gadgetfreak
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Posts posted by gadgetfreak
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I recall Tom (=Taulman) telling me that he would start producing 3mm as 2.85mm from November last year or so...so it might be that new orders of say the 618 filament is a lot easier to feed and extrude. I only have an old 68 roll from summer which is too thick so couldn't try it yet.
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Thanks Ian.
Not yet for the UM2 but we have it planned....and as the UM2 is more finished than the UM1 so will the videos be
I'd like to ask the good people here on the forums what the "top 5" or "top 10" videos would be....it terms of helping new users start printing properly and to help troubleshoot problems.
(Reason also being that it takes a lot of time to do these videos in a nice way with different angles and good video and audio)
I'll start with some suggestions....each video would be perhaps be 15 seconds up to a couple of minutes I would guess.
* When unboxing, how to mount the build plate (as it is delivered separately)
* How do to your first leveling of the platform
* How to load / change material
* How to start a print
* How to properly fix the "misaligned rod(s) after transport" problem (hopefully also with a torque recommendation)
* How to fix the "loosening LED strips" problem (with a glue gun)
* How to fix "squeky noise" due to rods not being parallel/perpendicular /rubber band rubbing against housing
* Checking your three fans and how to troubleshoot them if one is not working (reverse polarity test etc)
* How to clean a simple hot end block (using an epidermic needle, syringe or strands of steel brush)
* How to clean the hot end thoroughly (possibly complete disassembly), using the "90C pull trick", cotton stick/wood stick etc
* How to make a test of the extrusion capabilities of your setup (perhaps using Illuminartis excellent calibration cylinder)
...the list goes on, please help me!
also, if any of you feel that you have a good detailed routine for the above or other useful prodecures, please detail it in a reply to this thread! It might just end up in a video
/Daniel
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Hi,
We made a couple of simple videos showing how to change filament and how to start a print with the Ultimaker Original. This was for the members of Stockholm Makerspace to which we have loaned one of our printers.
Very basic, but might be useful for new users who have never seen the procedures before
http://mkrspc.se/26 change filament
/Daniel
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Maybe you can send the stl to me abd I can print it to compare?
I guess you mean traffic red? I have it loaded in one if our UM2s
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Dim3nsioneer, what is the size of the object?
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Alright, looks good. I am going to read the report. What is your thought on controling the flexibility in the bowden tube itself, and perhaps hot end?
Great! If you or David could supply the CAD drawing for the filament feeder housing it's easier for everyone to contribute.
I'm not really sure what can be done for controlling the flexibility in the bowden tube or the hot end. However, a lot can be done when choosing slicing parameters; pehaps a "flexible filament profile" would be good to have; example is to use a constant velocity, even for first layer (see below).
Also, there is a big difference on various flexible filaments...some we might get to work well with hw/sw modifications and some might just be too rubbery...only experimentation can tell!
Sanjay makes very good remarks on printing with flexible filament (although he has as far as I can tell not tested with a bowden-style printer like the Ultimaker but with direct driven feed...).
Summary of the most important things in my view:
"- print at a completely constant velocity, for perimeters, infill, everything. Make it quite slow - around 30mm/s all round - don't use a slower first layer. The reason for this is that we want to print this stuff in as much of a steady state system as possible. Changes in velocity and extrude rate affect the output flow rate of the extrudate in a drastic way. Travel moves should be made as quickly as your machine can handle them. Retraction should be aggressive and quite long.
- Printing too quickly, or having the slightest glitch in you extruder-hotend filament path will cause buckling.
- these filaments act like a spring when compressed and driven down to the hotend. If your hobbed bolt stops turning there is still stored pressure in the system and filament will continue to extrude/ooze."
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Also, are you sure Cura stopped calculating, or was it just the visual feedback that stopped?
I'm guessing that the computation should be linear in regards to the number of faces somehow but I'll let Daid answer that
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Those are quite large files which I have never tried; but I think they might work in Cura 13.06 onwards depending on your hardware.
What version of Cura are you using?
When I load a 10Mb model with about 218k faces it only takes 1 and a half minutes to slice it.
My Windows 7 WEI (Windows Experience Index) is 7.1 for my CPU, what's yours?
I have 8GB RAM as well.
From my "slice engine log.." (accessible by right click on the SD/Disk icon):
Cura_SteamEngine version 13.12
Loading # from disk...
Reading mesh from binary blob with 654372 vertexes
Loaded from disk in 0.078s
Analyzing and optimizing model...
