The vibration damper in the context of the TAZ is mainly a noise reduction. I don’t think it really has much to do with improving adhesion, it definitely doesn’t hurt though. I suppose if someone is getting a really nasty motor harmonic it might help reduce apparent head skip in that context. They are made of Zinc coated Stainless Steel plates sandwiching a core of soft rubber. I’ve seen two varieties, one that uses urethane for that purpose, the other that seems to use natural rubber. They seem stiff enough that you can still get decent belt tension. In the X axis, adding one didn’t seem to make much of a difference with the Openbuilds mod equipped Taz, but it may help in the X on a stock one.
If your mounting plates use stock NEMA holes you could use these for the far side of the threaded rod. Thin sheets of silicone rubber will also work excellently as a noise damper without sacrificing rigidity and can be trimmed to shape as needed. RTV gasket material will also make a great vibration isolator in most cases,
Much thanks for the information! Sounds like I shouldn’t expect a performance improvement, but if there are any gains to be had, thin rubber gaskets will do just as well.
My motor mount plates are OpenBuilds’ “Threaded Rod Plate for Nema 17 Stepper Motor”. In addition to the motor, thinking of dampening the joint between the M5 slots and aluminum extrusions. Was concerned with both motor noise and low-frequency fan noise elsewhere on the platform.
Mounted some rubber foam under the TazMega X/Y motor spacers. Surprisingly, this does make a significant difference, especially on the Y-Axis. Remaining noise seems to be band limited, maybe a two-thirds audible reduction overall.
Hey guys. I found a source where you can get the dampers in singles. I wish I found this before i dropped $30CAD to get 3… Since you can only use it on the Y axis for the Mini. Anyway, heres the link
Arg. despite the good instructions i was in a rush and put in my 0.050" allen wrench with the ball end first. it snapped off inside the set screw. now i cant get the set screw out. not sure what to do. i ordered some tiny left hand drills. so i think i will try to drill those into the hole to catch into the set screw/broken allen wrench tip and when it catches it should unscrew it self. if not then I just put in a bigger drill and try to drill the entire hole out. luckily there is another tapped hole in the pulley thing so i can still re attach it to the motor if i ever am able to get the pulley off
fail
if anyone has better idea to fix this let me know pls!
I do not, but I will check back on this to see what is thought up. I have a bunch of motors with messed up set screws sitting around I will LOVE to get usable again.
I have a suspicion you are going to find out how hard an allen wrench is.
When problems like this arise, we sometimes have to resort to an EDM process, which will likely cost more than a new motor and pulley (and a new set screw of course )
You might try some sort of gear puller arrangement and see how bad the set screw scars the shaft. It might be re-usable with a new pulley.
If worse comes to worse, can you just sacrifice the pulley? I’ve used a nut splitter on frozen nuts that I could not remove. Perhaps something similar would work here, if you aren’t worried about salvaging the pulley.
I’m not sure if a nut splitting tool Try grinding a slot most of the way through the pulley with a dremel tool or something similar. Stop before you get to the shaft. Then put something in the slot to break it the rest of the way (perhaps an appropriately sized screwdriver or knife?). You may not need to crack it all the way in two, since you just need it to loosen up a bit on the shaft.
A nut splitting tool does not require grinding the slot, but I’m thinking that step will greatly reduce the force required, lessening the chance of damaging other components. Most of the nut splitting tools I’ve need are overkill and probably too large for this type of project, but the concept may be worth considering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaip7A8ezg8
but i was able to drill out the hole a little larger and get the set screw out and salvage the existing pulley using the 2nd set screw hole. back in business woohoo
The set screw or the Allen wrench could be stripped. Grind or file down the Allen wrench to get a fresh section. If screw is stripped u gotta do more work, see above. I got mine working with the dampers despite having to drill out one set screw along the way. It’s totally worth it! Sound is so much better. I will be adding it to some of the other aces as well
I could not get one of the screws loose either on the pulley. It is stripped.
