3D printer noob that can use some help

[Andreas15]

Hi,

I've bought my first 3D printer 2 weeks ago. Quite exceptional because I'm 15 years old and nobody of my famlily is into this type of technology, but I'm loving it!

Because I'm a noob, I have a few things I'm not sure of or where I want some help with. The printer is a Velleman Vertex. It's known in Europe, not so in the US, but it's a Ultimake 2 style of printer, just the price (700€) makes the difference, and the quality offcourse.

I'm tweaking a bit with the settings, but I can't find to find the optimal ones yet, so I'm also a bit unsure if it are maybe mechanical flaws?

I'll start with my Mechanical questions. This printer seems very sensitive to layer shifting. I read allot on the Velleman forum, (also asked some stuff, but got almost no response, unfortunaly) and it looks like getting the belts to tight causes this, and also the rods that aren't parallel.

I had allot of problems with motors skipping steps, so I aligned my rods perfectly. They slide very easily without belts, you almost can't feel any resistance. Everything ok I guess? When tightening the belts and pulleys while using some alignment tools I rapidly printed I got it good, but the tension was enormous. I know, the motors and belts cause resistance, but I thought it was to much, the belts where not tight at all. But I tried printing and it worked.

Everything good, I got him printing. Yay! But now, I'm want to get a bit more quality prints out of the machine, and here comes the point I'm unsure. It looks like my inner layers are not touching my outer layers very good. From what I read, this is caused by loose belts. But, I can't get the belts any tighter, or the motors begin skipping steps It has most to do with the short belts, but those are already very thight, the belts even look to wear a bit already :/

So I wanted to fix this high resistance, and I saw my motor pulleys weren't turning perfectly straight on the motor shaft, it was "wobbling" a bit. This caused the rods to wobble a bit to... I actually feel the spots with more resistance when moving the printhead. I can't seem to find how I could get them straight, the pulleys look way more crap than the ultimaker ones. I do not even know if this is causing my high resistance.

This is the thing I would like to fix the most. This machine makes allot of noise, wich I think has to do with the high resistance to.

I also have some little printing problems. I have allot of oozing, and the printhead scraping the print itself. But it seems than when I put some Z-hop or some less filament flow, it isn't changing anything. Maybe it's something with filament? It's cheap one, but there is Faberdashery on it's way.

Anybody that has some noob help? Would be appreciated allloooot!

Thanks

[hpearson]

Can people please do this survey for our class and share the survey as well. We are trying to get at least 100 response. One link is for people who have a 3D printer and the other is for people who don't have a 3D printer.
Have Printer https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LN3GZ8D
Don't have printer https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LYB69B6
make sure to click on the correct link.

[hpearson]

Can people please do this survey for our class and share the survey as well. We are trying to get at least 100 response. One link is for people who have a 3D printer and the other is for people who don't have a 3D printer.
Have Printer https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LN3GZ8D
Don't have printer https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LYB69B6
make sure to click on the correct link.