[Print postmortem]

The start code is definitely there :/

I do have a copy of netfabb, just haven’t set it up yet. I could give that a try if it would be of any use in diagnosing the issue.

[Print postmortem]

Standard kit, received on the 22 december with a new bolt, and so my start gcode has been set accordingly. Perhaps the version of marlin I got from the tags section of the github site should be replaced with the current state of the beta branch

https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin/tree ... /Marlin_v1

?(although I guess it isn’t a firmware issue)

[Print postmortem]

Yep, the filament is from Ultimaker, I took some more measurements and admittedly I didn’t find anything much over 3mm this time, so I guess the range is more 2.9 - 3.0 mm.

To give you a better idea of what I meant with regards to infill intersection with the perimeter, I’ve pointed out the ridges that appeared in the whistle perimeter surface here

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/1.jpg

and the possible cause by showing the gap between the two(inner perimeter), and where the ridges might be being caused due to the infill having shifted downwards and intersecting more with the perimeter below

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/2.jpg

 

[Print postmortem]

I had a go at another print, not much better but at least the sides appear to be slightly more solid.

To summarise, I used:

Marlin beta 1

skeinforge 45

repg 26 alpha2(osx) with the control panel closed and temperature monitoring off

temperature: 210

flow and feed rates: 150

travel rate: 450

layer height: 0.2

infill perimeter overlap: 0.2

infill solidity: 0.4

w/t for both perimeter and infill: 2.5

solid surface layers: 4

filament packing density: 1.0

filament diameter: 2.95

same start.gcode as above(first layer didn’t start well after I removed the plastic collecting on the nozzle just before it started printing)

The result:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/2012-0 ... .54.23.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/2012-0 ... .54.54.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/2012-0 ... .55.26.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/2012-0 ... .56.00.jpg

Lots of stringing and blobbing, there are places where the head seems to stop for a longer time that usual(at certain layers near the mouth of the whistle for example) resulting in the blobbing effect. The threads that form the loop of the whistle never seem to settle properly so that remains a mess. Still a lack of plastic being extruded it seems, not sure what the issue is, I haven’t seen any evidence of the bolt slipping on the filament.

Worst of all, the whistle doesn’t work :(

[Print postmortem]

Firstly thanks for the reply, it’s much appreciated

 

I'd stick to 0.25mm or 0.20mm layer heights until you get a few really good prints done. Thinner is certainly possible but it's easier to work through issues if you start with the easier settings..

Haven’t tried to print again, but will switch to 0.2 when I do

 

Pretty much all of these pictures look to me like they need more plastic. You should only be able to see the outer-most layer and I can see the layer(s) underneath on most of these pictures.

What's your start.gcode look like? If you're not sure, just post the first ~20 lines of something you sliced recently.

 

At first I used your start gcode here

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/start.gcode

).

 

Are you sure you've measured your filament diameter accurately and told SF45 what it is? It's in the Dimension tab. When you measure the filament, make sure to get a variety of readings from different angles and use the average. Also, the Filament Packing Density setting should also (for now) probably be set to 1.0.

 

I measured in a few places, got anything between 2.95 and 3.1mm so I decided to go for the lowest value, and see if I got too much plastic from time to time. One could argue that the blobs and strings might be examples of that but as you pointed out, overall, it seems to be lacking plastic. The Filament Packing Density is set to 1.0

 

Fill\Solid Surface Layers tells SF how many totally-filled layers to do near outside surfaces. People usually forget about changing this when they change layer height.. Usually, for a layer height over 0.25mm or so, this parameter gets set to 3 which means 0.75mm (= 0.25mm * 3) of solidity on outside surfaces. If you keep this at 3 but change layer height to 0.10mm you're only now getting 0.30mm (= 0.10mm * 3) of solidity, which probably isn't going to give you a clean outside surface, if you're trying to cover up a less-than-solid infill. There's no hard rule for how to set this but I'd move up to 5 if you're at or under 0.10mm layer heights. This is one of those things that just takes practice: keep an eye on it when you see it starting to cover up sparce infill - the first layer or so looking crappy is normal but the outside surface should be nice.

 

Thanks for the explanation, I hadn’t altered that but I will certainly do so for the next print.

 

You didn't mention Carve\Perimeter Width Over Thickness and Fill\Infill Width Over Thickness.. The w/t values control how skeinforge slices things on the horizontal. This value times the layer height is the width of the threads in the print. With a 0.40mm nozzle, you probably want threads in the 0.40mm to 0.6mm range, though you can probably get away with as low as (despite common sense) 0.35mm or as high as 0.75mm or so. As you change layer height, make sure to also set these values. At 0.10mm layers, w/t values of 5 will get you 0.50mm thread widths, which is a good place to start. For now, just divide 0.50 by the layer height and set the two w/t values to the result..

