Jump to content

somerwil

Dormant
  • Posts

    127
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by somerwil

  1. My fan had a bad wire which came loose during printing. I know a company distributing computer hardware from Asia. The owner told me he sells a lot of these fans so I could choose between multiple types which will all fit the Ultimaker. You can have a look on the internet and find a good computer shop or go to a local store. Fan is 50x50 or 60x60 (don't remember) which are both standard fan sizes.
  2. Hi guys, I'm trying to find a good way to print hollow part with a nicely filled top. I had some difficulties in closing the top of my parts with Netfabb's standard Hollow build style. Problem is the printed part does not close due to large overhangs on the last part of the print. In particular a problem with human heads and the cartoonish puppets I like on Thingiverse. Easy solution is adding fill to the part. This will definately solve my problem but it will add print time, material and extra stringing. I'm trying to avoid these by optimizing the hollow settings. I took the Countour count from 2 to 4 which helped a lot in closing the top but also added print time (it nearly doubles). Had a few good results with that one but I feel it can be made even better. Looking through the Netfabb wiki I found a setting that will probably influence the closing of the top being 'Upskin-layers' and 'Overlap with filling'. I tried several things but they don't seem to make any difference on the print. Perhaps the 'Upskin-layers' only affect rectangular sections and not curved sections (since a curved surface is not detected as an upskin). I can imagine the 'Overlap with filling' will only have an effect when filling is enabled... Any suggestions on a better top-filling are welcome. I also had a look at Netfabb's region options but I don't think that will be a workable solution for this application. Thanks for reading, Michael
  3. Hi, since I own an Ultimaker and feel my print are pretty nice I'd like to share my thougths. I bought an Ultimaker in October 2011 and decided to put it together in one of the ProtoSpace workshops. Building the machine is not hard but you'll have to be patient. It's not more complex than building an Ikea piece of furniture but difference is it takes somewhat longer. I managed to put it together in approx. 12 hours. That's up to the point where you plug in the power supply and start installing software. After only one day I already noticed Skeinforge is a nice, customizable program but also slow, very slow. Siert Wijnia gave a presentation about Netfabb on the third day of the workshop and I basically decided to buy it right away! This software still has its flaws and bugs (even newer version 4.9) but it's awesome and great to use! Calculation speed is great and because of that it can calculate more layers for you within a nice period of time. The quality of the prints was way better than what I managed to get out of Skeinforge with less effort. My conclusion would be: 1) Is the Ultimaker for everybody? No, not really. My mother for example won't be able to build one. You will need patience on the build if you're not experienced. 2) Is the free software for everybody? No. It's pretty hard to understand. 3) Is Netfabb any good? YES! Netfabb changed a lot for me in terms of print quality. Paul Candler's print profiles do the trick. Worth every $! 4) Will my prints be first time right? Well... it depends on what you call 'right'. See comments. 5) Is 3D printing on Ultimaker a Click 'n Go? No, you'll need to be interested in the technical bits of 3D printing to get the most of the machine. Know what you're doing/ changing/ analyzing prints is important. I think that's also part of the hobby but it probably not everyone's cup of tea ;-) Ad 4) Forget about printing Netfabb's Ultra quality for the first prints. Start with Skeinforge settings. You'll need to adjust the print bed (not difficult but takes some time and experience) to get the first layer right. I found a sweet spot in the bed levelling in november and didn't change it since! Back to quality: My first Ultra print came out 14 november, one month from completing my printer. Today I feel the Standard Netfabb quality suits my needs best. It's a good combination of nice looking prints an print time (for me!). PS: I'm a mechanical engineer but not particularly a 100% technician. Hope this was helpful, Michael
  4. Last night's print finished nicely after nearly three hours of printing. I tried a different gcode for that last print which turned out fine. I'll go back to the gcode with which I had some problems and give it another try. @mrseeker: the sensor and heater are were they should be and have nowhere to go. I checked that several times. Thinking of it it might also be a bad connection on the heater. The problem seems to occur ocassionally so perhaps vibrations and movement of the print head can cause the bad connection to come loose. I'll check that as well and maybe replace the heater. Thanks for the replies!
  5. Hi Dave, the blue LED is fine and not flickering. Will give it another shot now to see where I end up. Checked the wiring again.
  6. Now that's what I call a quick answer! 2 minutes :-) I'm on Marlin build 2 since october 2011. Did quite some good prints with it untill this problem showed up in februari. I'm pretty sure it's not gcode related. I tried the same gcode three times to get it third time right. On the first two tries I had the temperature drop problem, third time was OK. Can it be a temperature issue on the motherboard controller? Don't know how to check that but my motherboard fan is rather noisy which may result in bad cooling for the components on the board (?)