Face counts: 218124 -> 218124 100.0%
Vertex counts: 654372 -> 107310 16.4%
Optimize model 0.421s
Slicing model...
Layer count: 858
Sliced model in 2.325s
Generating support map...
Generating layer parts...
Generated layer parts in 1.341s
Generated inset in 9.002s
Generated up/down skin in 39.936s
Wrote layers in 31.39s.
Wrote 83.6 MB.
Total time elapsed 84.49s.
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Really good work, tonycstech - thanks!
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Aaron, thanks for the nice words
I'll see if I can put up some more pictures in the "post your newest print" thread soon.Nice to see you playing with new hinge designs, too! Good to move to 2mm screw hole I think.
Not sure either whether the extra bits are needed.
Perhaps the "cool head lift" option in Cura would work well here for the UM2 since it's a small area at the hole are that has a tendency to melt/goo a bit extra during standard print settings.
I think the LED intregration is really cool! Could be useful for inspecting stuff. What batteries would you be using? I bought a lot of really small stuff a couple of years ago when I was experimenting with integrating LEDs, sensors and *duinos. I have some very small coin batteries but they are not rechargable. Now most stuff is packed down so I can't remember everything I tried.
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My school french is a little bit too bad but I google translated your port.
There is no problem whatsoever changing between a PLA and PLA/PHA filament
In my experience, PLA/PHA usually requires 5-10 degrees higher temperature than plain PLA, but most of the temperature difference is between different colors; I've seen up to 10-15 degrees higher for red color for example (compared to green). But that is regardless of whether pure PLA or PLA/PHA is used.
Also, you need higher temperature with thicker layers and also with higher speed.
So please try anything betweeen 195C and 230 degrees. 220C is a safe temperature that works with most print profiles. If you need less stringing, lower the temperature. If you need maximum speed and layer height, increase it.
You do need to experiment between colors.
Happy printing!
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I found this works fine for me. I can leave it for hours. I've watched it and occasionally the lazy suzan rotates. The lazy suzan goes on the floor.
Well "hours" doesn't really say much as most small prints are a couple of hours. My longest print so far was 44 hours and I regularly print 20+ hour prints.
And think of it:
To print the entire build volume of the UM2 would take something like 10 days if you could keep up with 10mm3/s extrusion (which is not really viable at all for the random object). Also it would be an object weighing over 11.5kgs (25 lbs) so you would need to change filament once per day!
It would actually be a really cool test. Imagine making a perfect block of 11.5kgs PLA with no signs of underextrusion
Probably it's idiotic to waste all that plastic but it would indeed be a cool test of the sturdy UM2 platform and an improved feeding mechanism.
I'd love to have more consistent extrusion...and I don't think having a loose coil would ever work well enough for really long prints...
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Xeno, that's nice however it seems that adjustable spool holder could still tangle up; I would prefer a traditional spool holder with a solid cylinder where the filament can lie neatly side-by-side.
I saw this filament spool system
http://www.filabot.com/products/filamatic-filament-spooling-system
but it's out of stock.
Also, I dont see that it would actually shift the filament back and forth over the roll so it is perfectly distributed across the cylinder...any other spooling systems that anyone knows of?
It would be fun do design one but there's too little time...
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But I've made dozens of prints since I printed the glasses :grin: :-P
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I tried Faberdashery filament a year ago or so. Really great quality, but the fact that it doesn't come on a spool makes it too inconvenient to use, especially for long (>5 hours or so...) prints.
I think Illuminarti and some other have managed to get the lazy Susan method work ok, but I'm not sure exactly how long those prints have been unmonitored.
The problem with Faberdashery/filament not on a spool is that even though if you have a really nice super-low-friction turntable/lazy susan it will still tangle easily as you carry/switch between rolls because the strands will intertwine/lock eachother eventually, that's my experience. Like with headphones in a pocket.
So, my advice would be:
1) Get quality filament on spools. I recommend ColorFabb (there's a reason I chose their filament as our first brand to resell in Sweden). Also, their new spool holders are transparent so you can see that they are nicely rolled all the way.
There might of course be other good filament suppliers in Europe.
2) I agree that the spool holder and filament guide design could be improved, there has been some discussions on this recently and people have made some nice designs. My colleague Anders made a mashup from a bearing http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:118205with the https://www.youmagine.com/designs/um2-universal-spool-holder. You can download the files of the mashup https://www.dropbox.com/s/nnjosmv6nme94ad/Ultimate%20spoolholder%20for%20UM2.zip(could be put up on YouMagine/Thingiverse of course...). It provides way less friction even without the balls.
