Rostock V2 Keeping Towers Square

[dwalck]

So a few months ago my friend gifted me his old Rostock Max V2 and I've been trying to get it up and running. By this point, I've pretty much taken the entire thing apart and put it back together. I had finally got it running pretty well but after about 5-10 hours of printing test prints, I noticed that the towers aren't square anymore and so now I'm gonna have to re-square them, re-tension the belts, and re-calibrate the bed leveling. I'm pretty apprehensive about cranking the bolts down any more than I have them since they look like they're starting to just sink into the melamine panel. Currently my best idea is to get some screws that are a bit longer and then use washers to spread the load and lock washers to hold it tight in place.

Has anybody else run into this issue? And if so, how did you overcome it?

I would appreciate any other input anyone has for me. Thanks for your time!

[geneb]

If it's going out of square AFTER you squared it, it may be an indication that the melamine has been crushed and is allowing the towers to be loose. You're right that adding a larger washer behind the bolt head will get around this.

Now that being said, is the amount of "out of square" that you're seeing in the machine translating to the parts? Try printing a 25x25x10mm test cube and see where your dimensions are at.

g.

[dwalck]

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, the parts are being affected. It's quite apparent when I tried to print a large footprint item. The nozzle was completely plugged when it was close to the x tower so about 33% of the first layer was missing. This prompted me to take out my square and check the x tower; and sure enough, it's not quite square anymore. Sounds like you could be right about the melamine allowing the towers to move; most of the bolts are just slightly squishing into the melamine. I'm gonna go buy the new bolts, washers and lock washers today after work. Hopefully that will help. I'll report back with my results once I've got it implemented and have used it for a while.

[geneb]

That's not symtomatic of tower alignment, that's an issue related the the calibration. What you're seeing is the convex path (low at the edges, high towards the center) of a slightly off horizontal radius value.

g.