  7. Hi, Sometimes my Ultimaker looses tempereture in the middle of a print. I print my Netfabb gcode through RepG26 for quite some time now without this problem but since one or two weeks this problem shows up. I don't run live temperature mode in RepG so I cannot see the temperature dropping live but when the extruder stops and I stop the print I can see in Manual Mode that the temperature dropped. Basically the heater completely stopped... Thing is that when I manually restart preheating the extruder for a new try it works again! Restarting the print after the preheating finished gives a nice startup for the print, no problem. Then suddenly the temperature decides to drop again resulting in yet another did-not-finish... Sometimes I can do some long printing on an evening without the problem, sometimes it already shows up on the first print. I even printed the same gcode on 1 evening three times after eachother without any modification. Temperature dropped during the first two prints while the third one was good. No point in blaming gcode. Does anyone have a clue what my problem can be? I really tried a few things (check wiring, redo connections etc) but nothing seems to help. Thanks, Michael
  8. Hi guys, I'm having some problem with the new Netfabb version and I'm wondering if you also encountered these problems: (I run Netfabb on my Windows 7 laptop and downloaded the version from the Ultimaker software's page.) 1) I wanted to slice 'pipsquid' from the Thingiverse website, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18177 . Slicing in any build style freezes the program. 2) With a Netfabb connection the temperature seems to drop after some 2 up to 2,5 hours in the print. I tried printing a gcode 2 times through Netfabb (Netfabb gcode) which resulted in a 100% finished gcode but 90% finished print. The temperature of the nozzle dropped up to a point where extruding is no longer possible... I can see that since the last couple of printed layers seem underfilled. So after the two 2,5 hours of printing I decided to run exactly the same gcode through RepG26. The print finished as it should. The gcode Netfabb produced seems OK but perhaps there may be a temperature issue with the connection (?) Michael
  9. Yeah! http://netfabb.com/news.php?nid=27
  10. Basically the same idea but sounds like a solution requiring less space and weight! The only thing I can think of as a downside is reliability although I think these can be tackled in some way.
  11. I was looking at a welding torch we use at work (not by me since that will be a very bad idea :-)). Our torch is 6 meters and pretty long for a torch. It's a MIG machine so welding material is added through a 6meter cable. The system uses a so called push-pull system. On the base unit there's a push motor assembly. On the torch side there's a (much smaller) pull system which is integrated in the pistol. The push system pushes the weld wire through the 6meter cable while the pull system is for the final tuning of the wire feed. When you think of the push system as the standard extruder motor assembly at the back, probably a really tiny pull system on the print head side may prevent dripping(?). It's just an idea, don't know how to easily implement this idea on the UM to be honest but perhaps someone comes up with good suggestions. motor synchronisation will be a point of attention as well as print jead weight
  12. I finally found some time today to give it a try but unfortunately it's only hours before 2012... It makes no sense to install it for now. I'll wait for the full update now. Paul's print looks good there. No more, or at least less, stringing! That's awesome.
  13. I use the Ultimaker white... I found printing temps from Netfabb need to be adjusted. On standard quality I do 220-225 degrees Celsius to get the material going. Lower temps result in extruder jams...
  14. That's great! I'll download and test it asap.
  15. It's a disappointment indeed although it does not influence the quality of the print. RepG is used just for sending the code in which it has even more functionality than Netfabb. The Netfabb gcode is generated quicker and with the awesome standard profiles result in awesome print quality out of the box.
  16. Sounds like you have two problems we need to sort out: 1) Extruder motor does not work during the 'build' process. 2) Extruder motor does not work in manual control mode. Problem 1) It's hard to track down the problem based on the opening post. Answering Daid's questions will help to get to a solution. Problem 2) There are some known issues in Manual control mode in RepG with the extruder motor. Responsiveness of the extruder's buttons is really bad for some reason. The extruder motor should work just fine in 'build mode' though. Your non-running motor may be related to problem 1 but it might as well be this known issue... M
  17. I've seen some prints in the flexible PLA. These looked really nice! It has some sort of rubber feel to it. I completely agree! There are quiet a few shops but none of them seem to able to deal with the demand. Faberdashery has really nice packages at affordable prices. Just a tip: you can print a lot with a kilo of PLA/ ABS. The 2,3 - 3 kilo spools are enough for more than a year of printing. My advice: go with the smaller packages and try out the different materials before buying these bigger spools. M
  18. Don't know about delivery time but please note it's not only machines being sold through the Ultimaker shop but also PLA's, ABS's an Netfabb for Ultimaker. PS: Welcome to the Ultimaker forum! I'm pretty you will be very happy with the machine as it arrives.
