Y-axis/bed rattle when moving  

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

wow, that was a very nice sumary! Thank you! I just find it a tad bit ridiculous that we have to deal with this problem (provided parts non the less). I read lots of posts on the forum (every page has at least two of the same basic problem) the rattle. And what I have seen so far its very hard to diagnose. Its either lube or no lube or wrong lube or too much lube... or misalgiment or belt tightening. I did most of them (running an upgraded mk3s+ by the way) changed the bearings... I have taken the bed apart so many times I can do it blindfolded. Anyway... bought those drylins a month back,  but I wanted to fix the problem with the parts from Prusa as it should be... but this is getting a bit silly. Sorrry for the rant.

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I am just installing them... I see there is a littlle bit more play here than before. So how much should I squeeze them? BUt here is no rattle hehe

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

Brand new MK3S+, just assembled. I do have the same issue above. It looks like the bearing is a bit bigger / rod a bit smaller diameter than needed, the rod can rattle a bit inside the bearing. Tried everything above, printed the legs, reseated the bearings and checked all of the screws, still rattling. Very annoying, given the price difference with my old printer...

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I bought two MKS3+ kits and both of them have the same issue. I was over excited for my first prusa printer. Now I'm dissapointed. They cost 4 times a ender 3 you have to assemble everything and then you got rattle, vibration and noise. None of my China printer had this issues. For now it's not worth the money for me. The prusa support is polite but you will waste at least one hour till you got a solution. Everything is very cost and time intensiv. No workhorse out of the box. 

Best Regards 

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

Just to be clear - are we talking about the same rattle I have? 
      

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I dont have this issue specific, but sometimes I can hear some sounds comming from various places that I believe to be related to the stepper motors or drivers on the board, and that itself can cause some extra vibrations sounds it seams. I also noticed that powering off the printer, disconnecting the power cord, turning on off with the power out before turning on again almost always solve the various strange sounds.

Addition to that I think I took away 75-85% of the sound by putting the printer on a cement block and the cement block on 4 pieces of insustrial machine vibration damping form. I bought the form it from a danish company that specialising in these things. It really made the hole diffence. Fans are making by far the most noise now, but I plan to try nocturne fans. If anyone have experience with that and what is best please let my know 🙂

The link for the webpage is here, but insted of buying a hole meter just call and ask them if they wanna sell a small scrap piece. Else they can be quite expencive. https://iac-nordic.com/products/vibration-department/vibration-damping-sheet

Cheers,

Frank

RE:

Test this:

When Y-axis is roughly at the middle, gently move the carriage up and down (for instance by pushing down or pulling up the fingerprint marks). Does it click?

When Y-axis is roughly at the middle, gently knock on the plate. It kinda resonates. When Y-axis is at either end, knock, it's much more quiet and muffled.

When the rattle can be heard, gently push down at the same place. Does it stop the rattle?

If yes, this is the infamous Y bearing mechanical play. The bearing can slightly move in a perpendicular direction to the rods.

I have it like many people. Some have successfully fixed it by using other bearing types, and it is reported that cleaning and re greasing the bearings fixes it for some time, but it will come back.

I decided to let it as is for now...

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

Problem is on bed side, tight more 9 screws holding magnetic bed, knock gently by fingers on bed and find where it is loose, not overtight it because it is aluminium - soft materal! On my side it is complicated, iImaked nylon mod it is pretty tight between nut and screew but it rattling in bed kron uder becase it is loose between screew and thread in bed cross ... 🙁 

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I just corrected this but I'm not sure how, as I did two things at once.

On my machine, the U-bolts didn't seem to stay tight and when they get the least bit loose the Y-axis rattles on short, sharp movements particularly on infill. 

So, I printed out a set of Y carriage linear bearing holders in PETG from Thingiverse,   https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3009203  . I used PETG as one must flex them a bit to "pop" them onto the linear bearings.  To use these holders, one must have six 3mm x 16mm bolts.

But... while I had everything apart, I cleaned out the linear bearings with isopropyl, dried them out and then re-packed them with SuperLube 21030.  When cleaning, some debris (but no balls!) did come out of the relatively low-hour bearings.  The SuperLube seems very slightly more viscous than the grease I used previously, Deoxit L260 which seems very close to the Prusa lubricant.

When re-packing, I used a greasing cap, packed the bearing then slid it up and down the rod a few dozen times to distribute the grease then repacked it again, repeated this three times for each bearing.

Put it all together and it is now very quiet.  How long it lasts will be interesting to see.   Unfortunately, as I did two things at once, I'm not sure what reduced the noise.  I suspect it was mostly the bearing holders as the U-bolts were loosened up just slightly every time I checked them. 

One thing that gives me pause about using printed Y-carriage bearing holders is heat.  During a 1 hour print with a 90C bed temperature, the Y-carriage itself seems to attain about 45C and the printed bearing holders about 33C.  Heat is probably why Prusa used metal U-bolts in the first place, and now uses metal clips on the Mk3s+.

