Ep. 548 re-listen core-XY and bushings on the gantry.

[Nathan Peterson]

I was re-listening to ep.548 while I was doing some maintenance and cleaning to one of my creality k1/k1se/max printers and preked up as Andy was talking about printers not using greased bushings anymore. And got curious because every k1 serries of printer that I have seen has had grease on the top rails and you can see a brass bushings exposed on the side of the extruder mount. So to help document i tore mine down further and here is the resulting pictures and hollow x/y gantry rods.  

Would love to hear your thoughts on this would you keep them greased or acetone/ISO the bushings or get new ones and run them dry?

Thanks! Sincerely nate from Minnesota.

On Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 2:27 PM <3d-printing-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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• Eliminating a stubborn line on one of my prints - 11 Updates
• BambuLab H2D PRO - 6 Updates
• Wood Filled PLA and Striations... - 2 Updates
• New MakerTech toolchanger kickstarter.. Uh Oh for the Prusa XL - 2 Updates

Eliminating a stubborn line on one of my prints

Bryan Murphy <bmurp...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 04:14PM -0500 Hi, it’s me again! 😀     I continue to push my boundaries and have run into yet another problem. I’m trying to print this vase (Elegoo PETG-GF, Elegoo Slicer) and I consistently get a visible line towards the bottom of the print: https://www.printables.com/model/1105898-sand-palms-vase     [image: Vase.jpg]     When I look at the Line Type, Speed, Temperature, and Flow Rate views, everything looks normal:     [image: Vase - Line Type.jpg]     [image: image.png]     However, when I look at the Fan Speed and Layer Time views, the line becomes visible:     [image: Vase - Fan Speed.jpg]     Taking a closer look at the offending layers, I can see this coincides with the internal bridging that support the inside of the vase:     [image: Vase - Fan Speed 1.jpg]     If you look closely at the Fan Speed view, you can see that the speed drops on the external walls for the offending layers. You can also see that those walls are not used for inside bridging purposes:     [image: Vase - Fan Speed 2.jpg]     Now I understand why layer time shoots up, but I don’t understand what is going on with the fan speed. The fan speed hovers around 40% for most of the print but it drops down to the 10% range for the outer wall on the layers where the internal bridging occurs.     *Why isn’t the fan speed for the outer wall consistent with the other layers?*     I haven’t quite mastered OrcaSlicer’s fan settings. I don’t find them intuitive. Here’s my current settings for reference:     [image: Vase - Settings.jpg]     Thanks,   Bryan

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 03:42PM -0700 The fan speed for the outer walls isnt consistent with the other layers because the slicer takes into consideration for the entire layer. When your layer time takes longer than 30 seconds, the fan speed is set to be no more than 20% for that entire layer. The algorithm is thinking the layer is already taking a long time to complete and therefore cooling down on its own, and so doesnt need additional cooling.... in this instance its taking too long! and cooling too much!   Have you ever had a print pause for a period of time, whether thats a filament run out, or power outage, or blocked nozzle? Usually, even with a heated build plate, when you resume you will always have the dreaded ring where the plastic has cooled and shrunk enough from thermal contraction that there is a slight mismatch as the new layer goes down. It feels like thats essentially whats happening here?   The bridging could be causing a problem, whereby the settings are configured to slow down while it bridges - but even if you turned cooling and slow down off for bridging, you may still well see the ring appear when it completes the top layers of the base, because of the amount of time that takes to complete that as well.   This is my take on whats going on here anyway - others might have some other suggestions   Depending on how fussed you are about the inside bottom of the vase being smooth - you could try adding a modifier cylinder that turns Top shells to 0, which will allow the actual top lip of the vase to be finished nicely, while keeping the top surface of the base just as infil and therefore restricting/minimising the layer time.   I've used Bambu Studio but seeing as Orca Slicer is essentially a carbon copy of that - I imagine the method is the same.   [image: Screenshot 2025-08-11 233559.png] [image: Screenshot 2025-08-11 233626.png]   It might be worth just doing a test print of the section you're having trouble with to save filament and time (drop the model below the surface of the buildplate a good 10-15 layers before the artifact appears and see what happens.)   On Monday, August 11, 2025 at 10:14:53 PM UTC+1 Bryan Murphy wrote:

Bryan Murphy <bmurp...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 08:28PM -0500 I think that makes sense. I had how the thresholds worked backwards in my head. If I change both speeds to 60% the fan speed is locked in across the whole print except for overhangs and bridging which ramp up to 100%.   I'm going to try a quick test print to see what happens. If this gets rid of the line I'll print the whole thing tonight.

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 06:43PM -0700 If you're printing glass fiber PET then you ought to be using less fan to minimise warpage and shrinkage. I would set your max/min to 20% and turn off 100% fan on overhangs.   On Tuesday, August 12, 2025 at 2:28:47 AM UTC+1 Bryan Murphy wrote:

Bryan Murphy <bmurp...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 08:47PM -0500 Thanks! I'll keep that in mind for future iterations. I already kicked off the print with the current settings. I like the quality of the test prints well enough with the current settings, at least for the vase it gives it a nice rough but not too rough texture.

