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somerwil

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Everything posted by somerwil

  1. Hi Daid, thanks for the open-mindedness in the first place! Looking forward to see the progress. My ideas are: Cura (software) related: Better support options (couldn't test 13.10 improvements) Bring down printing time Add a user-friendly version of 'regions' Support needs some attention which it got in Cura 13.10. Bringing the print time down while remaining a nice outer skin can be done by Implementing the half outer layer setting Implement 'smart' infill. By printing less infill, just enough to internally support the top of the part, printing time can be brought down a lot. Hardware wise: Dual extrusion for Ultimaker 2 ...... Waiting for my UM2 to arrive No further comments needed here I think Youmagine wise (great platform so far!) Improve user-interface Add "I printed this" buttons Improve collaboration A lot more :smile: Youmagine is a good-looking platform but it definately needs some time. Many things are already noticed so no need to do that again. Material wise: Include Nylon in your webshop Search for other printable materials I like the idea of printing more materials, Nylon in particular. Not so high on my priority list though. Safety wise: Find a way to get rid of the bad-for-your-health fumes. With the heated bed, ABS printing is now possible (hopefully :wink:). The fumes of ABS are 'funny'. Perhaps some extra side planes and a carbon filter will do the trick. I'd highly recommend this for the UM2 since I think this will be the 'for the masses' printer who expect something more health friendly. Future projects: Fully automatic production 3D scanner Acetone vapor surface treater (ABS only?) Go with stereolithography Ultimaker mini/ Ultimaker maxi By pushing the printed part off the platform and start another print it's possible to print automatically. I've seen a video of this on the UM Original but tape and force were things to overcome. Perhaps the heated build platform is the solution for this. With the heated platform you can 'blow the print away' (or something like that). Knock it off with the print head and go on printing. I've already seen this on the UM Original but there the tape and force required were too critical to make it work. Maybe the HBP can do the trick. A 3D scanner needs no further comments. A ready to use acetone vapor bath will give printed ABS parts an awesome look! You may also consider developing an SLA printer or make a smaller/ (even) bigger print volume printer. My priority top 3: Improve support in Cura Get rid of the fumes Dual extrusion for UM2 Hope this was inspirational :wink: Thanks for your attention anyway!
  2. Looking forward to test the new support options. That one definately needed some attention. Awaiting my Ultimaker 2 for now ;-)
  3. The Ultimaker is sold and on it's way to Denmark. I wish it's new owner all the best with my Ultimaker Original. Ordered a V2 seconds ago. Too excited and really looking forward to it!
  4. Hi guys, I'm thinking of selling my Ultimaker 1 to replace it with the new version. The machine was build in 2011 in one of the Ultimaker workshops in Protospace Utrecht and the wood is painted in green. Since the build it has been upgraded with the latest version of the drive bolt Upgraded extruder drive (with the spring and bearing) Ultipanel V2 nozzle Lasercut steel extruder drive side plates Aluminium motor coolers (not necessary but looks cool) It doesn't have a heated bed (since it's not supported officially by Ultimaker) nor the dual extruder upgrade. It works great with the latest version of Cura and it's firmware and I made quiet a few decent print on it since I got into 3D printing in 2011. Results can be found on Thingiverse, users 'somerwil' and "MaakMijnIdee". Obviously this machine has been used, but it doesn't show real signs of wear. The mechanical bits have been lubricated and the machine also had some maintenance every now and then. If you're starting with 3D printing I can also include some PLA in different colors to get you underway and printing. I'm in the Netherlands, Den Haag and I'm only selling to anyone who can collect the printer here or either I can bring it to you. I don't want to ship with DHL/ GLS/ other services since I want to make sure it is working properly. Price: €1.200,- excl. transport. If you're interested, please send an email to michaelsomerwil@gmail.com Thanks for reading! Michael
