Shifting layers

[eXodus]

Hi guys 'n gals

So i recently bought my first 3d printer, a Delta printer.
First few prints off of it came out pretty good already, had some trouble with stringing but that was quickly fixed.
Now i ran into a new problem with the longer prints... after a while it seems that the layers shift, not the same every time but always in the same direction.

After googling that problem I found a few possible solutions one of which was checking the pulleys on being fixed or not.
Those still seemed to be fixed.

Second possible solution was turning down the pot-meter on the stepper drivers because they'd be getting too hot.
Instead of doing that I thought I'd try cooling them instead with a little fan, but without success.
Well... partially i think, the shift wasn't as big as it used to be but was more frequent.
Instead of one big shift it had 2 smaller ones in roughly the same amount of layers.

Now as I said, I'm a bit hesitant in medling with the pot-meters on the stepper drivers.
Could there be any other causes for my problem?

Hope someone can help me out,
Rick

[richardphat]

Got a picture of your shifted layers on your object?

[eXodus]

DSC02779 (2).jpg

That's it, the two different shifts.

[Bobby Lin]

I think either your current of your stepper driver is to low, missing steps, or to high, going into thermal protection.check your current settings of your stepper drivers

[eXodus]

I'm a bit hesitant to meddle with those settings without knowing how much I have to adjust them.
Is there any way I can measure the outputs and is there a set amount of current needed for the stepper motors?

[eXodus]

So is there any way to measure the outputs and are there any settings it should be set around?

[offroadbob]

I had the same problem with my delta. Some things I did to help eliminate the problem was to make sure the hotend was held in securely. before when it bumped through the wall of it would make it shift as my printer came with a wooden piece that held the hotend in. I bought an aluminum one and that helped. also in the slicer config you allow it to raise up when making a long move. i had an issue of it dragging along the part and causing it to shift as well. it still happens from time to time when slicer allows the nozzle to drag over the part but, it has been for the most part fixed

[eXodus]

@Offroadbob, I had that problem aswell, when looking through the slicer settings i found the appropriate settings for the move and made it standard in any of my prints now.

[offroadbob]

did it fix your problem?

[jimc]

another cause is your part warping or curling a little as well as overextrusion. both can cause the nozzle to hit the print on travel moves knocking it off steps. you generally want a little z-hop or vertical lift on travel moves. another common cause is with the firmware. assuming you are running marlin firmware, when use the arduino ide to compile and upload it then you must use version 1.5.0 or below. there is an issue with the versions above that which cause skipped steps.