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 06:50PM -0700 It's certainly some heavy duty filament you got running there for an ornamental object :) but if it gives off the effect you're after then worth it :)   On Tuesday, August 12, 2025 at 2:47:34 AM UTC+1 Bryan Murphy wrote:

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 06:51PM -0700 I wonder if you could get the same or similar effect with a white stone pla, or white marble pla with fuzzy skin on. Would be interesting to know.   On Tuesday, August 12, 2025 at 2:50:06 AM UTC+1 Sophie wrote:

Bryan Murphy <bmurp...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 08:58PM -0500 Probably! It's all experimentation right now: what can I do with the new printer that I couldn't do with the old one. The Elegoo PETG-GF was less than $20. I'm definitely being a bit more judicious with the more expensive higher quality filaments. My roll of Polymaker Fiberoligy PETG-CF is quite a bit more expensive so I'm saving that one for more purposeful prints.

Bryan Murphy <bmurp...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 09:27PM -0500 No luck. Same outcome. I'm going to take a break from this problem tonight. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow with less cooling or maybe it's time to accept that PETG isn't going to give me the price+quality+characteristics I'm searching for.

Sean <sean...@gmail.com>: Aug 12 06:40AM -0700 Hey Bryan, Sorry to get slightly off topic, but I believe you and I are the only Centauri Carbon owners in the group and I thought you might find this video helpful. This fellow has some suggestions that seem to help overall print quality quite a bit for the ECC. Or at least seemingly in the examples he's showing. I'm definitely going to look into implementing these strategies in my printing processes.   https://youtu.be/mxjMyfFBUZ0?si=D8-3pCNBqeIpGihM   On Monday, August 11, 2025 at 10:28:10 PM UTC-4 Bryan Murphy wrote:

Bryan Murphy <bmurp...@gmail.com>: Aug 12 11:18AM -0500 This is great and I love this guy's content. Thanks!

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BambuLab H2D PRO

Bryan Eckert <bigyel...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 01:08PM -0700 This got leaked by a 3rd party, and Bambu has it up on their website now.   Some notables -   Ethernet port (we'll be getting one due to that) 350C Tungsten Carbide nozzles 1000 mm/s max toolhead speed 40mm3/s max flow New cooling fan on toolhead front for better hotend cooling   No laser or cutter version, but can upgrade to use those   $3800 (leaked price, not on Bambu's site)   https://bambulab.com/en-us/h2d-pro

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 01:16PM -0700 So they're basically doing what they did with the X1C when shortly after they released the X1E?   On Monday, August 11, 2025 at 9:08:43 PM UTC+1 Bryan Eckert wrote:

Bryan Eckert <bigyel...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 04:25PM -0400 Looks like it

Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!! <vr...@optonline.net>: Aug 11 04:18PM -0700 Sophie - am not sure what is your reference? Yeah - I know X1E was like the high temp version of the X1C.   And - Bryan - what is so special? Hot end of Tungsten - can go Hotter? Is it also a Speed increase for this Pro version??   I'm truly Curious!   On Monday, August 11, 2025 at 4:16:44 PM UTC-4 Sophie wrote:

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 04:29PM -0700 The X1E was the ethernet version of the x1c   On Tuesday, August 12, 2025 at 12:18:01 AM UTC+1 Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!! wrote:

Bryan Eckert <bigyel...@gmail.com>: Aug 12 11:26AM -0400 The main difference is the addition of an Ethernet port for direct printing and bypassing the cloud service, which is a huge issue for a lot of companies (like mine who have a lot of NDA's to worry about).   As it is, we copy files over manually to the H2D.   On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 7:18 PM Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!! <

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Wood Filled PLA and Striations...

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 01:25PM -0700 Do you recall if there were any interesting you tube vids or websites that show what you experimented with? At first glance I found this Video <https://youtu.be/ZgLXkDxkuQM?si=vYTKEtccfyeLuieJ> but it looks sketchy as feck, essentially burning the PLA as it goes down... and whilst I have no doubt that my H2D could handle that, I don't *really *want to be exposing my nozzle etc so willingly to burning molten PLA/wood.     On Sunday, August 10, 2025 at 11:15:53 PM UTC+1 david merten wrote:

david merten <davidme...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 04:47PM -0500 No video's that I know of. I think I took some pictures of parts I made, will try to find them. It has been several years since I played with it. David

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New MakerTech toolchanger kickstarter.. Uh Oh for the Prusa XL

