Print shifting on the Y axis

another cube this time the shift happened much later in the layers. is this a problem with slic3r? should i try another stand alone slicing program?

No I don't its not very  warm back there at all

I printed a few more hollow boxes trying to get the flow rate dialed in m still not getting close to .42  perimeters .78 is aas good as I get

I've been fighting Y shifting for a REALLY long time.  I think I've finally figured it out.  Make sure your acceleration settings are correct.  Go into your firmware config in repetier host and check that your x-y accel is something reasonable (mine is 1000 to be safe) and more importantly your jerk settings are really low (mine is set to 5, but people are having success with 10 or higher).  This will keep the y axis from over accelerating and doing really strange things.

My acceleration is 1000as well I didn't see a jerk setting I'll recheck in the am. If it continues to be a problem I'll try a fan and finally diff software... any other suggestions?

Switching software for layer shifts would be like replacing the engine to keep you from getting flat tires.  :-p

Usually layer shifts are due to something mechanical like belts need to be tensioned and aligned, filament is snagging, rods are warped or something over heating like you stepper drivers or the motors themselves. The motors and steppers are a bit under powered and over driven from the factory and overheating is almost inevitable. The stepper drivers can be brought up to range (from 1 amp to 2 amp)literally just but using active cooling. There are several posts in the forums about it but aside from doing a quick tension check on the belts (per solidoodle official how to) the fan is your best bet.

I put a fan on my electronics board and it helped with layer shifting. Also check to make sure your filament is coming off the roll easily. Occasionally mine will snag and cause a Y layer shift. +1 for the belt adjustments as well.

The fan for the motherboard would be my first thing.

This should only apply to the old boards. The new boards with the built in drivers use the board as a heat sink so they are rated to 2 amps.

These are the current settings for the stepper motor drivers. Keep in mind that pololu only rates the A4988 drivers for 1A max without cooling.

X axis: 1.11A
Y axis: 1.3A
Z axis: 1.25A
Extruder: 0.48A

The Y axis stepper driver is the most over driven of any of the drivers. The motor itself is rated for 1.33A so in theory all you need to do is put a small heat sink (or a 5/16" nut attached with thermal glue) and a fan and the Y-axis should be good to go.

so i havent printed anything for a while machines been on but idle. printed a 20mm sqare that measured 19.80 x 20.24 x 9.56. . so obviously it is a heat related issue will have to print a cover and heatsink some bolts onto it untill i upgrade the motherboard. i will be measuring the potentiometers though just to be sure. just need to get a meter right quick.

an now the other issue im off on all my axis lol  particularly the x axis.  got the other two mixed up when i took it off the bed.

and i ripped kapton!

now that its idle again and the steppers are off i pulled the carriage twards me and Y feel kinda tight. the tention on the belts is not tight its just how it should be. what can i do to get Y to flow more smothly. im positive thats whats causing my issue. motor is working to hard heating up that chip.

My printer does not have a fan on the electronics.  And I wasn't getting any y-axis shifts - until the ambient temperature in the house (no a/c) got up to over 80F and with high humidity.  I moved the printer down to the basement where it's about 60F or so and didn't have any y-axis shifts.  (I did get the filament tangled at one point which caused problems, but that was operator stupidity ...)

Since I have a wooden-bed model, I also took care to re-level the bed and re-set the z-stop after it spent in few days getting acclimated to the new space.

Before ditching the printer, get the electronics cooled down a bit.  And make sure the nozzle doesn't get caught up on any of those extruded bumps on the first layer.  That's happened to me as well when I've had the z-stop set to high (ie. too narrow a space between the nozzle and the bed) and the flowrate too high.

Hope that helps a bit,
Matt