PETG "should" be OK at these temperatures, but I think ABS or ASA might be a better choice. ASA might be a bit too stiff and snap during installation but I'll try ASA next.

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

A first-week update:

After about 10-12 hours of printing with high bed temperatures of 90C - 115C  and a resultant heating of the Y-carriage, things are settling down.  It seems that the bearings "want" to start rattling a little when cold but don't quite. Touching the Left side fingerprint area just slightly dampens it out, as before.

So, my assessment is that the bearing holders are probably not the cause after all, and it is apparently the normal clearances of the linear bearings.  The rods and bearings are the best I could find and show no wear.   This doesn't seem to affect print quality and it doesn't especially bother me. 

Maybe I'll try the adhesive felt pad trick mentioned somewhere, where a felt pad is attached to the bottom side of the Y-carriage so that the felt rubs against the rod.  Or maybe, sometime I'll re-try the Drylins on the Y-carriage only as they had previously given me grief on the X-carriage.

Mostly, right now the noise is much reduced and it doesn't bother me much anyway so I'll just leave it alone!

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

Hey guys,

I'm running into the same issues and have tried different surfaces, IGUS bearings and have already lubed up the bearings as best as I could. Haven't tried the cleaning/re-lubing yet.

I've made a video of the issue on my MK3S+:

Slowing the printer down to ~80% elimantes a little rattle, but it's still there on top of increasing the print-time...

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

In my case I have a rattle on the Y axis of an MK3S+,  but it seems to be due to the 3d printed cable shield on the back of the bed.  Lifting up the cable shield with my finger gently while printing confirmed the issue. 

It's mildly annoying, but acceptable, it makes it sound worse than it should be.

It looks like the solution is going to be printing some kind of gasket from TPU to fit between the PETG and the pcb heated bed.  Trying to figure out if the TPU gasket I print out would have a problem with the high end of the temperatures of the heated bed.

RE:

I think you may have been eliminating the slop in the linear bearings when lifting the cable shield. The cable shield on mine has no resonances, but the bed does. Here's what I'm seeing:

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I have this problem as well.  New MK3 just a few weeks old but noticed it right away.  At certain positions there is a rattle while printing.  If I hold down the left side just a little it is gone.  I notice it when the print head is nearer the middle of the bed than the ends.

I tried superlube... did it about 5 times no real difference though I immediately noticed the other axis were quieter 😀

RE:

Posted by: @cmgreyhounds

I think you may have been eliminating the slop in the linear bearings when lifting the cable shield. The cable shield on mine has no resonances, but the bed does. Here's what I'm seeing:

I got a chance to look at it today,  and yeah, that's it exactly.  Thanks!

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I've got a pretty crude workaround (not a solution) to my particular Y axis bed rattle. The part I've uploaded to Printables is literally a weight added to one corner of the bed which, for me, dampens most of the vibration. If applying weight to one corner of your bed dampens the rattle sound, then this might be an avenue for you to test with. Tossing this into a few forum posts so future people having the same issue might find it useful.

https://www.printables.com/model/330665-prusa-i3-mk3s-y-axis-bed-bearing-vibration-rattle-

RE:

Had the same issue as described here. I implemented the solution by @morphias and it worked! 

I have MK3S+ from early 2023 and there were a few differences.

I had to use M3 x18 bolts. M3 x14 were flush with the bed and no chance of putting the nuts on. Luckily my spare set bag also came with 4 bolts so I only had to find 2 more. For those in the US, Lowes or Home Depo carries M3 x16 (and M3 x20) in the specialty fastener drawers. M3x16 are a bit shorter than ideal (the bolt does not reach the nylon locker part - but it works. At least for the short term. M3x20 are too long and touch the bed - don't use those.

If you want to pick up Super Lube 21030 locally, NAPA auto parts has them in store.

Ultimately the bearings have too much play and probably are not the best quality (my bearings came unmarked, definitely not Misumi). I measured my rod and it's spot on 8.00mm. So I'm thinking changing those bearings some time later.

One thing that was unexpected - I found out that not only the bed/brearings rattled but also the display circuit board.There are two bolts that are kinda scary to tighten up and I missed those.

RE: Y-axis/bed rattle when moving

I figured out my rattle and it might help others. Mine was caused by my steel sheet being slightly propped up from the bed. When I place the steel sheets in, I hold it at an angle and side it back to the two stand offs. Then I lower it down to magnetic bed. This actually caused the sheet to get stuck on the threads of the standoff screws. This little gap causes a rattle when the bed moves back and forth. I attached a photo of the PEI sheet that is stuck on the threads of the standoff and not fully seated to the bed. It took me a while to figure out because it would only rattle in the middle of the y axis movement. I am sure there are other reasons for people rattle, but this was mine and I hope this helps others.