  5. Hello everyone, since discussions on the internet are mostly negative feedback and/ or bug tracking related I felt I needed to place this positive feedback here in the Cura section. I installed Cura 13.06.5 in my Mac today to print a cookie cutter for my sister. I must say it was a clean install with no problem at all. The first run wizard worked fine and the printer was running within minutes from installing. The new bed levelling option in the first run wizard is a nice feature and the speed of Cura 13.06.5 is just amazing! Huge thanks to the Ultimaker team and probably Daid in particular. Before this version I always had to choose between Netfabb (for it's speed in calculation) and Cura (for latest functionality). I have Netfabb running in my PC and I loved it in the beginning (october 2011). It's calculation speed and ease of use was way ahead of ReplicatorG/ Skeinforge at that time. Downside of Netfabb always was that you needed a license. Besides the price tag of this license I was limited to use it on my Windows laptop while I preferred my Mac at home. Second issue was (not any more!) that you couldn't print directly from Netfabb so I always had to export/ import the gcodes. With V13.06.5 now available I don't think I'll need Netfabb any more. Time will tell if I'm correct but Cura now feels like a full-grown package to me. It works just awesome! Cura 13.06.5 makes me smile now and will get me (back) into 3D printing. It is perhaps the version I've been waiting for since summer 2012. Enough positive news, just wanted to share it with you :-) Also sorry for those struggling to get it working correctly. Don't give up! When you get it running, you'll smile like me! Michael
  6. Hi guys, I've been using this program full-license on my work for several years ending up as an application engineer for this program on a department with for about 10 employees. The bit we've drawn were complete machines for use in the greenhouse industry varying from pretty simple machines up to pretty complex ones. After a Catia course prior to using this program I must say I really loved this one! It takes some getting used to but I found it a lot easier to use than the parametric programs. After 5 years of intensive use I switched jobs and on my new job there was an Inventor license available. I took a course for that program and gave it a good try for several months resulting in... not so much... :-( Parametric is just a pain (at least to me it is!). Adjusting things in the parametric Inventor was a disaster. Probably because I was just too used to the non-parametric Creo (or OneSpace Designer as it's former name was). Parametric users will probably have a lot to complain about this program since it lacks parameters :-). Newcomers to 3D drawing will probably find it (much) easier. I also gave courses to students to learn the program during their traineeship so if there are any questions, please feel free to ask! I'll try to help if I can. The free version is pretty much unlimited in it's capabilities. It has the full feature set of the full, unaffordable license except for the 60 part maximum. For 3D printing this will probably be sufficient in most cases. You can obviously merge a few parts to 'make room' for new parts. When to use this program: If you can't get used to the parametrics If you want to freestyle/ sketch new parts in the computer and make a lot of changes throughout (like I do) When to use a parametric program: If you already know for 90% what you're going to draw The program is NOT meant to be used to create freeforms like humans heads/ creatures/ animals etcetera. If you want to do that, just try Sculptris or Blender. If you want to do a bit more 3D than Sketchup allows you to, try this one instead.
  7. Ah, that's a totally different from Netfabb's standard now which is M92 E14. Should Netfabb be on "Ultimaker volumetric" or the normal "Ultimaker" setting (without the volumetric).
  8. Hi guys, I got myself back into 3D printing again after nearly a year without touching it. :-). I obviously tried Cura but I was a big fan of Netfabb and I have a license for it so I decided to give it a go as well. That doesn't mean Cura is worthless, it's just another good option. My new laptop on W8 has the latest version of Netfabb installed (4.9.5) and the 'Cura firmware' is uploaded on the machine. I tried to print something directly from Netfabb which seems to be working correctly. My problem is the extruder motor makes too many revolutions resulting in huge amounts of material on the bed and grinding the PLA on the bolt in the end... There must be something wrong in one of my settings. Perhaps a mismatch of firmware/gcode?! Don't know where to begin to be honest...
  9. I was at the Ulti-evening in Utrecht last night and I must say these filaments look very interesting! The prints by Gijs were impressive and I'm looking forward to give it a try. A rainbow pack is also on my want-list.
