IRobertI

edit: PeggyB beat me to it But just to add something in case you're worried, this will not damage the motor at all, you're just overcoming the magnetic force that is holding the shaft in place.

Have you calibrated the profile for your particular filament? It might be that the filament you're using is a bit thinner than the profile expects and is therefore laying down too little plastic.

That the first layer isn't sticking isn't the fault of the slicer IMHO. Have you made sure that your bed is level and that the nozzle is positioned correctly (just barely touching the surface). Also, before you start a print has the nozzle dripped at all? If you allow it to drip a while before the print starts it'll take a bit of time before the nozzle fills up with plastic again. If you use "outline" with Skeinforge (cura) that will fill up the nozzle before the actual print starts. I believe NF has that feature in the latest version now as well but I haven't tried it yet. A quick and dirty way to get the first layer to stick properly is to manually adjust the height of the print bed when the print starts. Simply turn the lead screw of the bed to move it up or down until it "looks right". It's hard to say what "right" is here considering all the different parameters with layer heights, type of plastic etc, it's one of those things that you learn with experience.

These are the only ones I can remember off the top of my head: http://richrap.blogspot.se/2011/10/art- ... wrong.html http://techwall.net/analyzing-your-first-print It's been a long time since I read them so I'm not sure how much is applicable today.

It feels like we've had too many threads with people having trouble with their printers lately so I figured, why not start a positive thread to balance it out Post your latest print here, be it big, small, advanced or simple. Get people inspired to print more stuff. I'll start out with my latest little creation that I recently finished. It's a PCB vise used for holding PCBs while soldering (or whatever else you might be doing to them. I'd say it's my first real "product" to come out of my printer. This was sliced with Netfabb using the "Standard" profile. If you want your own copy you can download it from Thingiverse

Agreed Daid. I'll wait a bit for the other guys to catch up which shouldn't be long. I've read some less than nice words about this guy. I can't verify that they are true but they seem to fit somehow, but again, I can't verify that. Regardless of that it's exciting to see these new printers (new for us DIYers) starting to show up and how fast progress is being made. Feels like it wasn't very long ago that resins were extremely expensive but they are now starting to show up for prices that rival PLA and ABS filament.

As far as I know it should be enabled by default. I can't remember changing any setting to get it working after upgrading to 4.9 at least.

No no, I CAN report them, it's just that nothing has happened, until now. As for spammers not returning, well, the last one I reported had been posting 3 times over the course of over a week... Anyway, thanks for cleaning it up, it'll help make the forum look more "serious". edit: I found one you missed viewtopic.php?f=5&t=519#p3506

If you still want to add an encoder in the future I bought a bag of these a while ago for another project and they seem to work well enough. Not exactly super quality but for a buck a piece you can't ask for much. I've got some code for them lying around if you need it (for PIC though so you'll have to adapt it a bit for the Arduino environment).

Which version of Netfabb are you running? The latest, 4.9, has finally added what Skeinforge calls "comb" which makes the nozzle travel over already printed paths instead of jumping through air.

Makergear have a few nozzles. I was about to order a brass tube and nozzle a while ago but they wanted $35 for international shipping, $20 without tracking/insurance, so I backed out. I thought that was a bit ridiculous for a few grams worth of stuff.

So I take it you've been given moderator/admin powers? If so, can't you see the reports made by clicking the report-triangle? I've lost count of how many times I've reported spammers without anything being done so if they've finally assigned someone to help with that I'm glad.

Thanks for the examples there, I haven't bothered trying it yet but it looks promising from those pics. The first print reminds me of an attempt I made to print the "Cobalt" character from Unreal Tournament 2k4 but it just ended up like an almost solid blob with all the support when I tried it in Netfabb. edit: Just downloaded it (while at work *sssh*) because I was too curious to resist. Loaded up the classic "pink lady" and just hit slice and... holy f#!k this thing is fast! Now I don't know if me not changing any settings at all has anything to do with it or not but if this is the speed it normally slices at, damn...

Have you tried exporting the gcode from Netfabb and printing with Printrun instead? Printing directly from Netfabb has never actually worked as it should as far as I know (which is pretty pathetic considering the price IMHO). Also, since Netfabb still isn't volumetric you probably need to calibrate it a bit for your specific PLA to get it working as it should: http://wiki.ultimaker.com/NetFabb_Setup ... alibration Or, you can give ddurant's program a try. People seem to be having good luck with it. I've only tried it once real quick and it was over extruding quite heavily, haven't had the time to sit down with it and fix that yet but I'm sure it's fixable: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=194

The whole file format thing is a bit silly. It accepts G-code and that's it, it doesn't care where it came from to begin with. As it is listed now it looks like you can send off an unsliced model and have it magically print it. Also, isn't the lead picture an old machine with the extruder hanging by the bowden on the side?

