mastory

If you have Solidworks, that will open most step files. You have to select *.step in the open menu. From there, use Solidwork 'Featureworks' to turn them into models that can be parametrically edited....

The clearance you are looking for is a deviation from the nominal screw diameter. What you need to do is look up the actual dimensions for the thread. These standards are well established and they are freely available. You can find them in a lot of places such as here. mdmetric.com thread chart Also you'll see the thread form is not a simple equilateral triangle. Any other arbitrary corrections factors will be fudge at best, and will not scale.

I am using Aquanet. Chose it because it was the cheapest on the rack. Works great for PLA and ABS on heated glass.

First, I love the added flexibility of all the settings. I don't think these things would be hard to fix, and they would go a long way to improve my user experience. One thing that bothers me is the notes in the right hand menu that sometimes say "X hidden settings use custom values". The fact that these values are hidden leaves me to guess which ones. I don't believe that I hid them by the way. I don't think the profile is retaining display of all the display of options I have set when a profile is reloaded. Because its a mystery as to which modified settings are hidden, I feel the need to review all the settings to figure out which were changed. It seems that I could check all the boxes and sometimes a note will still indicate 1 or more hidden settings with custom values. My request would be to force the display of all settings with custom values. Another thing is that when custom profiles are saved and reloaded, they are nearly indistinguishable other profiles because the file name applied when you save the profile does not load into Cura for display. Every profile derived from the Normal Quality profile will be displayed as "Normal Quality (Customized)". By default, this permits multiple different profiles to appear in Cura by the same name. Not very user friendly. The problem seems to be that the name displayed in Cura is not the file name of the profile, but a text string within the file. Yes, you can manually edit the text variable to clear everything up, but why should that be necessary? Most users are not programmers and are not the least bit comfortable editing support files, and it is unnecessary work. Can the displayed name instead just simply be the file name of the profile, or can the text string somehow automatically be set to equal the file name? Another idea, when Cura is closed, or the profile is swapped for another, could Cura prompt if the user would like to save recent profile changes (if any) Thanks for listening. Not so much complaining as try to help progress. Matt

I am sure mine is not the only heated bed that runs on separate 120vac supply (driven with solid state relay). I don't feel it is at all more unsafe than other household appliances. As gr5 pointed out though, even higher voltage may not be safe. In Europe where a lot of UM's are sold, the AC line voltage is 230v and you'd be stuck running your heaters at that or add a costly step-down transformer. On the other hand, I don't think I would want my hot end to run on AC because of the nature of the head motion (wire travel and fatigue), and that I am touching the head quite often. If the nozzle heater were to short out, it would be easy to get shocked. Otherwise, the DC powered hot end and bed are already included in the new machines as they are shipped. I think only the UMO lacks a HB as stock.

Accidentally duplicated previous post... Please ignore

When a customize profile is re-imported, it doesn't display with a name that matches the file name. They come in something like "High Quality (Customized)" I have several now so I have to rename them as I bring them in, else they all display with the same text name. This has to be done every time Cura is ran because the profiles aren't retained on shut down.

Trying to run Cura 15.09 with some difficulties. The problems I'm having seem to be with the user interface. Mine is a win7 64bit machine. First thing is that every time I start the software, I have to define a new machine - again!. Of course, this requires a bypass of all the setup routines again. After that, I have to re-import my specialized slicing profile. Shouldn't these stay loaded after they have been loaded once? -correction- The profiles are being saved, I just didn't recognize them by the generic names custom profiles appear as in Cura. I noticed is that the 'support roof' does not display in layer view mode. I am getting this notice after making custom changes to the print settings and turning options on and off: "X hidden settings use custom values" There is no way to tell which settings have custom settings. I think if you have made custom settings, maybe the option should be locked ON so you can see that and somehow indicated that it is 'not default'. Often, changes to the infill density are not recognized. I am trying to print 0 infill at the moment, and have had to resort to a legacy version. -edit- when specifying a distance between infill lines it seems more reliable. Percentages not very well When I try to rotate the model (low poly) the revolve motions work intermittently, and often in the wrong direction. I will try to keep using it, because I like all the features and note any problems I see. Matt