Sophie <smhe...@gmail.com>: Aug 11 01:43PM -0700 I have one of these (300) Bryan - and so does Vance (and maybe one other user on this forum) Its been an *interesting *ride. I've been following the others building theirs as I built mine slightly after (I was delayed in building it after my old man had a stroke last year), and it basically came to a bit of a stand still for a while due to the Eddy probe just not doing as it should. I have a pal in the US as well also been building his, and actually hes pretty good in the coding department and hes actually been requesting pulls on the Github where he's sussed the problems out and fixed them for Makertech. He's still having problems with his though. Prints beautifully with one head, but getting all three heads working together has been a bit of a challenge.   In the beginning Makertech were pretty good - responsive, eager to fix problems, engaging with the community, and reactive to responding to part replacement requests...but since the Proforge 5 has been announced (and slightly before then) you could tell that their minimal resource had been pulled away to go deliver the next new thing.   I think Vance went on a bit of a hiatus from building his, to take a break from the frustrations, and not sure if he got back to it. I took a break too from mine, I'm very much more a mechanical engineer than a software debugging one, so I have my limitations when it comes to firmware problems. I'm hoping to dedicate some serious time back to it at the end of this month though since there have been a couple of fixes/workarounds implemented now (mainly by the community).   When we saw the Proforge 5 come out on kickstarter we just kinda thought "hey! come fix the 300 before you start on a new adventure!" So I'm not entirely sure what the 5 will bring and whether it means fresh fixes for the 300 as they improve the 5 or whether the new toy will take their attentions away from the problems of the 300. From the chats that go on in the discord it seems even people with the Proforge 4.2 also get their fair share of problems too. Its a shame because it had such promise - I'm hoping the fact that its completely open source will mean over time things will get better, but it just needs the community base to build a bit more.   Once things have been fixed and it works the dream it could - I'll be sure to come back and paint the printer in glorious colours - but for now - it's been a journey!   We'll see.   On Tuesday, July 29, 2025 at 3:17:58 PM UTC+1 Bryan Eckert wrote:

Gary Tolley - Grogyan <gro...@gmail.com>: Aug 12 09:03AM +1200 This has my attention.

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

No need for the digest stuff. It gets in the way.

So… first off what you have there per your pics is actually quite different from what I was talking about on the podcast. I did not know this but your K1 uses hollow rods while we were talking about solid. We were talking about 9mm diameter solid rods with sealed linear bearings. The sealed linear bearings we have need to be “charged” with grease while not installed.The sleeve in your pic look to me like they are bushings and not linear bearings. Very interesting! I wonder what those circles on the sides are? After you clean them a photo looking kinda through them would be nice. Chances are for this printer painting grease on to the rod MAY be the right thing to do.

[Nathan Peterson]

Yeah, sorry for the digest stuff getting in the way. I was trying to reply on mobile, and it was a pain to post properly. 

Its weird for sure the X-axis gantry are 9mm or 10mm (dident have my calipers with me at the time) hollow rods with the brass bushinings (im guessing grafite impregated) 

and the Y-axis used 8mm solid rods with linear bearinings that seam standard for just about every printer useing rods.

just also confused/concernered about sag and having hollow rods, and if it would even possibly cause more resonese issues that some people have claimed to have at higher speed with these printers

my knowlage about resonace frequencys and how they effect printing is minor at best only know how it effects gun barrels and accuracy and that it can effect some structures and bridges? 

would willing the hollow tubes with foam reduce resionance? 

actually would love to hear a segment on resionance and how it effects printing (if you know anything about it im just assuming that you guys do with youre knowlage base) 

thought i rember you saying something about self lubrcating bushings also not needing grease in the episode?

hense my concern and making the post and just wanted to also share since at first i thought these where not self lubricating busshings since i only see them with grease on them.

once i finally removed them though it does look like they are self lubricating busshings?

defently tempted to just do the linear rail mod/upgrade ive seen a lot of people do or i may just have to do a redesign myself to be able to fit linear bearrings in the area instead. 

 

also thanks for the very quick responce!

its really appreachated, love the podcast as well! 

my first acess to 3d printing was in 2008 in high school i think my teacher wrote stratasys and got one on a grant or got them to give us one free as a donation at the time. 

i belive it was something like the fortus 250mc or looked just like it only thing we ever printed on it was an adjustible wrench but it worked and was super cool to see and put togeather and have rembered since.

so i really like hearing about you're guys knowlage base and wide varity of skills and is quite relatable and is allways a good listen, so thanks for your hard work on the podcast i know i enjoy it and have recomended it to many others!

also just reposting the pictures so no one has to scroll all the way down in case some one else wants to se them. 

[Bryan Eckert]

The circles in the bushings are plugs of graphite. They will go all the way through the bushing to the interior surface. Friction will cause the graphite to release.

No, do not grease them. The "grease" you see isn't grease, or at least it shouldn't be. It is the graphite that has ablated to lubricate the bushing.

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[Nathan Peterson]

Thanks for the info and confirmation. I've bought a bunch of k1 printers used and everyone i have bought has had the superglue for the screw bushings put on the liner rods as well. And figured most where just un-informed bad maintance being done

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Superlube… not Superglue… right?

[Nathan Peterson]

Lol yes superlube not glue did not even notice the auto correct 🤣  

[Bryan Eckert]

It's probably not going to hurt if the rods are lubricated with grease or other lube, but such things will attract and trap contaminants so they should be cleaned often.