Z-Axis Repeated Binding

I’ve had my Taz-6 for just over 1 week and I’ve got a repeating issue of the Z-Axis binding on one side resulting in the printer continuing it’s prints but not moving upwards and destroying the prints.

It failed it’s first print of the Rocktopus with the left stepper motor binding, spoke with tech support and was advised the gantry must have been knocked out of level during shipping. With the stepper motors disabled I was able to re-level the gantry and on attempt 2 it completed the test print. Problem solved, or so I thought.

Following this it made some successful prints of relatively flat objects no problem, I then encountered exactly the same issue as before with the left stepper motor binding and causing the printer to drag the extruder head through the test piece as it carried on printing. Spoke to tech support again and they requested an image of the main circuit board, confirmed the “Z” control chip was in good condition and gave me the procedure to re-level the gantry. Hand level the gantry by turning the silver sections at the bottem, loosening the 4mm bolts on the carriage, taking it to the top of the Z axis, autohoming from there, repeat twice, set to mid height on the Z axis and tighten the bolts back just beyond hand tight.

The next print following this was successful, the one after resulted in the exact same issue of a ruined test piece and a binding stepper motor. Repeated the process and had exactly the same issue, first print is okay, second print is ruined. I was back on the phone to tech support and they are now asking me to do a firmware update on the Lulzbot and share the files it’s binding on, which is pretty much everything I’ve tried to print.

Has anyone else run into these issues?
At the moment I’m down about $50 of ruined material, quite a few hours of my time and I basically have a $2,500 paper weight on my desk.

At this price point to have something non functional out of the box is totally unacceptable and I’m getting really frustrated by this. If anyone has any pointers or fixes for this it would be greatly received!!!

Thanks

Hi,

When I received my TAZ 6 USPS must have dropped kicked it all the way to my house so I had similar issues,

did you complete this in full?

https://ohai.lulzbot.com/project/squaring-taz-6-frame/

This consists of the frame squaring and the X axis leveling.

then do a Z home and recheck the X axis leveling again. re adjust if necessary.

Additionally I put white lithium grease on the Z screws and ran the Z full length up and down. (do not put the grease on the shiny X axis bars! just the screws)

If you hear anything like in this vid:

http://youtu.be/wthq8qH-pQw

then something is out of whack.

after completing the full frame squaring/X axis leveling procedure all of my issues went away, but I did have to redo the X leveling after Z homing. (in cura Blue Z home)

I’m not sure what you have done so I hope this helps, if you have done all of this then I would definitely call tech support.

Cheers

Thanks, this is super helpful, I’ve just been through the whole process. Everything was exactly square at 74.9cm diagonal front and back. Either way I’ve made sure everything is tight and reconnected all the connections. I’ve been given a test print by the tech support guys which is basically a 10mm square cross section about 150mm in height.

I’ll update with my progress and if it completes the print successfully!