What exactly is Z banding?

[Cameron]

I see a lot of information on reducing it, but what exactly is it in the first place?

Thanks!

Cameron

[Chadd]

I see a lot of information on reducing it, but what exactly is it in the first place?

Thanks!

Cameron

Z banding is irregular bands in your print caused by some issue with the Z axis in general.

If you look at this picture the cube in the middle has pretty severe Z banding.

IMG_20150902_140057.jpg

[Cameron]

Thanks! That is exactly what I have going on. I just got an aluminum y plate from MF. I need to look into this PID thing.

[clough42]

There's another common cause for Z banding on MakerFarm printers. Often the bottoms of the Z rods are cut unevenly. If everything isn't lined up perfectly (it never is) they rise and fall as the rods rotate, causing severe Z banding.

To see if this is happening to you, unscrew both rods in the plastic tubing so there's about 1mm of space between the rod and the motor shaft inside the tube. If your problems go away, this is the cause.

For a more permanent fix, file the bottom end of the rod flat and drop a BB into the tube before reinserting the rod. The BB is 4.5mm in diameter, and it will maintain a single point of contact with the bottom of the rod.

[iDig3Dprinting]

PID is to do how your Hotend heats up to it's desired temperature and maintains it. Yo will probably have access to an PID autotune function depending upon your set up.