  19. Hi Danzen, Brackets will do fine in most situation but I personnaly don't even consider my motor mount in PLA. The motors I use in my cars get up to 800-100 degrees Celsius at which PLA gets 'fluffy' again. I tried this with a printed cup and filling it with hot water to make a cup of tea resulting in a melted cup. Not melting in such a way that the cup was gone but feeling like chewing gum style. I can't find an english word for that tbh... The printed gears will work very well with robots. On the Mendels some gears are used on the extruder. These seem to work fine! Conclusion: It really depends on the application of the gears.
  20. Hi Tom, Please upload some really nice STL's on Thingiverse. I'm sure someone will print it any time soon. It might even be me ;-) This might also be of interest http://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=zbrush
  21. Hi Danzen (RC friend ;-)), as a long time RC cars racer in Holland and multiple times Dutch national champion in electric off-road I would really not recommend PLA for the gears. Sure, it depends on the rc-model you're running but in my cars only the most optimized plastics will do the job. When the wrong material is chosen for the gears they wear too quickly. In some cases resulting in worn gears after 4-5 battery packs... Normally my plastic gears wear out after some 20-30 battery packs depending on surface. The power of the car itself is obviously also a big aspect in gearing load. PLA will work fine for gearbox cases, battery bars, servo mounts etcetera. A-arms, shocktowers and such might be possible but testing is needed. Very precise parts like gearing will not be good enough. ABS will probably work somewhat better but still not good enough. Just my $0,02
  22. Netfabb has the nice repair feature which is pretty helpful to make objects closed and printable in case some meshes are lost in the process. This is particularly necessary with Sketchup files. I don't know about Blender's output yet but the Sculptris output is a closed object. The 'technical' programs are (afaik) all solid designers which, as the name says, produce solid (=closed) objects.
  23. Hi Tom, the programs you are talking about are more or less freestyle 3D modelers with limited capabilities of drawing things in exact dimensions. Obviously there's nothing wrong with that but there are quiet a few programs for drawing 3D from a technician's point of view. AutoDesk 123D, OpenSCAD and Google Sketchup are more precise in drawing technical bits and are all free. Alibre is not free but priced at about 100 Euro (or some 130 USD) it's not unaffordable. There are much more programs for bussinesses but these licenses cost a fortune (4.000+ USD each). There's another method to get into 3D which is a 3D scanner. Several scanners are available, including AutoDesk 123D Catch. Catch is not really a scanner but is a piece of software which is able to produce a 3D model from a series of photo's (JPG's). I tried this a few times but honestly I can't get a good result from it (yet). Nevertheless I feel this sort of software eventually CAN work pretty well. Perhaps some more experimenting will do the trick. Please feel free to give it a try. Other than 123D Catch I have the DAVID laserscanner which is pretty affordable at 400 Euro's. I get some really nice results from it now. It exports .OBJ files so that very nice. Don't expect 100% flawless scans on the first try but this set is really nice! As for myself I have several options: Technical pieces in PTC Creo (at work), export to STL, mail them to myself and print them at home Technical pieces in 123D (at home since I can't afford a PTC Creo license...) Free-style stuff in a combination of Sculptris + Blender. I will still need to learn quiet a few things though. PTC Creo has no secrets for me anymore but I just started with the other programs last month :-) I posted a question on this forum about <200 USD programs and these turned out to work really well for most people so I decided not to waste my money and go with the awesome free stuf. I feel pretty happy with this combination of programs so far. Hope this was helpful to you.
  24. A few weeks later now. Just wanted to let you know this solution really works for me. No jamming since updated.
  25. Hi ddurant, thanks for clarifying my rather vague descriptions. I knew what the COMB feature does but my explanation was too simplified to make sense... :oops: My wanted list for Netfabb: 1) Flawless direct connection to the Ultimaker :!: 2) Flawless direct connection to the Ultimaker :!: 3) Flawless direct connection to the Ultimaker :!: 4) Comb functionality 5) Volumetric As for Daid's suggestion: I think it's not that bad for Skeinforge to work standalone and NOT implement it in RepG at all. This way it's easier to upgrade SF versions and (to me) it makes more sense when SF is a stand-alone program (draw - slice - print). Good profiles for Skeinforge would be highly recommended though! I honestly feel this is more important than implementing it into RepG. I love the preset Netfabb profiles (like Filled - Hollow - Vase) in combination with print quality (Low - Standard - High - Ultra). These are not available in SF (there's just PLA failsafe profile...).
×
×
  • Create New...