One of the stepper motors’ switch things (the metal part that hits the bar to tell the motor it’s at one end of the track) came out and it’s either bent too much or snapped off (it’s so small I can’t really tell) and it doesn’t go back in place, which means I can’t use the printer because the motor with the head on it doesn’t know when it has reached the end of the track and just tries to keep going if I don’t stop it.

My first thought was to print a new piece but… That won’t work when I have to use the printer to do that. The motor itself is great. It’s just that stupid little metal triangle thing used to give the teeny tiny switch some more surface area to be pressed.

  • j4k3@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    If I’m not mistaken, that switch position is part of your calibration and if you print close to the edges on this axis, you are likely to fail. However, you can put anything that will fit in that space and trigger the button on contact in close to the same way. Like a little cut up piece of an old print or anything really. It just needs to be light enough to make a little tape hinge from the top and press in the micro switch button.

    When the printer starts it has no idea where 0,0 home is, but it knows the approximate location of the switch. If anything about the switch changes, so will 0,0. This is not super critical or anything, it just has to be close. The switch contact has a relatively large area of uncertainty where it will trigger differently each time. All your print moves are relative to 0,0. So it doesn’t matter if 0,0 moves so long as you have enough margin of error available in your calibration. If you print all the way to the last few millimeters of the build plate, and try to use this hack, that is all that won’t work.

    (Edit: I assume this had the little metal actuator arm that hit the white button and that arm broke off.)