I wish I had done my research before buying a Snapmaker 2.0. It’s so noisy!
However, just recently it’s got even more noisy with what sounds like resonance.
I purchased the enclosure afterwards which did help a little but now I can hear it no matter where I am in the house and I’ve had to stop using it while I’m in the room as I cannot work (e.g. teleconferences etc.). I even printed out sound dampeners from Thingiverse which have helped stop the noise going in to the table that it’s on and vibrating the house!
Unless there’s something which I can do to reduce the noise, I’m going to try and return it as it’s just such a disappointing product with this noise. As it’s my first 3D printer I thought this would be the best of it’s kind. My friend showed me his Ender 5 printer and it was almost silent!
I can see that silent modules are being worked on and maybe even a better PSU but no chance am I paying more to fix what should have been dealt with in the first place.
Unfortunately, the SM2 isn’t known for its silent operation. It’s always difficult to judge the sound based on a video like that but since you mention resonance, it could be that tightening the metal strips on the linear modules might help a bit:
I did have to mod the fan on the PSU mind you (fluid bearing and a resistor) - that thing was ridiculous, i had the printer going on conference calls today (that PC is to the right of the PC shown) and no one mentioned anything.
Also this desk has almost no major resonance issues and with the case closed it’s ok.
Printer is 49 dBa to 53 dBa at the point where the camera is when doors are closed, quieter than the home dot matrix printers i used to own.
@brvdboss I’m going to add something to this. The fact that the rails are linear screw (ball screw is advertised as being better, more expensive but not as good for vertical applications and requires a brake) means it’s not going to be quiet. Lead screws by nature are noisy. The advantage is accuracy and higher resolution. Disadvantage is noise and, of course, speed.
The following is taken from Thomson Linear:
The key difference between a ball screw and a lead screw is in the way the load is carried between the moving surfaces. A ball screw uses recirculating ball bearings to minimize friction and maximize efficiency while a lead screw depends on low coefficients of friction between sliding surfaces.
This wasn’t meant to bring ball screw into the mix as it’s irrelevant to the post, but it’s kind of hard to describe one without describing the other. The very fact of how lead screws carry the load is what partially contributes to its noise. The addition of those strips only make it worse when they get even a little bit loose. If you want to try and reduce some of the noise, you could do the bank breaking (yes, I’m being sarcastic about price) mod of getting a big 2-4” slab of concrete and place the printer on it.
@scyto if your area ain’t messy, you ain’t hobbying.
I think you’re talking about two different types of noises. The mechanical ones because of construction and vibrations and the “singing” of the stepper drivers and how they are steering the motors.
@brvdboss@WilliamBosacker i know the quieter steppers are coming so I intentionally left that out, referring specifically to mechanical design noise. But I think I got it backwards. Makes sense, as I would think the ball bearings along the screw in ball screw would generate significant noise versus lead screw.
@WilliamBosacker cool, thanks for clearing that up. I like learning about different types of things. As you know, I specialize in CPU architecture, so I know almost nothing about linear rail design and I find this really interesting to learn about. Once I do have a rail go bad I’m actually going to have a lot of fun dissecting one, one of my favorite ways to learn more about how things work lol.
Thanks for the input everyone. I’m going to contact support and ask for specifics on the linear rail silent upgrades. If they are going to break the bank (again) I’m going to return it.
I’ve just some more poking around and I can confirm that the resonance/vibration is coming from the actual build plate so I assuming coming from one or both of the linear rails. I’ve tightened up the steel strips as suggested but this has made no difference. The last print was knocked off the bed so I guess the vibrations are making the initial layer to come loose.
Are you sure everything is mounted correctly? The bed shouldn’t be vibrating like that. THere isn’t any torsion on the Y-axis linear modules? Both are still working ok? It’s not like one is dragging the other one?
Some things to validate perhaps:
when the device is completely turned off, pull the bed all the way to the front on both axis. then turn on and home, move all the way back/forth with the touch screen. There shouldn’t be weird noises, clunking sounds or anything
remove the bed frame and move the y-axis back & forth. both of them move without any issue and at the same speed? When did you get your SM? There have been some issues with linear modules just moving at a slightly different speed causing some issues, but that should have been solved for quite some time already.
I’ve disassambled and re-assembled twice now so pretty sure everything is where is should be. Not sure about the tortion, I will try what you suggested.
It seems to be when the X axis is also moving at the same speed e.g. when creating a circle. Here’s another example where you can hear the vibration. In this case it’s moving diagonally so I guess the X and Y speed are the same.
It still doesn’t sound too much out of the ordinary to me. It is a rather noisy device unfortunately. Based on that audio I wouldn’t expect anything to be really wrong with your device. Maybe others have another opinion about it.
I’ll what support say about the situation with the silent linear rails but it looks like I’ll be sending this back. I expected much better from something so expensive.
I have had a good experience from adding a 2cm thick recycled rubber insulation mat (costs like 10 Dollars in a hardware store - sometimes sold as “washing machine mat”) under both printer and enclosure, which decoupled vibrations from printer and table almost totally.
Yea, that’s normal noise typical of stepper drivers not using spread spectrum or some other way of hiding the switching carrier frequency, as amplified through the bed via resonance.
Completely expected and normal.
I have the same setup, and with an enclosure it’s pretty quiet.
Here’s the official staff response of “it’s normal”
I would expect the to be the same sort of cost as the existing rails, i think it has been mentioned that there will be 50% discount for existing owners. It would seem that the noise mostly comes from x and y so its a minimum of 3 rails. Hope that helps you make your decision.
i had see the posts about noise before i got mine, tbh i was thinking it would be way worse than it is. This may be noisier than other (belt?) driven units but i wouldn’t describe it as noisy when in the enclosure.
Now i do have a beef with the power supply - that’s stupid noisy (as is the enclosure fan).
And that’s why i modded mine.
For me this is acceptable trade off for an all aluminum 1-in-3 machine. But i get your acceptability equation is different. Good luck and i hope you get what you want.
