Things To Look For After 200+ Hours of Printer Use?

[LoadMaster7]

If you had your Voron 2.4 printer up and creating for over 200 hours or more total time, what have you found needs your attention in regards to printer maintenance, if anything? Anything need tightening? Dust or dirt buildup? Hotend issues?

 

[garrettwp]

If you had your Voron 2.4 printer up and creating for over 200 hours or more total time, what have you found needs your attention in regards to printer maintenance, if anything? Anything need tightening? Dust or dirt buildup? Hotend issues?

I usually check the belt tension as it can stretch a little over the course of its first use. I also check all the screws for proper tightness, especially inside the chamber.

 

[Christian]

Recheck the bed screws. If the one screw is not tight it ends up in the QGL-hell xD

 

[LoadMaster7]

Recheck the bed screws. If the one screw is not tight it ends up in the QGL-hell xD

This explains it! Yesterday I installed my nevermore filter that mounts under the bedplate. Taking out the screws that mount it, they all seemed loose. My QGL was having more tries than when I first started using my printer. All good now after the filter install.

 

[Dave]

1) Retighten EVERYTHING. I had a screw fall out one of my X/Y joints one time because parts had settled and I didn’t take the time to check tightness. I would put a wrench on literally every screw on the printer that I could easily access and check for tightness. Especially those on the gantry!
2) Check all of the belt tensions.
3) Check belt alignment/tracking. If you are getting “rubber dust” by any of the idlers, this is a sign that you are getting rubbing and are wearing your belts prematurely. (The silver discoloration of belts by idlers is normal. Don’t worry about that!)
4) Check grease on the rails. There should be a thin film of grease, but you shouldn’t have globs in the corners. If you do have globs, clean them up. If your rails are completely dry, then that’s pretty bad and you may need to check if your rails have been damaged. More than likely, if you lubed properly during your build, then you should be fine.
5) Check wires in cable trays and the tool head for signs of wear.
6) Clean the interior surfaces, especially panels, to get any styrene buildup off. Residual styrene can be a pretty major cause of smelly printers during printing!

 

[LoadMaster7]

Thanks Dave for your suggestions. After building the Voron 2.4 R2, I have a new appreciation for the Team that designed the printer and instructions for building it.

I have built many things over the years, professionally and privately. They include experimental and pre-production automotive and aircraft builds. This printer build is one of my most enjoyable builds ever. The attention to details of the things that matter are great. When the instructions tell you to use thread lock, there are good reasons to do so.

I'm coming up on about 100 hours of running, and plan to do a detailed check of the complete printer soon. I had one bolt that came loose and came out. I'm sure the assembler (me) left it loose. After reinstalling it, its been fine. When I do my detailed check, I don't want to miss anything. The reason for my thread.