Obvious Catch After Installing Print Head...any thoughts?

Community Support
1

We are currently on step 6 of snapping in the printer head, and our
printer does not slide freely. Roughly a 1/3 of the way from the right
side on the X axis, there’s a clear catch in the machine. We have NOT
bothered to power it on for fear of making the problem worse. It does
not look like the cable is the cause. It does not seem to catch
without the print head on, so it feels related to the print head
install.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByWA-PaRtrV1U0hnNEF4bkRGMWJOc0M0SXFGLVNoZ01hRUI4/view?usp=sharing

Here is a quick video of the print head catching. Any thoughts?

2

That video wouldn’t play for me.
As far as I can tell, there are only 3 possibilities…

  • The cable is catching on one of the screw heads there behind the ribbon (someone just had that issue I think)
  • There is a nick or bump on the rail edge in front or back
  • There is a deformation on one or more of the four wheels that the head carriage rides on
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3

After seeing that, I bet dozens of us ran to our machines and slid the head back and forth to see how close to the screw head the ribbon cable came!

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4

I did!
The ribbon is held down to the gantry right at the stepper by a snap-in fitting that has the cable a good 1/4" forward of the screw heads on mine and is glued down for maybe half its length.

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5

Thank you for pointing that out. Ribbon isn’t catching on the screw, but the circuit board on the print head is bumping the screw. Any suggestions?

6

Hey! there is a possibility I hadn’t considered. Nice work finding that.
If is just one screw, I would check to make sure it is seated. Mine has maybe a mm clearance. it really is close.

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7

That is a T9 Torx head screw

IMG_20180220_154410825
IMG_20180220_154410825530×942 71.6 KB

Its whole function is to secure that black angel that contains the ribbon bend, and there are 4 of them. If it is tight, and it was me, personally I would just pull that one screw as opposed to sending the machine back. The remaining three will do a fine job of keeping that piece of angle firmly attached.
If you have that flavor of Torx head you might pull the one in question and another that doesn’t rub and compare them. See if perhaps a different one was mixed up during assembly.

Understand my advice here is in no way an official answer to your issue, just my personal opinion.

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Thanks this is definitely it (the t9 screw catching the circuit board on the print head).

EDIT: Re-seating the screw seemed to work! Simply un-screwing this specific screw and rescrewing it back in fixed this problem. Thanks for the help! It’s not catching anymore. On to the next!

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Outstanding. Again, nice job sleuthing that out, that edge of the board sticking out never dawned on me, and now I (we) know just how close a tolerance it is there. :sunglasses:

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Thanks so much for the help, @PrintToLaser! I’m glad to hear you’re good to go, @LaneTechCenter - I see you’ve been able to get printing! Thank you for letting us know about this. I’ll be sure to pass the info on to the team.

If you run into any other trouble, please open a new thread. Happy printing!

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