<p>This is regarding the circuit of my 3D printer Tronxy X5SA's stepper motor for X axis.</p>
<p><strong>I had an observation:</strong> It has a cooling fan (40X10 24V) which is having issues lately - it stops working sometimes, and when pushed to rotate, spins back.</p>
<p><strong>Problem:</strong> Now one of the stepper motors (NEMA 17 ~3.5kgfcm) in my core XY has been malfunctioning, where it misses rotation sometimes out of the blue, which shifts the whole print. I thought this is due to the driver limiting the current to the motor, so I rotated the screw terminal clockwise a bit more to allow more current for the motor. This works fine for a while, but the problem comes back.</p>
<p>Now, I also noticed a few times that this issue occurred when the cooling fan for the drivers stopped working.</p>
<p>Can the stopping of the cooling fan cause the stepper motor to falter?</p>
<p>Another observation is that the stepper motor which is faltering is placed close to another stepper motor. Although I know stepper motors can work in extreme conditions, can this cause the issue?</p>
<p>If you require any more info to investigate the issue, please do let me know</p>

[{'answer_id': 13943, 'author': 'R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE', 'author_id': 11157, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/11157', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>OK, let's start with your pictures. Putting aside the expansion in the XY plane, layer 1 looks seriously underextruded (gaps between the lines, even) while layers 2 and 3 look severely overextruded. It would be possible to achieve this with a reduced first-layer flow setting, but you haven't indicated that, and moreover, in addition to looking underextruded, the first layer's lines don't look very flat - they look a lot thicker than 0.12 mm. I suspect if you can take a caliper with resolution greater than 0.1 mm and measure the thickness of the first layer, you'll find it's at least 0.2 mm thick, maybe more.</p>\n<p>So, what's happening? You're overextruding by <strong>a lot</strong>, but have lowered your bed enough to (more than) compensate, giving the excess material in the first layer a whole 0.2 mm or more of vertical space to expand into, preventing it from being pressed against the bed and taking up the horizontal space it should. Now, as soon as you start the next layer, the big problems start. Since the nozzle has only moved up by 0.12 mm, you only have 0.12 mm of vertical space, and the overextruded material gets squeezed out horizontally. Some of it goes down into the gaps between the lines of the first layer. But by the time you get to layer 3, there are no gaps and things go really bad.</p>\n<p>What's the source of the overextrusion? Your &quot;esteps calibration&quot;. This is not a number you need to calibrate. It's a function of the extruder gear, and for the Ender 3's (including the Pro's) factory gear it's 93.0 (*).</p>\n<p>After you fix the overextrusion by putting esteps back to the right value, you're going to need to re-level your bed. If you use the paper method, make sure there is significant tension on the paper and it does not slide freely under the nozzle at Z=0. If prefer using real metal feeler gauges and moving the nozzle to Z=0.1 to level. (You mentioned that you have BLtouch, which I'm not familiar with, but as I understand it you still need to calibrate it due to possible difference in sensor height and nozzle tip height.)</p>\n<hr />\n<p>(*) Note that for compressible filaments like TPU and to a lesser extent PETG, compression of the filament in the gear will alter the effective steps per mm of (uncompressed) filament moved. However, rather than modifying your firmware esteps setting for this, it makes a lot more sense to model that as either a flow adjustment percentage or a narrower filament diameter (since essentially that's what it is -- the filament becomes narrower at the point of measurement), since slicing software supports adjustment of these per-material. So, don't touch esteps unless you replaced extruder hardware.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 13966, 'author': 'Robert', 'author_id': 16902, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/16902', 'pm_score': 4, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>I think this is resolved. After looking at every conceivable source of over-extrusion and coming up negative, <code>R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE</code> suggested that it might be a mechanical problem in Z axis movement, like in <a href="https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/8022/first-3-mm-prints-poorly-then-fine-after-that">this question</a>.</p>\n<p>I checked by leveling the bed and zeroing the Z axis at 0.05 mm above the bed, using a feeler gauge. I gave it the instruction to move the Z axis up by 0.2 mm (to simulate a single layer), then checked it with a 0.25 mm feeler gauge. It did not fit. I raised it .01 mm at a time, and I was not able to insert the gauge until it hit 0.5 mm!</p>\n<p>I printed a 20 mm test cube and measured the Z height:\n<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Lvq2.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/4Lvq2.jpg" alt="Initial 20 mm test cube" /></a></p>\n<p>At 19.58 mm, it was short. Only a little bit though, which is consistent with Z problems only occurring in the first few layers for some reason.</p>\n<p>Based on the advice in the other question, I fiddled with the eccentric nuts on the left and right side of X axis gantry, adjusting them to be tight enough that turning the wheels moves the gantry up and down, but loose enough that I can still turn the wheels if I hold the gantry in place.</p>\n<p>I checked again with the feeler gauge, and this time the 0.25 mm gauge fit just fine at 0.2 mm. Cool! I printed another test cube and measured:</p>\n<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yq2zW.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Yq2zW.jpg" alt="Revised 20 mm test cube" /></a></p>\n<p>OK, at 20.06 mm it\'s not perfect, but it\'s a lot better. I printed the hinges again:</p>\n<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4MYZ.jpg" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4MYZ.jpg" alt="Hinges" /></a></p>\n<p>Again not perfect, but so much better. And the specific problem of uncontrollable expansion in the 2nd and 3rd layers is totally gone.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 18577, 'author': 'Alexander Kataev', 'author_id': 32330, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/32330', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There is a problem with Z-axis\' uneven movement. I worked a lot on fixing this and the solution I came up with was to reduce flow in Cura post-processing. You need to measure the movement of the X-axis in the vertical direction on the first layers and calibrate flow. Hope this helps as it helped me.</p>\n<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFMrj.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="Spreadsheet of Ender 3 first layers height"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/nFMrj.png" alt="Spreadsheet of Ender 3 first layers height" title="Spreadsheet of Ender 3 first layers height" /></a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 18671, 'author': 'Jeroen Vermeulen - MageHost', 'author_id': 32512, 'author_profile': 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/32512', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I had the same problem with my Ender-3 V2.</p>\n<p>You need to check if the feeder bracket is square like explained in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnzNd_FIMKY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this YouTube</a></p>\n<p>If that is not the problem maybe you need a custom bracket to change the spacing between the Z-motor and the frame like <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2752080" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a>, <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4699747" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> or <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4723087" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a></p>\n<p>I have improved mine a lot using:</p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2752080" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This Z-motor mount</a></li>\n<li>Using <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Elmer%E2%80%99s+Disappearing+Purple+Glue+Stick" rel="nofollow noreferrer">glue stick</a> instead of squeezing the first layer</li>\n<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDm9OziZ6dY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Leveling the bed using a feeler gauge</a> instead of a piece of paper</li>\n<li>Initial fan speed 100\xa0%, all layers the same</li>\n<li>Same flow rate, line width, line height on all layers</li>\n<li>Build plate 40\xa0°C, nozzle 205\xa0°C</li>\n<li>Seam Corner Preference: Hide or Expose Seam</li>\n</ul>\n'}]
['https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/questions/13961', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com', 'https://3dprinting.stackexchange.com/users/5816/']