Printer making horrible sounds, but keeps on printing!

Bambu Lab X1 Series
1

I was maybe 20% of the way through a very long print when I happened to hear the printer make a horrible sound. It was as if something had broken loose and jammed. It sounded a bit like the sound the printer makes at the start of a print when it is cleaning the extruder head, but the extruder was a few inches above the head cleaning station. When I got to the printer, it was printing away, as if nothing had happened. It made the sound again after a while, and I then video taped it for about 20 minutes and managed to grab 2 of those sounds. I also recorded a few more benign sounds.

Anyone else experience this? Any idea what is going on and how to fix it?

Thanks!

Jon

2

The first couple sounded like the cable chain hitting the frame. I put some felt on the frame to stop that noise.

3

Mechanically speaking, that sound can only come from a collision or impact.

That means we can rule out steppers, belts, and rods I believe.

The sound seems to occur in that back right corner and occurs while the printer travels over the print.

If I was a bettin’ man, I’d venture to say it is the nozzle colliding the print.

That could be caused by:

  • the bed not being flat

  • build plate is not flush to the bed (looking at the video, yours seem fine)

  • print warped off the bed (most likely I would say)

Make sure you arent using grid infills or certain support structures as they can encourage collisons.

4

I think your print is curling up on overhangs or infill and the nozzle is dragging.

5

@Damocles, @Nimrod Thanks for your thoughts. I just looked, and the base of the support towers are firmly on the build plate with no warping or raised edges. Previous versions of this print (which failed because the filament reel became jammed) had perfect support tower adhesion.

I was heading in the direction you went at first, when I THOUGHT it made the horrible noise twice in the same part of the print, but then the noises began to occur at what appeared to be random locations and times. The print is still going (probably 10 hours to go).

Puzzling.