Springy wiper for improved nylon & PETG printing

I had a lot of trouble with bed leveling due to bad wiping, especially with oozier filaments. Part of the problem is that the felt wiper pads don’t push very hard against the nozzle, especially after a few uses when a trench gets dug into the felt.

To solve this, I made an improved wiper that uses a 3d-printed spring to hold the pad at a more constant tension. It holds the same felt wipers, just inserted sideways. It should also work with scotchbrite pads. Also I’ve only tested this on a Mini v1, but I think it should work on other printers too.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3082324

I’d be interested in feedback on how it works. In particular, there are a couple of ways it could still be improved:

  • More spring travel - this would require the felt pad to be taped down, as otherwise it will fall off when the spring is fully extended.
  • Preload - Gives effectively more travel (and therefore more constant force) while still keeping height low. Would make installation slightly harder.
  • One piece - not sure how to design this but I think it could be done.

Brilliant… Great Idea! Downloaded it… when i get a chance I will tray it on the TAZ6

Nice! I really like the concept of reducing strain on the print head there.

very cool, did you have to modify your gcode at all?

No, this is set so that the original wipe height puts it at the right compression. I picked the spring force by finding the minimum needed to home successfully after wiping, then doubling that.

Did you end up trying this mod for the TAZ 6? Did it require any Gcode modification?