Hello all. So I’ve had my Zero for a little over a month now and it’s certainly very fast but the print quality has left a lot to be desired. In the attached photo, I printed the same container on the Zero (in white) and on a Prusa MK4S (in black). You can see the clear ringing on the print from the Zero. All prints from the Zero have exhibited this issue since day one for me. Has anyone else had this issue?
I’ve tried slowing down prints but that just resulted in the same issues. I’ve read it could be due to belt tension, but this my first Voron type machine so I’m not really sure how to go about adjusting the tension and don’t want to attempt to adjust the belts without having some instructions in front of me first. Sovol’s Wiki is still basically empty for the Zero with no maintenance guidance at all. I’ve emailed their CS but got an automated reply they’re off for the weekend already.
Can anyone point me in the right direction of how to address the ringing on the Zero/Voron style printers? Thanks in advance
Dimensionally all the cubes in the first comparison and second had roughly perfect Z and Y axes, but X was a little undersized at around ~19.8-19.9mm. Would that warrant adjusting the X-axis belt maybe?
Re-printed that container in the original comparison photo with the Inner/Outer/Inner and 20k accel for Normal Printing and Travel and the result was very much improved. I think I could get away with leaving travel at 40k accel but keeping Normal Printing at 20k
Original print on the right, new settings on the left
Here is a vid on the SV08. Skip to 4:24. On the Zero the middle of the Y rail is going to be LESS than 150mm. With a shorter span the frequency should be higher… But I don’t have a number to shoot for.
Measure yours and tighten the lower frequency one till it matches the higher one and run a test print.
@ sovol3d where are the belt tension instructions for the Zero?
Push the gantry back against the blocks and you have a center to center distance for the belt rollers of 150mm. Same length as used to “tune” the SV08. Both use 6mm wide GT2 belts so I would tune them the same as the SV08.
There is an STL on the USB drive for the Zero called “Hot bed calibration block”.
They tell me there will be a video for how to use this sometime in the future.
@pr1nter - What filament is that and what temperature are you using to print it?
Have you
followed the recommendation of the input shaper when setting the maximum acceleration value? I suspect it will be less than 10k for everyone, that 40k is just marketing and will result in ringing
calibrated the extruder rotation_distance to get the correct amount of filament in? With my printer, the default value wasn’t correct and resulted in more filament getting in than was requested
Thanks for the reply Vergo. So this is my first actual Klipper machine so just assume I know nothing about how to calibrate stuff in Klipper. Not new to 3D printing as I’ve owned Prusa’s and Bambu’s for a number of years, but haven’t had a Voron style printer with straight up Klipper before. AFAIK, the Zero was advertised as a pre-built Voron style machine that’s ready to go out of the box so that’s what I was expecting. But obviously the print quality wasn’t what I was used to coming from Prusa and Bambu printers hence my OP.
So to answer your questions, I’m just using standard Elegoo PLA that works fine in all my other printers.
No, didn’t know it was a requirement and frankly had no clue how to do it. I got a video queued up for tuning the SV08 (closest model to the Zero as far as I can tell) and it had a section about doing this so I’ll check it out.
Point of note:
If you have done flow rate calibration leave the E rotation distance alone or you’ll have to redo the flow rate.
They are intrinsically the same thing.
Example: Say your rotation distance is 10.00mm and your flow rate is .98. The slicer sends a move that calls for 1.00 mm of filament. Klipper multiplies the 1 by .98 and figures out how far to turn the extruder motor. 3200 micro steps delivers 10.00 mm or 320 micro steps for 1mm. 320 * .98 = 313.6 micro steps. Can’t have .6 micro steps so round to 314.
Same printer, same filament. same day. Change the rotation distance to 9.80 and rerun flow calibration. result will be 1.00. So when the slicer calls for 1mm of filament the extruder gets 314 micro steps.
I see people getting all nuts trying to get rotation distance to within 1% of true. BUT unless you run a filament width sensor you still HAVE to do the flow calibration. At that point unless you get a wildly high or low flow ratio leave the rotation distance alone.
Another update. I finally heard back from Sovol CS the other day and they recommended checking the belt tension to make sure it’s at 110hz for both the X and Y axis. One of my belts (left side) was way loose at around 70-75hz so that was likely a contributing factor to my print quality issues. Tightened that up and got both belts to about 110hz as best I could.
I also ran the Input Shaping calibration per Vergo’s suggestion. Used this guide for the SV08 https://youtu.be/xl4tBgMcuzA?si=vmOE4k535ofGWjEF&t=742
My results came out to “MZV” for the X-axis (accel <=4600) and “ZV” for Y-axis (accel <=7000). The acceleration numbers it came up with seem very low for a printer advertised as 40k max. But at any rate, I made a profile in ORCA with a max acceleration of 5000 based on the IS calibration.
One thing I noticed when I ran the IS calibration is it’s set to only test a range of 35-45hz (confirmed in printer.cfg file under “resonance_tester” section and per the console output), but in the video guide linked above for the SV08, the guy’s range tested into the 100+hz range. Should this be adjusted in the printer.cfg? Not sure why I’d set the belt tension to 110hz if the IS is only going to test within 35-45hz, though idk how all that works to be honest. The SV08 and Zero both have the same max 40k acceleration spec so figured they’d calibrate the IS within a similar range. So I might try changing that test range to 110hz or whatever max the guy had in the video.
I think the IS calibration needs another look, but I’ll do more investigating unless someone has a more concrete answer on that. Definitely still a bit of room for improvement but much happier with the prints after adjusting the belt tension and adjusting Orca slicer accel/speed settings to match what I got for the IS calibration.
I’ve been through a similar process and it took me down a rabbit hole of issues. I tried all the tuning processes I’ve used on my Vorons and SV08. I also went over the physical build with a fine tooth comb and found a plethora of loose screws and poorly adjusted parts, not least of which was the pinch screws and adjusters for the belts were all loose. Could just be a QA issue on my ZERO but I’ve seen others with issues. I finally got it to a “reasonable” print quality however, as soon as I try to slow down the print speed or acceleration then the VFA’s become very visible. Not sure what to do next as my SV08 is still producing better quality than my Zero.
