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Apr 2016
11 / 16
Apr 2016
Apr 2016
georgehine
Apr '16

I just got my FFCP and I was printing my first part and just happened to feel the x and y axis motors. they felt way hot for my liking, so I got out my IR temp gun and shot them. The X motor was at 136f and the y motor was at 146f. are these motor temps to hot or am I just being a freak

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    Apr '16

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    Apr '16
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aero3D
Apr '16

Quite normal, though I don’t like the temps they get either but the same on many printers including my Finders and Ultimaker. Zortrax motors always stay cool but then printing is not as quick. If you slow the print speed down you should find the temps will drop accordingly.

Makershop_NZ
Apr '16

Hi George,

That’s a perfectly normal temperature for stepper motors. They are designed for precision movement not for efficiency. You needn’t worry unless they get up around 190°F. Then the chassis it’s bolted to will fail. The motor will still be fine at that temperature.

Regards,

Mike

Makershop_NZ
Apr '16

That’s not the way stepper motors in the FFCP work. They have a constant current driver. The heat they generate is (practically) constant (P=I²R). Doesn’t matter how fast or slow they move. Only if you stop the printer and disable the stepper motors do they cool down.

aero3D
Apr '16

Ah OK thanks. Did not know that. Learned something new. Strange how my Zortrax can be printing for 48 hours straight and the motors are barely warm.

Makershop_NZ
Apr '16

That’s not surprising. They probably run the motors with the current set well short of the maximum current. The heat is proportional to current squared so running the motors at 1/2 of their max rated current only gives half of the max rated torque but the motors put out 1/4 of the heat.

Zortrax is a very successful and reliable design from what I have heard, and is operated at very conservative speeds. Their philosophy seems to value print quality and reliability over speed. So they probably run the motors well away from their max ratings.

Antalus
Apr '16

After having printed a 800 meter filament, I can say that they continue to do it just right.

The “problem” in the FF is that it has a dual head and which is considerably heavier than, for example, the Ultimaker, which has one head and also a bowden (the heavy motor is not on the track).

Yet I get print speeds up to 100mm/s. So despite the heavy dual, you can significantly boost the speed. Quality loss? Not when everything else is good! The quality is really beautiful once you’re know the machine.

Soon I 'm going to change to my own made bowden system. Will still be testing a lot, but given that both stepper motors go off the rails, I expect to achieve speeds to 150mm/s (which is certainly the goal).

Good luck, you have a very good printer!

Electroronto
Apr '16

I personally purchased 5x5 mm heat sinks with 3M glue for all the steppers on my Replicator 2X… they do tend to get really hot at times… but that’s only because I do prints right after prints… so these heat sinks allow faster cooling into the chamber… but overall they will get really hot and there’s nothing anyone can do about it lol! unless you run hydro-cooling on each stepper… but money wise it doesn’t speak to me…