Simple 5mm spacer by scr3wballl

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you use PLA (like most new people do with printing), use your slicer program to increase the size of this spacer to 102% before printing. With ABS it should be very close depending on the steps and tolerance of your printer. Check it with a caliper, 4.9 to 5.1 should be fine.
Those with a new Prusa kit or Prusa clone kit setup many times find that once their Z axis raises up 10mm or more, the motors seem to start "skipping" or one side refuses to rise up properly. One common cause of this is the threaded rod being pushed into the spring blocks too far (the other being the two sides not level with the printer itself). Both the motor shaft and the threaded rod should only go into the spring block at most 6mm. Since most people are able to do very small prints up to 6-10mm before the Z axis starts binding, this is a VERY simple 5mm spacer, with an 8mm hole in the middle (meaning it can be used with either 5mm or 8mm shafts).
Then once it prints, turn off power to your printer, loosen one side, slide this spacer over the motor shaft the height of the spacer (5mm), and using a very fine pointed sharpie marker, mark the other side. Slide the spring block onto it to that point and tighten down. Then do the same with the threaded rod. go to the other side and repeat until all 4 are spaced into the spring block the same amount.
Then make sure to re-level your Z axis with the printer (not the table it sits on), turn the power back on and adjust the Z stop and bed level height since this likely changed.