3D Printing Forum

Hey All,

I've recently been having issues with my print bed both (1) the Aluminium Print Bed being warped and (2) the Print Bed Undercarriage deforming when leveling the bed. Its gotten so bad now that one corner is the loosest possible, another is the tightest possible and this has caused one of the bearing to not move parallel to the rod which has induced a lot of inconsistent shaking and noise.

Has anyone work on any upgrades for these parts? This pictureis what happens when i try to level my bed.

Regards,
David

What ever your problem is, I think you are going to need a few more photos for anyone to get their head around this one.

Sounds like a new bed needed. Can't level something that is not square. EBay or Amazon.

Amazon has replacements but you may need to upgrade or downgrade size as the Hictop is a non-standard size. Other option is get some 1/4" angle iron and reinforce the metal by screwing it to the underside of your existing frame. The frame is poorly designed in my opinion. Or, since it is simply a carrier for the aluminum heated bed, grab some 1/4" plate glass, some carbide drill bits and some cutting oil and make a dead-flat base. Can't tell how wrapped the aluminum heated bed is from the photo.

JoelR wrote:Amazon has replacements but you may need to upgrade or downgrade size as the Hictop is a non-standard size. Other option is get some 1/4" angle iron and reinforce the metal by screwing it to the underside of your existing frame. The frame is poorly designed in my opinion. Or, since it is simply a carrier for the aluminum heated bed, grab some 1/4" plate glass, some carbide drill bits and some cutting oil and make a dead-flat base. Can't tell how wrapped the aluminum heated bed is from the photo.

Agreed, however if you torque the crap out of the dreaded so-called 'T' nuts and make absolutely square the frame assembly, there you go. I could see not iron, but a solid say 0.60" aluminum solid plate being secured to the whole frame bottom and maybe angles/wedges on the upper vertical frame bars. The lower vertical bars are pretty much fixed with the mounting angles/plates for the PSU and the Control Board.

We have the acrylic frame Hictop printer, and I noticed that its overall alignment was being affected by the cheap folding table that I had the printer sitting on. I purchased a cheap tabletop from Ikea (one of their Linnmon tops: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categ ... ces/11844/ )
and placed that on the table for a stable base. The Ikea top is very flat and sturdy...it uses a box lattice internal construction technique to resist twisting and turning...just don't try to drill additional holes in it!

I also replaced the acrylic X frame support under the heated bed with an Ebay aluminum replacement because I noticed that the acrylic was deforming. You need to cut a bit of it out so it clears some support structure so that the bed will travel the full Y distance and trip the limit switches, but that is pretty easy with a Dremel. Right now we are honing the auto-level performance; that seems to be working well using Chip Luck's version of Marlin.