Daid

Odd. After the "writeTimeoutError" happens, can you still connect to the Ultimaker or does it completely stop working? Or do you need to unplug the USB to get it working again? Also, you could check if there are power-safe settings enabled on USB. This seems to cause problems for some people.

Or stay away from electronics if you are not sure what you are doing.

Actually, with a part this big, the layers on top of the first layer also pull up the layers causing the warping. A simple solution is the cut-away 1 layer discs. See: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17612 for an example. Uses a lot less material then a raft, and is easier to remove.

I have the same background, I assembled it without help, from just the Wiki in 8 hours, with some minor issues. I recommend to split the build into at least 2 days, so you make less mistakes.

How is Flexible PLA different from normal PLA (besides being flexible?)? And where did you purchase flexible pla? I got it from Ultimaker, they have white and black. And it flexes. It's a bit like a strong rubber. To compare it to normal PLA. I can tie a knot into flexible PLA in 50x50mm, without breaking it or permanently deforming it. Impossible with normal PLA. But it's almost impossible to extrude it right with the current extruder design. You need something that puts the pressure more spread along the filament, so it doesn't dig in as easy on a soft spot.

I think Joris ran his Ultimaker on 24V batteries as a test. And I think it can be done, but remember that you'll supply both the motors and the heater with more voltage then default, so they work harder then normal. This might cause problems. The 7812 on the board powers the electronics Fan and the Arduino, this one might get a bit hotter, so if you want to be really sure you could add a small cooling fin on it. (this component can take up to 30V, but the higher the input voltage the more hot it gets)

Are you sure about your multimeter calibration? Because I've never seen a 7812 generate as much as 13V.

It's a silly compare. Really it is. Because I've always said "when Slic3r has the stability and features that I need compared to SF, then I will use Slic3r as back-end instead of SF." So far every time I've tried Slic3r I've found it producing some kind of wrong GCode in cases where SF worked fine. And I personally rather spend 10 minutes slicing a project which takes 8 hours to print and know it's sliced right, then slicing for 10 seconds and needing to inspect the full result. Cura is trying to be a complete solution, Slic3r is just a slicer. Cura-RC2 actually has the option to use Slic3r as backend, but I disabled this in the current development version, because it lacked to many features to get the project planner and dual extrusion working. I also never got Slic3r to build from source. (If you want to use this in RC2, you need to copy slic3r into the Cura installation, on the same level as Python/PyPy/Cura, and then select Slic3r from the cura-preferences. But note that not all options will work then, but it will allow you to compare the Slic3r results to Cura. This was only tested with Slic3r-0.7.1) The main difference between speed in Cura-SF and Slic3r is because of the way infill is done. Skeinforge get slower if the surface area of the fills get bigger, Slic3r gets slower when the outer contour gets more complex. This means a 100x100x100 box will slice shitloads faster in Slic3r, but for example the Owl statue that I tested was only 33% faster in Slic3r.

It's not possible with the SF engine behind Cura. Which needs a perimeter for the infill. But you could use a very thin wall, like 0.01mm.

About c), it's not a shift register but a level converter. The 3v3 is generated by the Arduino, so you could measure it there to see if the Arduino does something odd.

I do my best I'm just a wise-ass pretending to know everything. Using my site is quite simple. But you will get the latest Marlin that way. I'm not sure what other software you are using and if there are incompatibilities. Steps should be: 1) Make sure you run windows (that's just easier) 2) Fill in the settings you need. The defaults are good, so for a normal build you don't need to change anything for the Ultimaker. 3) If you are using NetFabb or RepG25/26 to generate GCode and print, you might want to change the "steps per unit" setting, for "E" the default is "865.888", but for those older tools you need "14" 4) Press [build Marlin] at the bottom 5) Wait a minute (building takes a while) 6) On the page that's loaded now, you'll get a "Download: Windows install zip", download that zip file. 7) Extract it somewhere 8) Run the "upload.bat" at the extracted location. 9) Enter the COM port at which the ultimaker can be found. 10) Watch the magic happen.

I'm not sure what the default "steps per E" is in the Marlin that comes with RepG34. Other then that they should be the same, except for the baudrate.

Yes. The Cura firmware is much newer then the RepG26 firmware. If you use RepG34, that should have about the same firmware (but I do not know the defaults of the RepG34 firmware) Setting the "steps per E" to 865.888 in the preferences, and then slicing again would most likely also work. But it's better not to use a firmware from RepG26 or lower.

