So, after a year of owning a Makerbot, I've finally got mine together and working. Got a great calibration cube printed. Tried the next step up, a 25mm dodecahedron… and it's beating me.
The first 10mm or so look fine. After that, the z-axis is skipping steps / binding and not able to keep up with the other two axes. At first I thought it was the bug in the firmware 3.1 that causes the z-axis not to hold, but I've tried downgrading to 2.81 and using older replicatorG versions (although I did not uninstall the previous one or change which drivers were being used- not sure if I need to) with absolutely no change. So, I think it's the z-axis alignment.
The problem is, everything I've done seems to not help. I thought it was fine before I did Anything… then as a precaution, I oiled the screw with 3-in-1 oil and it started binding up!!! Then I oiled the rods, loosened all the screws, and I can't get it to stop grinding while going up… if I could get the front of the assembly to tilt up, it would glide perfectly. But with the MK6 extruder on there, it's heavy and tilts forward, causing the self-aligning bearings to tilt away from the rods… and it binds.
I'm a mechanical engineer… and very stumped. Someone please help me with the obvious, or somehow guide me as to how I can keep this heavy stage from tilting forward / get the bearings to line up.
Thank you so much!
