Fixing a 3d Printer From the Street

I found an artillery genius 3D printer thrown out in the street. The printer was very broken, but I decided to take it in to maybe try and fix it for my local community center's maker room. This is a very specific case; however, it could serve as a guide to getting many 3D printers up and running, as it has suffered from many common issues. This guide is for complete beginners.

• needle-nose pliers
• wd40 lubricant
• pla filament (you could use anything you want but pla is the best for this use case)
• filament cutter
• hex key set
• bit screw driver
• wrench
• A4 sheet of paper
• rust remover

Before diving into repairs, clean the printer from the grime and dust it collected on the street with cleaning wipes, as it makes working on the printer and identifying problems much easier.

Further optional cleaning 

If your printer, like mine, has rusted screws, we'll need to remove the rust for smooth operation (if you don't have rusted screws, skip this step).

cleaning rust

1. unscrew all of the screws that are rusty.
2. Put all of the screws in a small mug with the rust remover and let it sit for 15–30 minutes (if it looks like it needs more time, leave it in for longer).
3. While taking apart the printer, clean areas that you couldn’t access previously with cleaning wipes. Be careful and prevent the wipe’s liquid from reaching electronics so it won’t cause a short.
4. Once the rust is removed, dry the screws completely before reinstalling.

This step is very important. A broken 3D printer may have electrical damage, which would make working on it extremely dangerous.

Safety Rules

• Make sure your printer is not plugged in when you are chalking the electronics.
• Don't touch the power supply because it can still have electric load stored.
• If you see severe corrosion on the motherboard or power supply, do not plug in the printer.

visual inspection

1. Carefully open the enclosure to access the electronic components.
2. Look for the following signs of damage:
3. Loose wires or connections
4. Physically damaged components
5. Burn marks or discoloration
6. Signs of water damage or corrosion
7. Assess the situation:

• If the you have loose connection or physically damaged components attempt to carefully reconnect or repair the affected component.]
• if you have more severe damage( burned components or corrosion) , do not plug in the printer. it simply doesn't worth the danger .

If everything looks fine, you can plug in the printer. If everything lights up when you plug the printer in, you are good. If the printer doesn't turn on, check the electronics enclosure for problems again.

When I opened the printer, everything seemed fine except for the SD card reader connector, which was slightly broken. I managed to reconnect and had zero issues with it.

Because my printer was out in the rain, my motors corroded. This is how to fix it.

Do you have corroded motors?

• Try to move every axis. If it feels stuck, then the motor is probably corroded. I had this problem with the x and y axis motors.

What to do

• remove the motor from the printer
• Open the motor casings using a screwdriver.
• Oil the motors with WD40 lubricant to remove the rust and lower the friction.
• Add more lubricant until the motor is spinning freely.
• Reassemble the motor and put it back in the printer.
• Turn on the printer and move the motors using the printer UI. If they all move freely, you can move on to the next step.

Wobble in the printer can significantly impact print quality. Let's address two common types of wobble:

Print bed wobble

1. Check if the bed moves when you apply force to it. If it does, your printer suffers from print bed wobble.
2. Tighten the eccentric nuts under the bed using a wrench (you can't know in advance which side you need to turn the eccentric nuts, so you will need to try both).

Hot end wobble

1. Check if the hot end moves when you apply force to it. If it does, your printer suffers from print Hot end
2. Tighten the eccentric nuts on the bottom of the printing hot end using a wrench (you can't know in advance which side you need to turn the eccentric nuts, so you will need to try both).

Why is bed leveling important?

A level bed is crucial for achieving good print quality and avoiding adhesion issues. An uneven bed can result in warped prints, nozzle clogs, and even print failures.

But don't worry, it's not that hard to level your bed.

bed leveling

1. Navigate to the printer bed leveling menu and hit point one (some older printers don't have them; in that case, home your printer and disable steppers to move the tool head and the bad).
2. Place a piece of paper between the nozzle and the bed.
3. Try sliding the paper. You should feel slight friction as you slide the paper, but you should still be able to pull it out with minimal effort.
4. If you feel too much or too little friction, adjust the height of the bed using the gear-shaped bed leveling knobs.
5. Press the next point on the leveling menu (if you don't have the menu, move the print head to above the next leveling knob).
6. Repeat the process on every point until every point is leveled correctly.

After you have completed the initial bed leveling process, you will need to do a test print to cheek it.

test print

1. load filament
2. heat the nozzle
3. enter the filament
4. hit load in the UI
5. Download and slice this model from Roan.S
6. export the model to a SD card, connect to the printer, and hit print.

analyzing test print

1. If the print is stuck to the bed and looks fine, you are good.
2. If the print slides, your hotend is too high, so you will need to lower your z offset (babystep) by 0.1 and try to print again.
3. If the printer didn't lay down the filament correctly (it looks squeezed or it didn't extrude), your hotend is too low, so you will need to increase your z offset by 0.1 and try to print again.
4. If it is good in some parts but not in others, or if it is too high in some parts and too low in others, you will need to re-level with paper and try to print again.

After your fished with the bed leveling, you are good to go.

If you are now done with the tutorial, you can now start the amazing journey of 3D printing with your 3D printer.

I gave mine to my local community center.

This guide was on how to get your printer to start working and be able to work properly. If you want to improve the print quality, I highly recommend this guide by teaching tech.