There is also a https://www.youmagine.com/designs/filament-guide which looks nice - haven't tried it yet.
Also, as the filament diameter gets smaller, friction will increase.
I think that commercial FDM machines have rolls with a larger diameter (I think Makerbot just changed theirs also for their new models) and I'm guessing it would be to have less friction. Can anyone confirm this?
So, a future improvement would be to have a larger inner diameter; of course the spool would have to be a little bit bigger then unfortunately...
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Hi Aaron,
I'm actually not sure if I printed V4 or V5....I kind of remember loading them into Cura trying to see the difference and not really discovering any. Thank you very much for the offer on adjusted bridge.....I really just thought it was a really cool concept to print - I really don't need new glasses
But my bridge would be about 27.5mm (1.08in) if my digital calipers don't lie and if you'd like to make a pair
And now I know the difference between v4 and v5!
Here are some pictures:
Cheers!
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So, we've been trying different flexible filaments in the UM2 and it actually works pretty OK if the filament is not *too* flexible.
I started by reading Sanjays excellent thread where he tested three different filaments. So I ordered FlexPolyEster of grades Shore 45D (harder rubber) and 40D (softer rubber).
The 45D actually works very well to extrude in the UM2 unmodified. We've been printing at 0.2mm layers at 30mm/s with good results. We had to print on blue tape that was cleaned with isopropanol though, larger objects otherwise shook loose from the heated glass bed (we tried 60C, 90C, with and without gluestick, we tried hairspray, brim, taped brim etc....so far no luck directly on glass bed...).
However, the 45D is not as soft as we would like for some applications. The 40D has a softer rubbery touch and feel, close to NinjaFlex for example.
Although we managed to print a very small Octopus with 40D, when we tried the BMX handle at 30mm/s it failed and the feeder mechanism could not feed the material for very long at all. Like Sanjay writes in the thread referenced above, the rubbery filament wants to go here and there and goes to the side in the UM2 feeder instead of pushing upwards towards the bowden tube.
In the thread Sanjay therefore suggest a modification to the drive:
This would restrict the filaments' movement so that it could not bend sideways.
I'm now thinking of how this can be implemented into the UM2. Check these pictures to see the outside and innards of the UM2 feeder mechanism and where I've marked in red where "filament guides" would be needed:
(note: the filament in the picture is not flexible just a transparent one)
The problem as I see it is that this is a very precisely injection molded part and it seems to me very hard to actually be able to fasten any type of guides here that would work or last....perhaps epoxy?!
Perhaps if someone at UM (hrm...Daid wink wink
) could supply the CAD files then they could be modified with guides and then I actually don't think that FDM/FFF would suffice here but maybe with some nice SLA or DLP machines the precision would be good enough to make a transparent case (too also see and analyze the results) with modified guides?Now it would be nice what others think of this....
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My favourite tools are thin curved needle nose pliers and flush cut pliers for cleaning models, both from Lindstrom and super expensive but I paid 1/10th of the price on a sale
I probably use 20 tools related but these are the most used ones, together with a spatula for removing prints.
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It's hard to get a representative reading with IR because of the reflective surface. If you paint/soot it black to make it similar to a blackbody you might improve your likeliness of a correct reading if you match it to the correct emmissivity setting on your thermometer. But I'd guess it's still pretty hard. You can perhaps calibrate with solder of a known melting point. What is really fun is to use a thermal camera to see the heat spread...and then stilm you would want to blacken all hot parts for good readings
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Aaron, we printed your beautiful glasses last week in green transparent, came out beautiful and an easy print! Too small for my nose though and have not tried hot-bending or so. I think the interconnect where the screws would go might need to be a little bit larger to cope with daily wear.
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It's annoying and a bit worrying that the led cables are rubbing against the pulleys...we secured our cables with a glue gun. Try to use a glue gun with a long narrow nozzle to reach the corner while securing the cables against the wall with some small narrow tool like curved tweezers or curved pliers. It's nice afterwards
But this really need to be fastened properly during production.
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Advice for printing Woodfill:
http://learn.colorfabb.com/how-to-print-with-woodfill/#more-85
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Also, here are some pointers and advice when printing with Woodfill:
http://learn.colorfabb.com/how-to-print-with-woodfill/#more-85
Printing with other than Ultimaker PLA
in Materials & profiles
Posted
Colorfabb XT is great and durable. Also there are nice rubbery plastics like the 45D FlexPolyester from Plastic2print that extrudes pretty well in a stock UM2.