I just purchased an Ender 6 from 3D Printing Canada April 1.
Installed an ABL system and now it sounds like there is a lot of play inside the Z-Axis Stepper Motor. There is a clunking noise when it changes directions adjusting for the bed. You can feel it in the stepper when you touch it.
Anyone else ever see that in a stepper before?
Video link where you can hear the clunk.
Not sure what im seeing In the video. Which direction is it loose?
HI @CoitusMysterioso welcome to the forum, Glad you found us here.
The noises in the video seem pretty normal. Nothing that would raise an eyebrow for me. Unless I may be missing something. Maybe try and capture just a movement of the Z axis without a print going on. Just to reduce the ambient noise for diagnostics
Saw this post out here while searching for like symptoms. I have the exact same issue as OP on my Ender 6. Stepper motor works fine (no knocking) when M420 S1 is not used (recall bed mesh) on a print. Coupler is tight - the backlash nut is adjusted - only noticed after installed BLTouch - leveled, enabled mesh for a print (M420 S1) - and knocking occurs. Stepper motor still works fine when you use auto bed leveling. There is some micro play in the Z stepper. Guess it gets amplified to a knocking when using auto bed leveling.
I may try a better stepper motor for Z. Maybe a 8x2 Z rod. If I get around to trying these fixes for the knock ill update with my findings.
HI, @synatk Welcome to the forum. Glad you found us, Nice to see Google giving us the love.
Please let us know what you find, I know we were not able to “solve” the previous issue but let us know what you find.
Hi there! I’m new here but landed on this thread because I also have an Ender 6 and the same problem. I noticed it out of the box and now also with KLIPPER + BLTOUCH.
Anyone found a solution/cause? The mechanics of it seem to work fine and I can print perfect with manual bed levelling, but as soon as I get a bed mesh loaded and activated, it starts to make the knocking sound (and fades when I fade the mesh levelling). Thanks!
HI @Triton9000
Welcome to the forum, Glad you found us here in our corner of the web.
we never did get feedback that the solution solved the problem or not. My prefered way of using the mesh bed leveling is with the G29 S1 instead of the M420. Sometimes I have found the M420 does not play nicely and can do some weird things on creality firmware.
Try the G29 S1 and see if the noise changes or goes away and let us know.
I’ve only ever used G29 and it didn’t prevent the noise.
One thing that seems to have helped for me was moving from a 3x3 to a 5x5 mesh pattern. Possibly the finer mesh makes for smaller Z-axis adjustments during printing.
I just learned to live with it as it doesnt seem to effect prints.