  10. Hi guys, for those of you who are on Mac OS 10.5.8 (Leopard): this appears to be a 32-bit OS. I personally didn't know that tbh... The Cura 12.10 installation files don't work on a 32-bit machine. I had 10.5.8 running and gave Cura a try (without knowing this was going to be a problem in the process). It resulted in more than one error but the first one that shows up is the Python installation error.I think one might be able to get Cura running on the 32-bit Leopard but I didn't even move on trying to install the bits and end up with an unsupported program. Snow Leopard (10.6) is Apple's first 64-bit OS and costs 20 Euro's so I got myself a little upgrade :-). The installation takes some time but went smoothly. My iMac is now running 10.6 + Cura without problems. I'm thinking about upgrading to 10.8 Mountain Lion now but before I can do that my iMac needs more memory (2Gb or more is required). More of an Apple OS-topic now, sorry for that :oops: Michael
  11. Hi guys (and daid in particular), I managed to solve my own problem here... It's Python 32/ 64 bit related. The Cura installer just tries to install the 64 bit version of Python which appears to be too new for my pretty old machine (iMac running on Mac 10.5.8 - Leopard). After Googling some detail of the error message this showed up somewhere on the internet. When I had a look at the Python installer box it also showed 10.6+ for the OS while mine is just 10.5'ish (didn't know that up to 15 minutes ago, sorry for being a nOOb ;-)). Ideas for the Cura installer: Perhaps the installer can check on 32/ 64 bit machines and install the right Python version with it. Another solution would be to get some messages on the screen to help people getting Python installed correctly. The rest of the programs that Cura needs to operate installed fine so I have a working Cura now on my Mac! Just going through the first setup wizard etcetera now :-). Cheers, Michael
  12. Hi guys, I wanted to try the new Cura release on my Mac but Python keeps me from making any progress... I downloaded the newest Cura and opened it. It says Cura 12.10 needs Python 2.7 to run. After I click OK it start runing the Python installation wizard which is pretty nice. Everything works up, even up to the point where the wizards says installation complete/ succesful/ something like that with a big green V mark showing in the screen. The problem succenly shows up when I close the window. I get a new dialog bow showing "Failed to install python 2.7" with no further reference... It's not Cura related but I can't run Cura without Python. Any suggestions? Regards, Michael
  13. Ordered. A bit expensive indeed but 'plugs' made me go mad the other day (got it working again though :-)) It's good to see new improvements on the machine. XYZ and overall mechanical construction are pretty good. The filament feeder and the hot end were the points of attention. The hot end is now upgraded and I hope the V3 bolt (also ordered today) will prevent some grinding. The feeder mechanism can use a bearing update to replace the white slider part :-). I'm pretty sure that's a rather easy adjustment. Now on to the heated bed/ solution for easy removal of the printed part off the bed! That'll be a very nice improvement as well. Please keep the updates going Michael
  14. Hi guys, My Ultimaker is in a sleeping room on the first floor now. It's next to the room where my little son is sleeping and not too far from my own sleeping room. I'm pretty confident with printing big things on the machine but the noise the machine makes keeps my wife and the little guy awake. That's obviously not what I want so I looked for ways to make the machine more quiet. I came up with the idea to place it in an Ikea kitchen cabin with a door. I was suprised with the result as I was expecting it would work as a boombox but it really helps to reduce the noise. What things might reduce the noise?
  15. OK, that sounds quite fair to me but that also means room for improvement. The fully filled layers add a lot to the print time but on the other hand there's a strong part on my print bed now. Some improvements on the efficiency can also be made on the top of the part. When printing a roof on a cube it is now necessary to print a fill for the whole part while it's not really necessary on the middle layer. A pyramid build-up of the fill would save material and printing time. But that's not a problem, more an improvement.
  16. Hi guys, now I'm pretty sure I have a Cura related question (after a few hardware problems which I thought were Cura related ;-)). I'm printing a part now with a 20% fill setting. Instead of calculating nice 20% filled it prints some layers fully filled. Strange thing is not all layers are fully filled, I'd say some 50% of the layers are fully filled while the other have the 20% fill pattern... Second problem with the 20% filled layers is it's not showing a good extrusion there while the outlines of the part are fine. When it starts printing a full layer it is nicely filled again. Here's a small video of a fully filled layer showing nice extrusion but not as intended... https://www.dropbox.com/s/j6f61azomarcx ... .47.50.mp4
  17. Problem was fixed after changing the BAUD rate to 250000 instead of AUTO in the preferences dialog. PS: Why not setting it to 250000 as default value? I think most users will use the Cura firmware along with the program... If they want to experiment with other firmwares the probably know to check the BAUD setting. nOObs like me are not really into these things.
