M300 Y-Axis Belt Slips During Autocalibration

Support&troubleshooting Zortrax M300
1

When I run autocalibration of my Zortrax M300, there is a grinding noise that sounds like the belt slipping and the extruder does not travel all the way back to the back-left side of the printer. Then, when it tries to touch off against the build plate, it slams into it and punctures it because it’s too far forward to make contact with the metal pad.

When I turn the printer off, I notice that if I move the extruder around there is relatively low resistance near the front half of the printer, but I encounter some resistance when trying to move it back. I’m able to overcome this resistance by pushing harder, but evidently the belt or motor are not strong enough to do this.

I’m wondering what debugging steps I should take. The belt tension is similar between the x-axis and y-axis, but the x-axis (left-right) does not have any similar issues, so I’m not sure that increasing the belt tension is the correct thing to do.

Here is a link to a video showing this failure: https://youtu.be/_9spuZVrfNA

2

Hi, great to hear from you. Regarding the issue you mentioned, it seems that your printer’s axis kinematics are misaligned. First, perform the maintenance steps outlined here: Axes Maintenance in M300 3D Printer | Zortrax Support Center. Make sure to thoroughly clean the guide rods with IPA and then lubricate them using a specialized liquid preparation, such as thermal paste. If this doesn’t resolve the issue, try manually adjusting the geometry: Axes Maintenance - Method with JIGS - in M300 3D Printer | Zortrax Support Center. I use jigs, but it’s also worth checking for any axis misalignment with a caliper—in the spot where you’d place the jigs, measure the distance with the caliper. It should be within a range of +/- 0.05.

Best regards