 6: Z-brace mod - desiquintans.com

Z brace mod

Printed and fitted martin_au’s minimalist reverse Z-braces. His top brace model had horrible manifold errors that confused Simplify3D, so I fixed them in TinkerCAD and sent the fix to him so he could upload it to the project.

It took a long time to remove supports from the Z braces, but they went on neatly. Now that I have them installed, I can see that there is a lot of unnecessary geometry there and if I want to, I can design a new set that prints with less reliance on supports, especially the channel that the sheet metal fit into. The model was intended to be printed sideways to minimise that support, but I printed it flat because that would give it more strength against the compressive forces along Z.

When fitting the rods, I found that I actually had to push the z tower forward in order to bring it into square with the rest of the frame.

X rods were loose

After the long overnight z brace print, I eventually discovered that the x rods were not tightened down with their set screws, and one of them had actually slid out! It must have happened while the printer was being moved around, and perhaps it didn’t happen previously because the tower was twisted before the z brace, and that twist was locking the rods in. I took that opportunity to remove the rods and spray dry PTFE directly into the x bearings. I locked them all down tightly.

I wonder if this was deliberate on the part of Wanhao or just laziness, because the y rod set screws were also not tightened.

No real improvement on ringing

After all of these changes, the ringing problem doesn’t seem to have been changed at all. It’s still greatly reduced, but it’s still there when I hold my objects to the light.