Stepper motor vibration damper lifetime
When i installed the vibration dampers a few months ago on my 3D printer. I wondered how long the metal to rubber connection would last. One or 2 days ago my extruder started to skip. After checking it and the hot-end for clogging, i found the vibration damper was no longer in good shape. about 50% of the rubber had separated from the metal.
Thus the lifetime of that one was about 2 months with low to moderate use.
Somewhat expecting this i already had a bag of replacements and replaced it. Lets see if this is a one time failure or if this repeats. Opening the arm of the extruder when not in use should reduce the stress on the part though. But until i see a repetition of this failure mode ill leave things as they are. So as to exclude that this is a one off faulty part.
Low cost 3D printers (in 2017) are “fun”, theres “always” something that needs adjusting or fixing.