TAZ 6 - Just noticed the Y-Axis Doesn't Touch the Table

I will add pictures to this post when I get home and can take some, but I noticed last night that the 4 corner feet of the Y-axis don’t touch the desk that the printer sits on. The main housing appears to be square (I saw the bulletin about a production run where the frame could go out of square during shipping). Anyway, in cleaning up some filament particles from the desk I noticed the front right corner pad wasn’t touching the desk (it was about 2mm high). In looking at the others I then noticed that none of them are touching the desk. Essentially the entire Y-Axis assembly is suspended slightly.

Is this normal or should the 4 corners be touching the desk as well?

Edit 7/12/2016 - added pictures of the front two feet. I believe the gaps are about the same and it is the camera angle making one look larger than the other. Hard for me to get to them but it appears the rear feet are the same. If it is normal then that’s fine but I’m thinking I’ll probably print some longer feet, or some shims, if even just for peace of mind. I did contact Lulzbot support and their initial response referenced me to the two TAZ 6 service bulletins about the frame being out of square after shipping and the threaded inserts being pulled out. My printer was produced after the specified serial numbers and doesn’t exhibit either issue. In response I put together a quick & dirty diagram of the issue and am waiting to hear back from them.


Mine is the same way. Just thought it was me. I thought that I just had it on a bad table.

Likewise here! Is this normal?

Mine did that too after I went from the Taz 3 parts (which have another major issue) to the Taz 5 parts. I just figured my feet were a different thickness than the stock Taz 4 or 5 ones though, so I just fixed it by adding 4 adhesive furnature slider disks to the bottom. If it’s affectign a bunch of people let me know and I’ll make a longer foot variant.

I think they are the Ninjaflex feet on the bottom, so you can just re-print slightly elongated feet to solve the no contact issue. Or at least the prototype I build up from parts a couple weeks ago had the printable feet on it.

I just check my Taz 6 and it has the Ninjaflex feet on the bottom of it. The feet on the Taz 6 I have noticed are a shorter type than the Taz 5 and older printers used.

Heya

There’s a reason you’re all seeing this, it’s actually an intentional part of the design of the TAZ 6.

With the TAZ 5 and before all of the feet were on the same plane, so if you set up the printer on a table that wasn’t flat some of that unflatness would get translated into the y-axis and could put the XZ or the YZ plane out of square. On the TAZ 6 we decided to make the feet on the y axis a little shorter to make sure it’s actually the aluminum extrusion frame being used for alignment and not the table the printer’s being set up on. The TAZ 6 should be plenty stable resting on the feet attached to the main chassis, the feet on y are just there to keep your cat from being able to tip the printer over.


Happy printing
-bam

Can we set up the TAZ 4 frames the same way with the feet a smidgeon off the table without causing any printing problems or is the TAZ 6 frame more reinforced to make this happen?

Thanks bam for the clarification!

Just to check further, if this is the case, should I try to level my Taz 6? My table is pretty uneven so I placed cardboards and plastic cut-outs underneath to level it. Problem is it isn’t as stable as just placing it on the table.
Should I just remove the levelling cardboards?

This should be fine to do on the TAZ 4 or 5, the 6 frame is more reinforced but it shouldn’t cause issues. If you’re worried about out of square issues (keep in mind this would just be a degree or two) you can set the thumbscrews tight with the feet over the edge of the table and then set it back on the table for printing.

You definitely don’t need to level the bed, just make sure that the 4 thumbscrews are tight with the bed feet lifted, then you should be able to shim it all you want to keep it stable (although you shouldn’t need to, the thing’s not going to tip over).

Hopefully that helps
-bam