I have to say I like the look and feel of the new Cura iterations. Haven't yet printed with it. note that I can't get the new engine to slice a model to print at the same overall rate as the old Cura. I have a part I print repeatedly. I want to try out the new software to see if I can get a better finishes. Because I do print this item as a psuedo production item, the print time is important. I have tried to duplicate the settings as closely as possibly and I am getting a time of 1hr30m, whereas with the old engine I can print the item in 1hr5m (predicted by Cura and timed accurately). I played with lots of settings and can't get the speed down. Possibly the there is a difference in the requested print speed vs the real life averages causing a longer forecasted time? This is really annecdotal like so many things with printing. Question: Where can I edit the Start and End Gcodes in the new software? Thanks and keep up the good work. Matt

Does the whole shaft wobble, or just the middle? Or maybe is it worse in the middle? I think it is either bent shafts or eccentric ball bearings. Is this the machine you sourced yourself? These parts from China? Matt

Ultimaker.com pages never seem to stop loading in Firefox. This has been for a couple versions of Firefox including currently 40.0.2 (win7). The UM icon in the browser tab never stops spinning in the forum and some other (most?) UM.com pages. I don't recall ever seeing a webpage do this. It is VERY annoying. It can be stopped by interrupting the page load (X on the menu bar) but why should it be necessary? Matt

I don't believe it is likely to be eccentric pulleys. To really know, you have to do a verifiable straightness check. One shaft against the other is not that good. Ask yourself, what is the known starting point. When checking for true geometry and be certain of your findings, you have to start with something of a known quality. To do a real straightness check, you need a qualified surface to roll the shafts on (and measuring equipment if you want to quantify it). Best would be a surface plate at a machine shop. A quality machinist scale (name brand ruler, straight edge with a ground finish) could be used to check for light gaps. Short of that, you might consider a piece of ground marble or granite tile that can be purchases at a home supply store for cheap. Even with this, you are not assured of the flatness. You could check a couple pieces of ground stone tile against each other face to face.

I put my money on bent shafts. This assumes the bearings are concentric to themselves. Are you checking in the same place along the shafts? The bearing centers couldn't have changed. I don't think the pulley shape or concentricity would cause the wobble unless they are way out of round, causing the belts to be tight in one position and loose in the opposite. When you slide the carriage, does it have smooth resistance throughout the travel, or is it cyclic easy/hard/easy/hard?

Given the size of these bearings, putting them in the freezer may make them contract ~.01mm on the OD. I don't think it will be significant in this bore size when pressing into plastic. The humidity probably not a concern as long as they dry thoroughly after the frost melts. Shouldn't hurt anything. I'm excited to see your assembly go together - although I'm mostly just lurking in this thread..

I think there are some printable isolators that you could place between your extruder and the frame.... This would be quick and cheap solution to mitigate noise. It wouldn't preclude adding the heated bed. These are basically printed springs that go between your extruder and the UM back panel. I just searched for them to no avail on Thingiverse. I seem to remember they were raved about at the time they were developed. They were essentially 'S' shaped leaf springs that coupled to both the extruder and the frame. Maybe they are on Youmagine?? I upgraded my extruder long ago to a GeoHagen design (has been great - goodbye feeder issues). Aside from other benefits, is a lot quieter than the original. The mounting plates (hooks that engage frame) are plastic which I think reduced the vibrations transmitted. Having a less of a reduction helps too since it turns less/slower. Although it's worked well for me, I'm not necessarily suggesting this upgrade. No one has really talked about this it a while. I'm not sure if the machined parts are still available. The point is that the plastic frame helped noise reduction alot. On the heated bed, you won't regret upgrading. I can't relate to the UM kit (my HBK is also home spun), but an understated advantage of having a glass bed is that it is nearly perfectly flat, and very repeatable - requiring much less leveling. When I first installed mine, I was more impressed with the flatness and repeatability than the heating capability. Now I am in the habit of almost always using the heat. Sometimes I still prefer the blue tape. If UM's solution were available when I wanted one, I would have bought it instead of building one. I'm sure it is the way to go now - especially with the other upgrades to the platform. Matt

It's true that profile rails are intended to mount to something that also aids their stiffness, but this advice is overly simplistic. Every system needs to be evaluated on its own merits and designed accordingly. All the relevant data is published by the manufacturers. Poor designs result from engineering guesses, miscalculations, or oversights. Possible he should have selected a larger bearing series for the span, or a different style.

