After printing polycarbonate

Ever since printing polycarb filament every day for couple weeks the print quality of my enclosed Mini 2 has degraded significantly. Especially Z axis accuracy. Anyone else experienced this?

I know you mentioned the Z-axis accuracy but do you have any other examples?

Also, have you run any sort of cleaning filament through your printer? You know to remove any possible residue left behind by the polycarbonate (they suggest you should do this every time you change filament types).

One other thing, and I know it seems obvious but I am going to ask, did you have an issues printing w/ the polycarbonate? A print halted cause something was off? a bad calibration, ext.

Thanks for your questions.

Yes-Do always run cleaning filament.
All the parts printed with polycarbonate were acceptable. No mishaps. (Although, Z started dropping to build plate when steppers not powered. Adjusted tension to fix.)
Printing PLA again now with the pre-polycarb settings and parts are no longer consistently smoooth. Actually, the defects I’m seeing could be caused by X or Y jitter. Will post before/after photo later.

X and Y Jutters almost makes me think you have loose belts or something. First thing that pops to mind, as I have had to do this, pull the heat bet off (the glass, and metal plate if the modular design), and make sure the fasteners that attach the base plate to the bracket that attaches to the belt are tight.

Then of course check the belts. Rather odd though why Polycarbonate would cause this. Also, you mentioned the z started to drop, did you recalibrate your z-offset (also, and not sure but night not hurt to check, your e-step calibration)

Good suggestions. Will tension belts today and noticing now that right Z belt is noticeably loose compared to left.

1 Like

Sounds like there’s something there. Hopefully this could be it (I envy those belt driven z-axis, the threaded is still causing me pain after I had a z-binding issue)