You can set an gain and offset in http://daid.eu/~daid/marlin_build/ at "AD595 calibration" However, first check your temperature sensor. If the isolation is damage, it might be making a short with the block or the other wire, this will cause the temperature readings to be wrong. Also make sure all screws are tight on the thermocouple board on top of the hotend.

You could have also donated the 150E to the "Let Daid take more nice vacations" foundation :mrgreen: The UltiController is a good option, I highly recommend it. So far I found it a better add-on then the 2nd extruder I have.

There is a long list of "recommendations" that I am supposed to look into. Besides the ones you mentioned, there is Kisslicer, sendG, and a whole bunch of others... However when there are problems, you need to have a person in support that can quickly determine if its a bug or something that the user is doing wrong and knows the behavior of the software, instead of sending them back to the forums while saying "Get your help there". Kisslicer is none-free. SendG is very basic, and I don't think it works any better then printrun. Also, due do it's C# nature, it's harder to get working on all different platforms. While Cura is pretty nice, it has it's own share of bugs. And it's quite new. Ultimaker choose to support ReplicatorG, and they currently stick with what they know. Which is very understandable. You also have to understand that Cura is less then 3 months old. Cura is newer then the Ultimaker, so they did not have this option when they started. Cura started out of frustration with Skeinforge and ReplicatorG. So it's not that odd that is has improvements over it at some points. But Cura is currently also going trough rapid development cycles. Lots of stuff can be changed from week to week, that's not easy to support.

2nd try came out a bit better, but the extruder dug into the filament, so it was printed up to about the same height. However, at 240C it's much stronger and doesn't fall apart anymore. If anyone with a different extruder design wants to try this stuff, I'll bring it with me on the next Ulti-Evening. I have a 100m roll, and at this speed it will take forever to print it all Note, I did print these noise reduction feet with the flexible PLA, which work great: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22156 But that also took a 6 tries to get 4 usable feet.

I think the schematics for the UltiController are almost the same as this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:15081 with the exception that the rotary encoder is wired slightly different. There should be 3.3V on the SD card VCC, which comes from pin 8 on EXP2.

Looks like backlash problems. Could be because of to little belt tension (in both the long and short belts), or a lose pulley.

The extrude button in PrintRun should extrude a few mm of filament each time. It it only moves a tiny bit, then you might be using old firmware. Did you upgrade to the firmware supplied with Cura? The "e_feedrate" setting is 300mm/s per default, it's also shown near the extrude button on the lower left. The default is fine. And this value is never used during printing. Did you generate the GCode that you are trying to print with Cura? Alternatively, try entering "M92 E865.888" in the immediate window at the lower right corner, before printing/extruding. To see if this makes a difference.

Cura RC2 has a bug in the support, it doesn't lay down enough material in the first support layer. It's actually laying down material for a layer thickness of a normal layer, and not the thicker first layer. In the development version this is fixed, and it will put down 100% support material for the first layer, so the support really sticks well (even if you give in 50% support material, the first layer still has 100%). Sadly, I found and fixed this problem 3 days after releasing RC2.

It's a ball of fluffy fluff! I'm trying to print with flexible PLA, but it's hard. The layers don't stick very well to each other, and prints fail quite simple. It's also very easy for the extruder to dig into the filament (because it's so soft) This print was tried at 220C, 15mm/s 0.1mm layers, 0.6mm lines. After removing the fluff, the print broke into pieces as not all layers where sticking properly. I'm now trying the same GCode, but at 240C, and 12.5mm/s

With "connection problems", I did not only mend to say "bad cables", but you could also have a not connecting, bad soldered pin on your PCB. On both sides, the Ultimaker PCB or the UltiController PCB. I think both FAT and FAT32 should work, and there is no restriction on filenames, but it shows filenames in the old "dos" 8.3 format. So you better use short names.

I think (not 100% sure) that most problem with the temperature readings are not because of bad sensors, but because of bad assembly. It's quite possible to damage the insulation of the thermocouple and then you can get a 2nd thermocouple point. (with the screw holding everything in the heater block damage can be done) This will make your readings wrong. Thermocouples, combined with the AD597, should give an accurate reading. Unless you have faulty equipment, the reading should be right. If you want to know if the sensor is working right, there is always the boiling water and frozen water. This should be within 1C of 0C and 100C

For temperature, don't worry about it for now. Most temperature sensors are working fine, and there are a few cases where people have issues. Unless you have serious problems, or want to tinker with the machine, you shouldn't be needing more electrical knowledge and calibration knowledge then knowing how to plug in some cables.