I decided to put it back together anyway and it works fine with the pulley lower on there. The belt slightly rubs at one extreme of the y axis but it doesn’t seem to do any harm.
I ordered another gear anyway, so I’ll drill out that one later.
Too add to this discussion, I also recently added this dampener to the Y-Axis and it has really been a huge improvement on making the printer quieter. Between the awesome step by step instructions on this thread and the OHAI instructions (and clear pictures) on replacing the Y-Axis motor, installation was a breeze.
I did purchase some higher quality allen wrenches from Bondhus (just needed an excuse for more tools).
I have found though, that the entire motor tilts while under belt tension. You will only notice this when you set the Mini back on a flat surface and look under the Y-axis motor. It has not affect my prints at all. My searches on this issue seems to indicate this is normal. I read that due to this it can slightly accelerate the wear on your belt, which may be the small price to pay for a quiet operation.
After reading this thread above I reinstalled my dampener with the supplied hardware from Ultibots. I installed the longer screws to the surface that mates the printer to the dampener and allowed them to extend almost to the motor. Maybe it helps, maybe not, but the supplied hardware is much nicer and seems less prone to stripping as they are deeper.
I too installed the Astrosyn damper on my Y-axis stepper motor and it has made a world of difference in the high-pitched sound emissions from my Lulzbot Mini.
One issue I ran into that I hadn’t seen mentioned elsewhere in this thread is that after removing both set screws on the Y-axis stepper pulley, I was still unable to move the pulley on the stepper shaft. The pulley appeared to be be very tightly press fit onto the shaft. I even created a makeshift gear puller in an attempt to raise the pulley on the shaft by the height consumed by the new damper, but began to deform the pulley before it would budge. Not sure why my pulley is so strongly affixed to the stepper shaft, but think I may need to purchase a new stepper and pulley if I ever want the belt to follow its original path with the damper installed.
If you don’t raise the pulley on the shaft after installing the damper, the Y-axis drive belt will rub on the tensioner bolt heads as the bed moves toward the back of the printer. As a temporary fix, I simply removed the tensioner bolts and no longer notice any belt interference. So far the belt seems to be keeping tension perfectly well without the bolts installed, but this probably isn’t ideal in the long-term.
I installed a vibration dampener on my Y motor and it is significantly better. Moons Motors sent us this particular dampener. R&D has tested some others in the past. We also have a lot of cork dampeners. The one we have from Ultibots, IIRC, requires the pulley to be removed. But the Moons ones have a large enough center hole, that it isn’t required.
I did a before and after audio recording of a mustache ring print using Audacity (in a non-studio/homebrew setup).
Is there a link for that product? I couldn’t find anything on the moonsindustries.com website.
Also, has anybody tried using any sort of dampeners on the 8 feet of the Taz? It seems the high frequencies generated by the motors also transfer through the padded feet and into whatever Taz is sitting on, and can get amplified depending on how solid of a structure it is and what material it’s made of. Mine is on a pretty heavy duty metal shelf (pretty solid 2000 lb/shelf capacity) and if I touch the frame anywhere while Taz is printing I can feel the vibrations, and if I stick my ear to it I can hear them.
I just received some “moon gel” which originated in the drum (the musical instrument) industry as a way of varying the resonance characteristics. It’s been discovered by the quadcopter/uav community as a great way to help resolve vibration issues (4 or more very fast motors all independently varying up to 1200 rpm or so and constantly changing producing some very interesting harmonics) that get transferred from the copter frame to the camera and cause what’s known as the “jello effect”. I’m wondering if these will also help stop vibration transfer and help isolate to the Taz only. They’re pretty thin and very pliable. If you remember those gummy type of toys that you got out of a gumball machine that were very sticky and you wash with soap and water and throw against a window and it slowly climbs down - this is almost the same stuff, if not a more pure form of it. I’ll be testing soon but was curious if anyone else has tried dampeners on the feet.
The stick on furnature grade feet of the Taz 5 do inhibit vibration transfer some, but there is room for improvement. The Taz 6 has ninjaflex based damper feet thingies.
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