IRobertI

Thinking about following snowygrouch's approach to the shortbelts, getting rid of them that is. I already have the rods and couplers. Now I just need to muster up the courage to tear apart a fully working printer... I'm not quite there yet While waiting for that to happen I designed a few parts for it.

Only one program can be connected to the printer at a time, so if you're printing with cura then no, you can't. Personally I've never used cura for printing, always preferred Pronterface. Haven't tried cura in quite a while now though so maybe it's time to check it out again. Sorry about the useless suggestions there, it was in the middle of the night and I didn't read your post very well... I see now that my advice was pretty pointless. Also, finally someone else who don't see the benefit of shuffling SD-cards back and forth and mucking around with a one button console, I thought I was the only one!

What you can do is rotate your model a bit and see if that helps.

Have you changed the firmware? Maybe something has gone wrong there. Other options, put the files on a card and print from the card. Or use something like Pronterface to change the speed on the fly from the computer, that's what I do as I don't have an UC (with a laptop semi-permanently attached I don't see any reason to get one either ).

Weren't they considering getting Amazon involved? There was a thread a while back asking people to order some PLA via Amazon that Ultimaker had shipped to them.

What I'd do is to make sure the bed is absolutely bang on level first of all. Then I'd wipe down the tape with alcohol to get rid of any oils/waxes/dirt to aid adhesion. Then I would print the first layer sloowly to make sure the dots gets a chance to stick. If you just get the first couple of layers down I think it'd get the job done. But it's a tricky print for sure.

Could it be the skirt (the outline printed around the object for priming) getting in the way? I think I remember that causing some issues for me a few months back when I was printing a very long piece. Or maybe it was just that it bumped into the end stops when printing the outline... I forget

Do you have the old one or the one designed by Bertho? If you have the old design I would highly recommend either printing and assembling the one linked on Thingiverse or buying one from Ultimaker. It's a great upgrade, it's set and forget. It made retraction work much better for me, no more stripping since I installed it.

I had an extra connector in my junk drawer that I soldered on. I pulled out the pins of the original connector and then soldered the leads from my new connector to those before pushing them back in. Not sure what you mean with the second question? No modifications should be needed for the fan.

Why would you want to crank a new filament in instead of just opening up the extruder and pushing it through by hand? That's much quicker.

It improved my overhangs quite a bit when I installed an additional fan. I use this one. And here's what it looks like on my machine. Any computer shop should have suitable fans. The original is a 50mm fan.

Personally my prints stick hard to the tape if I wipe it down with alcohol first. But then you have the problem of having the tape peel off the platform and then you're back at square one again. I really need to build myself a heated bed one of these days... As for gluing parts the only thing I've tried is "Super" (yeah right..) glue and it works decent but not great. It will also discolour the plastic a bit.

Does this help? I "stole" that video from Luis E. Rodriguez over at the google groups.

Measure the diameter of the filament with calipers on several spots to see that it isn't too fat. Remember to check in two directions in case it's oval. I also recall there being a bad batch of bowden tubes, the inner diameter was too small. I don't remember when this was though, I'm sure someone else will chime in. The reason I asked about the hotend was in case you had a plug. Since the filament stops before even getting to the hotend that's not the case. But for future reference it looks like this: https://shop.ultimaker.com/en/parts-and ... grade.html

If you have used the filament in the printer before did you snip off the last couple of centimeters off the end? If you didn't the filament can be a bit thicker there and gets caught in the transition between the bowden and the hotend. It could also be that some of the old filament got left behind as you pulled it out and is blocking the way for the new filament. Look through the side of the tube and see if you can see any junk sitting in there. Or if you're really unlucky you've developed the dreaded plug. Which hotend do you have, v1 or v2?

How I finished them? Well... I pulled them off the platform Remember that the tiny images hides the flaws. I've attached a couple of 100% crops that will show that it isn't as perfect as it looks (hopefully you'll be able to see something with the annoying picture viewer on the forum). This was printed with the PLA I got with my Ultimaker originally and it's a bit inconsistent and moody. I sliced it with KISSlicer at 0.2mm layers and set print speed at something like 100 infill and 50 perimeters but I ran it at 170% because I was impatient so whatever that ends up being with acceleration and stuff.

I got red with my Ultimaker back in Oct 2011. While it works it's certainly not very good, not compared to Faberdashery for example. I can only describe it as temperamental/moody if that makes sense. But that's an old old batch so I can't imagine there being any left of it.

You know, with all the problems that this silver PLA has caused for people you'd think they'd send out a statement to those affected so that they know it's crap.

Thanks for the info. Good stuff. Maybe come summer I'll give it a shot myself as I can't really keep a window open now, too damn cold here in Sweden I need to get a hotbed first though which is on my to do list right after getting rid of the short belts (parts on the way).

How's the smell of that stuff? From what little I've read it's pretty nasty stuff?

Here you go daid: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:39519

A magnetic PCB holder thingy.

And how did you fix it? Can't count how many times I've searched for solutions to problems I've had with things from programming, microcontrollers or what have you, found a thread, got to the end and see "nevermind, I fixed it!". Drives me nuts hehe.

Daid is talking about the short belts that connect directly to the steppers. Loosen the four screws, push down firmly on the motor so that the belt is _tight_ and then re-tighten the screws. And the reason for the "magic" 0.4mm is because that's the size of the nozzle so multiples of 0.4 will not leave spaces that are hard to fill in. Some slicers do this better than others but keeping to multiples of 0.4 where possible helps avoid the problem in the first place.

Ah, sorry, misunderstood you there. 99% of what I print is single objects so I didn't take into account moving several of them around, but I can certainly see the need for it.