 

Yeah sorry about that, I had them both set to 4 for all prints(besides the calibration cube which the repg26 SF35 high quality profile handled), so a thread width of 0.40mm for all. I’ll up it to 5 as you suggest for the next print.

 

Could be too much belt tension but probably not too little, I think.. The machine tried to push the print head in one direction something pushed back so much that the stepper motor lost some steps. The electronics don't know when this happens and just assume that every move happened as-expected.

With the power off (or steppers disabled), make sure the print head moves smoothly in each direction. If it doesn't, take a close look to make sure stuff's lubed and orthoganal. If you've got blobs on a print, that can also cause skips if the print head smacks into one at high speed..

Sorry, I was a little bit vague in my comment, I wasn’t talking about the layer shift which I also thought was due to the nozzle hitting a blob.

It’s not easy to see in the photos, but earlier when I was talking about infill intersection with the perimeter, it seemed to me that the infill itself was shifted a bit to the left relative to the perimeter of the whistle, but looking at it again it’s not really a shift, it just misses or intersects too much in places. For an example of “excessive intersection”, in this photo

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/second ... ECTION.jpg

you can see that on the opposite side of this ridge, the infill doesn’t touch the inner perimeter of the whistle indicating that in that area the infill has come too far down.

Do you have any idea why that might be ?

Thanks for the help.

[Print postmortem]

Greetings to all,

I finished assembling my Ultimaker a few days ago and after some reading I have made a few attempts at printing, with mixed results. In spite of my initial research there are still many things I’m uncertain of and would appreciate your assistance if possible in diagnosing some print issues.

For my first print I went with the tried and tested calibration cube. I used repg26 alpha2 on osx to slice(skeinforge35 quality profile) and print, along with the stock 5D firmware.

The result:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/cubeSIDE.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16630702/cubeTOP.jpg

Seems alright, the lines are visible but fused, some blobs and strings.

I then decided to move to the beta 1 version of marlin(version found here

) and skeinforge 45 following the setup given here

[Order has been "processing" for five weeks]

7 weeks and counting. As far as I’m aware, the kit was made last week wednesday but my order was placed on hold due to a lack of white PLA. I found this out because I emailed them out of curiosity on tuesday this week(I was told they were about to contact me), I then clarified the same day that any colour would be fine and I’ve had radio silence since :/

Nothing horrendous, just a complete lack of information without prodding every now and then. They are very open and helpful when contacted, it just seems that if you don’t contact them you’ll know nothing until the product is shipped.

I’m tired of waiting, I want to clog my extruder like everyone else(not innuendo)

[Another Home Made High Resolution 3D Printer]

Thanks, but I had seen that already, your blog post was the reason I ordered my Ultimaker(still waiting :( )

I haven’t had the time to do as much research as I would like, but the reason I hesitated to say the Ultimaker could do better is I don’t know if the 40 and 20 micron resolutions refer only to the Z axis(layer heights) or all 3

In general the X/Y axis are done with 0.4mm lines at a very high accuracy (if you have all the mechanical stuff sorted) Doing smaller then 0.4mm lines with a 0.4mm nozzle is very hard. With 0.02mm layers is sort of laying very small pizzas on top of each other.

Thanks for the clarification, makes sense.

[Another Home Made High Resolution 3D Printer]

According to the post on creator’s blog where this image was originally shown,

http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/2011/03/venus-20.html

, the venus was printed at a resolution of 50 microns.

I too am new to 3d printing, and more specifically the Ultimaker, but to my understanding this resolution has already been surpassed with the 40 and 20 micron profiles..

Yup:

http://davedurant.wordpress.com/2011/10 ... of-prints/

.

Thanks, but I had seen that already, your blog post was the reason I ordered my Ultimaker(still waiting :( )

I haven’t had the time to do as much research as I would like, but the reason I hesitated to say the Ultimaker could do better is I don’t know if the 40 and 20 micron resolutions refer only to the Z axis(layer heights) or all 3

[Another Home Made High Resolution 3D Printer]

do you think with refinement, the ultimaker could get closer to this quality and resolution ?

I think we're already close to it! Or Paul is anyway..

According to the post on creator’s blog where this image was originally shown,

http://3dhomemade.blogspot.com/2011/03/venus-20.html

, the venus was printed at a resolution of 50 microns.

I too am new to 3d printing, and more specifically the Ultimaker, but to my understanding this resolution has already been surpassed with the 40 and 20 micron profiles.

I can’t see any mention of resolution in his subsequent posts, perhaps it has already been improved upon, but otherwise the Ultimaker appears to remain quite competitive.