The latest version of Netfabb does comb as well. "Comb" is the name Skeinforge (the slicer that cura uses currently) has for the "avoid running the head through holes" feature. What's happening here is a bug I think. By default Netfabb 4.9 has a feature enabled that causes the z-moves (when the bed drops down) to happen in random spots on the model. This is done to avoid having a seam on the model. But, I think the comb feature bugs out when it does this which makes it move through the middle of the object. This is also what is causing those tiny bumps. This can be disabled but I'm not currently at my slice-computer so I can't tell you exactly where. I'll get you the details once I get home from work unless someone beats me to it.

The black came from supply3dpla but I believe they have switched suppliers since I bought this roll. I'm also happy to report that I've printed for 3+ hours so far without any issues. *knocks on wood* hehe

Since it's so consistent I doubt this will work but it's worth a shot. Try giving Printrun a higher priority by opening the Task Manager (ctrl+alt+delete), go to the processes tab, find printrun, right click and choose "Higher than normal" under "Set priority" (roughly translated from Swedish but it should be fairly close). What this does is to make Windows assign more of the processors time to Printrun so that other programs asking for CPU cycles will have to wait their turn.

Well I'll be... good idea there ddurant, I did what you suggested and tried pushing through filament without the nozzle attached. It worked just fine (and looked hilarious to me for some reason with that big chunky 3mm filament spewing out) and I took the opportunity to clean up the nozzle a bit. I do believe I had an actual clog in the nozzle, there was a small bit of something black mixed in with the red filament I pulled out. Since I haven't used black in the printer for several printing hours it seems unlikely that it would be a remnant of that. Either way, it appears to extrude normally now, I've only tested it by manually turning the gear but it looks fairly normal for now. I never thought to check the nozzle since I don't think I've seen anyone post about a clog actually forming in the nozzle and since I was also getting a wee bit of "gravity ooze" I figured it was clear. I just hope that was actually the cause and it doesn't end up grinding to a halt again as I try the first print. Just have to re-level and do a bit of clean up before I try a new print. Thank you all for your input and advice.

Here you go. Rather than setting a percentage you specify how much air to leave between the fill in mm. In the screenshot the slider is disabled because I hadn't selected any model.

No. A few times after re-assembly I've been able to extrude a few millimeters but then it gets stuck again. Nice one. I actually looked at one at the local hardware store a couple of days ago when trying to come up with a solution but I thought the cutting wheel looked a bit too dull for the soft plastic. But if it worked for you it's worth a shot, they only cost a few bucks so no big deal if it turns out not working for me.

Nope, it seems to get stuck pretty much immediately. Yes, I can hear the tell tale high pitched sound that you can hear as the hotend reaches about 185C (at least I can hear that on my machine). It's also apparent by a bit of gravity oozing happening and when holding up a piece of filament to the hotend it starts to melt. Nope, it'll just start grinding filament (with clean bolt). Tonight I also tried having the tube extend a bit further down the bottom so I had a ~3mm gap between the aluminium plate and the wood. I adjusted the tightening of the other three bolts to keep the aluminium plate roughly horizontal while doing this. No change. What little extrusion I get is oozing after putting a good amount of tension on the filament (to the point of stripping).

Ok, I must be retarded or just plain stupid because I can't for the life of me get this thing to print again. I've now cut the end of the tube as flat as I can humanly get it and it still will not extrude. As soon as the filament hits the hot end it just stops and you can see a wee bit of extrusion happening before it stops. I've tried pushing filament through with the hotend detached from the head and while it of course oozes all over the top I can still manage to get some of it to come out through the nozzle so it's obviously not clogged (which as i understand it is extremely uncommon to happen in the first place). The filament can exit the tube just fine as well when I have the thing apart. I even tried cutting the filament at an angle and it still will not extrude. It shouldn't be this hard and I hope the Ultimaker team is listening (even if I do tend to sound whiny and annoying ). I'm lost... Short of paying one of you guys to take my PEEK and a piece of bowden and threading and testing it for me I don't know what else to do. (I have a tap and die set but at this point I've lost faith in my abilities) The new SLA type printers that are beginning to show up in the DIY sphere are starting to look mighty tempting, no ends to clog there! I've already added some of the parts to my Ebay surfing habbit.

I prefer the forum format by far, it's so much easier to find what you're looking for and it's a lot easier to read as well IMHO. Just something simple like images being displayed inline is so much better than having to click links. I also find it's easier to keep track of what you have and have not already read. I read the forum by using the "View new posts" link which makes it really easy to see what I want to read. Mailing lists feel a bit... dated, to be diplomatic about it.

It isn't that expensive really if you get it from Ebay. Now, of course, it could be "fake" but I've bought a small roll before and tested it with a soldering iron and it worked just fine. Here's a random wide(ish) roll I found with a quick search. This is not the one I bought so I can't say if it's good or not, but at ~$9 bucks it's not the end of the world: http://www.ebay.com/itm/50mm-5cm-X-33m- ... 20c2b287e3