Streaking? Extruder? Power supply? Controller? Slic3r? Other Issue?  

Streaking? Extruder? Power supply? Controller? Slic3r? Other Issue?

Hey All,

I've been having a lot of different issues with my printer for a little while now (fix one after another) but this issue is making me scratch my head. The most recent issue was globbing occurring (looked like material was oozing out out around the heat block) which would besides depositing globs cause layers to be missed and the globs could also cause layer shifts (as the printer hits it and then catches for a little bit). So I decided to replace just about everything on the hot end side (did a couple of other little upgrades too). Everything was printing well for about 2 or so prints... then there started to be a couple of odd issues, I fairly consistent lack of material being placed (see images below) and occasionally the y-axis endstop won't trigger (it's easiest to see the effect on a larger print) but the quality of all my prints have become worse. I've tried a few different things:

New Material

Editing flow rate, temperature, first level z-offset

Different g-codes,

and old g-codes that used to print well before (even the first layer cal print has issues).

I'm on a battery backup with current/power conditioning (as without it was a problem for layer shifting way back in the day). I can't "feel" any issues with the extruder (but it may be such a small movement that I cannot tell). Given it has issues with the y-axis endstop I'm worried it may be something that won't be an easy fix (but the Y endstop has failed before and I've replaced the switch for it, so it is possible that's going again, which means they are not related?).

I will probably try a few more things over the week: flash firmware, disconnect everything from power for a few days, reformat SD card; just not sure what exactly it is but based off of these images it seems like it has become someone regular in interval.