  18. Hi guys, after another afternoon of testing I came to the conclusion it has (again) nothing to do with Cura! This time it was another 'blob' problem which seems to get back every once in a while... Previous problems I had with Cura were a bad temperature control (a bad temperature sensor was he problem) and a bad connectivity (setting te detection mode for BAUD rate to 250000 was the solution). It's printing now. Just waiting for a 100% bullet proof improvement on the hot end to prevent the blobbing between the tube and the PEEK. Michael
  19. I didn't try the old Netfabb gcodes, but I did try printing gcode generated by Netfabb's lates version (4.9.???) this resulted in some action on the machine trying to make a contour shape. After a minute or so it suddenly stopped printing, the Ultipanel said "sleep" so I decided to quit the print and go back to Cura + Cura code. Test was done with the 12.08 Cura firmware installation. I'll try to print one of my old gcodes :-) I already found it quite a strange value since my Ultimaker's basic esteps is indeed +/- 800. When looking into the Ultipanel: please make the increments of the wheel when adjusting the esteps a bit bigger, changing this setting from 300 to 200 takes ages (really minor thing but still :-))
  20. Hi guys, After struggling to get a good print from Cura for three evenings in a row now, I really need some help here. I can't find the machine's sweet spot on the material feed. It spits either too much material or just too few material... I didn't run into this problem with my previous firmware/software combination on my machine so I THINK it's Cura related. I tried to adjust the flow on my Ultipanel's flow-setting while printing a part but taking it from the default Cura-calculated 275 up to 300 and down to 200 after a few layers were printed didn't result in a difference in the output (at least that's what it seems like). During this print all layers were underfilled resulting in a weak part. Obviously I also checked my temperature and pressure on the material on the motor end (where the PLA enters the tube) The material seems to be pushed in correctly, like it did before. I also would like to notice the material is the same as I used before, using mostly Netfabb gcode printing through RepG. Any help will be appreciated.
  21. Hi guys (and Daid in particular), Because of the advances Florian has made on his Ultimaker with the retraction settings I installed Cura yesterday. The installation went pretty smooth up to the point where the firmware is updated to the Cura 12.08 firmware (or whatever it's called that's installed in the background). It took a few tries before the firmware installed correctly. No advanced tries done there, just hit the button a few times hoping it would work in the end :-). It did! Now with Cura I feel pretty happy with the interface, coming from Netfabb and had a look at SF before so I quite know what the settings are likely to do and affect the print. Only problem I have is just before printing. The Printing window shows up, but no connection made. Using the same strategy (hit the "Connect" button a few times) it eventually makes a connection. Sometime I even needed to restart my PC since Python seems to mess up the system quite a bit. In this case I must admit I switched USB ports with the Printing dialog open which probably resulted in an error somewhere. I also looked at the programs Preferences and set the COM to the right port. I know which one it is since I previously used RepG with this setting. It made no difference so I put it back into AUTO mode. When Cura connects to the printed, it makes a light sound, the same as it does when I restart my PCB so that's nothing to worry about. My Ultipanel shows two lines filled with white blocks and then (sometimes) Cura connects. The Cura 12.08, black MSDOS-looking window doesn't give me any feedback in this stage. It works in the end but only after some 5 minutes of trial and error which is probably not the idea :-) Am I doing something wrong? Any help/ advice would be appreciated. Michael
  22. Hi Ian, Sorry for late reply but pictures of my prnts can be found on Thingiverse, username somerwil and/or Maak Mijn Idee.
  23. Here's a list of Ultimaker supported software http://software.ultimaker.com/?show=all You can fine v26 of RepG there
  24. My first try was to get a piece of aluminium with a tapped hole to fit the coupling. Since the thread is NPTF it's difficult to find a tool to do that (at low cost and fast) so I ended up with new, 6mm lasercut steel sides on my assembly. A bit of overkill but it works fine so far. It also seems the noise is reduced a little with the extruder mechanism now bullet proof. Not too sure about that one though...
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