Y-Axis Stepper Motor Failure
I've recently had a failure of the Y-Axis stepper motor on my Prusa Mini+. The motor seized during a print, and will not turn over.
I've tried disabling the stepper motors via the UI, no change. Y-Axis also fails when running the self-test function.
Removing the bed belt and trying to turn the motor over by hand with the power off showed that the motor will not turn over at all, appears to be completely seized.
The Y-Axis bearings have been cleaned and re-greased with SuperLube less than 10 print hours ago, and the bed moves smoothly and freely with the belt disconnected from the stepper. Belt has always been tensioned correctly as per the manual and not over-tightened.
Printer is less than 2 years old. Total print time on the machine is <46 days, Y-Axis is 106km total. I wouldn't have thought that these were particularly high figures for the stepper motor.
Is this a common issue, or anything I could try to fix? Or time to order a new stepper motor?
RE:
Contact Prusa support. Go to: https://help.prusa3d.com/ Chat is at bottom right on most browsers.
They will take you through a few checks, complete seizure is relatively uncommon.
Depending where you are in the world you may still be in warranty, have your serial number ready; otherwise you will have to buy it.
Cheerio,
RE: Y-Axis Stepper Motor Failure
Cheers for the suggestion. Support confirmed that it can't be fixed and will need to be replaced, but warranty is only one year.
I suspected as much. Some countries get two year warranties but I doubt it's worth going expat for the price of a stepper.
Cheerio,
RE: Y-Axis Stepper Motor Failure
Just a quick update for anyone that reads this thread in the future.
I pulled apart the faulty stepper motor, turns out the front bearing has failed. It has about 15 degrees of rotation before it binds up, and there's some small shrapnel in the casing which looks to be some of the bearing internals. Rotor and windings have damage to them where the shrapnel has been ground between the two. Surprising that it's failed so early in life, guess I just got unlucky.
New stepper purchased from Prusa, back up and running again.
RE: Y-Axis Stepper Motor Failure
I'm glad you sorted out your problem. I have no idea what MTBF would be for a stepper, but at $36 plus shipping you're into it for about $10 of the value of a kit. At least it's a reasonably cheap repair. I just replaced the Rambo on my Mk2.5s, I'll take your repair over that one any day.
Cheers
-Bob
Prusa I3 Mk2 kit upgraded to Mk2.5s, Ender3 with many mods, Prusa Mini kit with Bondtech heat break, Prusa I3 Mk3s+ kit