Stepper Gasket to reduce noise

[adamfilip]

Has anyone tried adding Nema 17 Stepper motor gaskets to reduce noise/vibration

Ive read about people using cork or foam

[RAMTechRob]

http://astrosyn.com/section.php/44/1/vibration_dampers

[printbus]

I've toyed with the idea, and even used some silicone material on the Y-motor. Leveraging advice from RobH2, I'd first try an alternative approach to setting the drive level for the stepper motors. You may find that the noise is mostly related to the motors currently being driven harder than they have to be. Under this approach, you decrease the stepper driver adjustment down to where the motor doesn't work, increase it back up to where it does, and then increase it a bit more for margin.

I recently did this and was absolutely amazed at how much quieter the printer is. See http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ll=1#post40593 for some gcode that moves the X or Y axis back and forth while you futz with the adjustment. There's similar gcode for the Z axis and extruder motor near that post in the same thread.

[sniffle]

Witha rambo board its done in formware and ia pretty much set where it needs to be from the get go. The digipots option is under configuration_adv.h and its set to 135 which i think the comment says .7 amps

[printbus]

Witha rambo board its done in formware and ia pretty much set where it needs to be from the get go. The digipots option is under configuration_adv.h and its set to 135 which i think the comment says .7 amps

Determination of the "needs to be" is the sticky wicket. I previously had my trim pots set to where we were told they needed to be as well (0.39v setting or about 1 amp current limit), and I put up with a noisy printer for several months. Adjusting them to RobH2's procedure, the trimpots ended up at a fraction of that - I'm now at the equivalent of about 250 mA current limit. Now granted, I have an older style motor with different coil ratings - that may make a difference in the final adjustment.

I had read one forum thread on how the quality of microstepping the motors suffers if you don't drive them pretty hard, but I haven't seen any issues with the new settings.

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This is an area where the wood frame could actually be a benefit. It could be that the wood frame does more to absorb noise than would a metal frame.

The gaskets would only help with noise coming from within the motor. I know that in my case some of the noises were coming from the belts oscillating, and I believe the heat tube in the hex hot end was reverberating within the hot end heatsink. Gaskets wouldn't help with noise sources like that.

[TechMasterJoe]

while a agree with both of you and agree that the rambo (100,100,100,100,100) is fair i changed mine i found 100 to be to low for Z on the 12" doing long prints i noted my gantry was not level after a 4 hour print
(i set my gantry level using a pair of 1-2-3 blocks sitting on the Y rails not the bed)
i bumped it up a bit in the end my finale settings look like this (115,115,180,100,100)
keep in mind Z is pushing 2 steppers so each motor gets 1/2 the set current
and yes i added heat sinks to my rambo but they don't seam to be that hot i will start a thread on temps and load for the included steppers, Rambo and ramps soon i have a hacked FLIR E5 i can use for thermal photos

[clough42]

I just built a new printer with the leftover i3 frame from my i3v upgrade. With the original MakerFarm motors (circa March 2014), it rattled and buzzed its way through the prints, and this was why I upgraded. With the new build, though, I used these motors:

http://www.robotdigg.com/product/206...-Stepper-Motor

I'm driving them with StepSticks at 50%, which I think is about .5A. They just sing quietly and all the vibration in the frame is gone. Sometimes I walk into the room and think the printer has stopped, because I don't hear the printing over the power supply fan.

You can also reduce noise significantly by isolating the printer from the table surface with these:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:322915

[pichuete]

im using the cork gastket that makergeeks.com sells and i have noticed some noise reduction but not that much . i think that vibration still goes into the frame thru the bolts . in order to isolate the motors completely im thinking of trying a rubber washer or something in addition to the gasket .

Also i need to play with the "digipots" on my Rambo to see if that helps ..

[gmay3]

Here's another recommendation for a quieter than stock makerfarm motor. I replaced 3 of my motors with these and a pleasant side effect was how much quieter they sound. (more precise singing instead of sawing wood sound)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1