@g_leopard You may already know, but you'll want use extra care when switching from ABS back to PLA that you get the ABS thoroughly cleaned out of the nozzle first. Any ABS residue left in the nozzle will not fully melt at PLA temps and cause clogging issues. You should do a number of 'atomic pulls' to get the nozzle cleaned out. Matt

I also cannot select, rotate, scale etc the model in Win7 64. It's been reported on Github issue #84. I think 83 may be the same issue. Matt

Thanks @dim3nsioneer I guess since the new ideology wasn't pointed out I was stuck in the old. Since you've pointed it out, it makes sense that nozzle orifice isn't required to calculate the extrusion. Does the old Cura do anything with the nozzle size besides warn you when you're outside the normal bounds of function? I'd like to correct my above post. I don't see the option to strike out text. Can this be done in the current forum? How? doesn't work... Matt

You have to ( - edit - no, you CAN - see below responses - ) do that in a machine profile files found here: C:\Program Files (x86)\Cura_15.06.01\resources\settings\*.json (use a text editor) If you're going to run more than one 'machine' in Cura based on variations of the provided .json profiles, you'll need to copy the appropriate profile and rename the copy. If you have to do this, also edit the line near the top "name": "Ultimaker Original 8mm", so the difference can be seen while creating a new 'machine' in Cura. Here I renamed my copy from ["name":"Ulimaker Original"] to what you see above. This text is what shows up when you go to use the new profile to create a new 'Machine' in Cura. If you don't change it, both the source profile and the edited copy will list with the same identifying text when selecting a printer 'type' You would then create multiple 'Machines' in Cura based on the differing profiles. I think this text string displayed in Cura when creating new machines should be linked to the profile file name. I don't know if that's possible. Matt

Thank you @Danilius. There's a lot of bitchy tone here considering that UM is giving us something. The legacy Cura pretty damn good in IMO. Its clear that once some hurdles are past, the new Cura will be even greater. Getting there is going to require people to try the software and report the deficiencies. And some time. If you feel the need to bitch in the course of reporting issues, you could instead go back to 15.04. Can someone tell me specifically where I can change my nozzle size? I looked in the set-up profiles and I saw none there with a name matching the custom name I made during install. Really though this is such a basic setting, it should be available directly in the UI. Thanks Matt

Just installed on Win7 PC. Seems to be working fine. I really like the layout and interface. I can see this will be a huge step forward once the plugin functions are utilized. Just messing around, I loaded a complex model and let it slice using the speed/quality slider bar. Seemed to work alright. Auto slicing seemed have a delayed start. Maybe it just didn't show any indication when it had already started. Maybe because it was a large model. Personally, I'd still rather have a button "Start Slicing", but I have grown accustomed to the live slicing. The delayed start made me wonder if was actually going to live slice or if I needed to find a button. I then cleared that model, and loaded a simple model I have been printing alot. The simple model wouldn't begin to slice for some reason. I had to restart Cura to get a slice. It was fine after that, but I noted a critical setting that is either missing or in a non-obvious location: Nozzle size (I tried to BOLD that last sentence, but the tags don't seem to work. [ b], [ /b]) Have to get to work now. I'll be watching the thread closely I can tell already, its going to be great. Thanks UM!

I would suggest a simple symptom --> list of likely causes --> courses of action graphical trouble shooting matrix. Many symptoms have multiple possible causes. In these cases, the causes are list in the order of highest probability. Hyperlinks from the matrix could lead to in depth articles about any cause, symptom or solution...

Almost all my parts come from SW, and I have never seen this. To export when I am done modeling, I do a 'save as' *.stl. If I mess with anything during export, it would be the mesh density, but I rarely do that since long ago finding a sweet spot. There is also a 'settings' dialogue in this save process for other conversion factors. Check out these settings to make sure they are not defaulting to something other than 100% scale. Hope that helps. Matt

Anyone? anyone.... I hate to bump my own thread, but seeing as this is a prevalent topic for me at the moment if I don't I'll be stuck with traditional means even if a better solution exists. Is there a way to print two objects in the same space with different print parameters simultaneously? Can anyone else see the utility in it? Thanks.