3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: !functionalprint@kbin.social or !functionalprint@fedia.io
There are CAD communities available at: !cad@lemmy.world or !freecad@lemmy.ml
Rules
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No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
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Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
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No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
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Do not create links to reddit
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If you see an issue please flag it
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No guns
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No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is 
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I suspect the weight of your build platform is sufficient enough to turn the Z axis leadscrew against gravity and overcome the friction within it and the motor. I've never seen a printer do that myself, so I don't know if that's indicative of any kind of failure on your particular model. When the stepper motor is energized it holds itself in position which is why this doesn't happen, for example, during a print.
If I were you I would just move the bed via software or your printer's control panel if it presents the option. That should be safer, faster, and not slowly give you carpal tunnel as an added bonus. I haven't done the math via figuring out the screw thread pitch and so forth, but for example my X-Max 3 has a total Z axis travel of something like 330mm, so it would take an entire month of Sundays and hundreds of manual revolutions to screw the damn thing from bottom to top by hand. I have a machine precisely for doing that for me...
Thanks, that's probably the route I will take. Just wanted to know if that behavior was abnormal or not, but it sounds like it's not too far outside the realm of people's experiences in general
Probably.
FWIW with the motors unlocked I can just push on my print bed either up or down, and it'll move. Mine just doesn't move under its on weight. Maybe it would if it had a big model on it or something, I dunno.
If yours is a bed-slinger gantry machine where the head moves up and down rather than the print bed, the same applies. Just in reverse.