c-ernst

good find... that totally is what is happening on my machine. I bought this machine to print ABS parts so I need to get this going. And yes the temps were measured with the fan off. I think the avenue I am going to take is ordering a replacement thermocouple and sensor board, (might as well order replacement head parts in case I fry this thing) edit the firmware to allow for higher temps. I am going to see if I can some replacements from Ultimaker... if not I will buy them from the online store. Then crank up the temp a couple of degrees at a time until the ABS flows. The worst that can happen is melting the bowen tube and frying the PEEK insulator... I think. Lastly ordering a new arduino 2560. (at least I can use the old board for some geek projects) This is killing me... having this awesome machine and I can only print brittle PLA. Chuck

I checked the connections... the instability I mentioned before is until the temp stabilizes. I only wavers by about 2-3 degrees. I checked the connections anyway. Wow... this thing is off by about 25 degrees at 250. The machine is registering At 200 it really is 195. 230 it is 210; 250 and the laser is coming in at 225. At 260 it's really 235. What do you think I need to do? order a new probe? Chuck

II definatly have some variation in temps. +-5 to +- 7c according to Pronterface. I will try the water test.... I think I need to alter the Marlin to do that though. I think I saw a 5 degree cut off in the code to check to see if the probe was working or not, basically if it comes up 0 it shuts down.

Do you think I should swap out the temp probe? or override the 275c in the Marlin firmware and bump up the temps? I will pick up a laser thermometer tonight and check the tip temps to confirm the sensor accuracy before messing with anything else. Chuck

That is the thing that is making me doubt myself. My belts on my machine are clearly marked 240mxl but are the length of a 300MXL belts. I picked up a replacement 240mxl and it is indeed too short. I'll try ordering some 300mxl but that still doesn't explain why mine say 240mxl unless there is another factor I don't understand with these.

yeah it's coming in at 22c... which is ambient. I think I will order some different ABS from another supplier and see what I get out of it.

good idea.. I'll try that. What your saying is the head should be ambient temp correct and the electronics should reflect that.

I am just bout done burning through a 5lb reel of Ultimachine PLA. I have to say when I got all the setting right the stuff was very good. I am now convinced that the temps my machine is reporting are not correct. I needed to run Ultimachine's pla at 250 to get it to flow. I thought is was the filament seeing the gold PLA I received with the machine from Ultimaker ran at 230 (which is still high) Now that I am onto ABS I need to run at 267 to get that stuff to come out of the nozzle. This is the fan shroud I am using (which is pretty much the only fan housing that keeps the air flow off the nozzle.) thanks to Owen... http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:13625 I also have to run at a slower speed to get the layers to bond. My question is anyone else having to run stupid high temps to get flow on their ABS and PLA? I see people running at 185-190 on PLA and I am having a hard time believing it. Is there a chance that my temp sending unit might be off or malfunctioning? Chuck

I am trying to find replacement belts for my machine, theses took a beating playing with tensioners and slipping here and there in the past. Everyone posts "Just look for 240mxl .25 and 80mxl .25 belts" If you go to a site like this company near my house... there is all kinds of info missing in the above statement. http://catalog.bbman.com/db/service?domain=bbman&command=locate&category=timing_belts I am assuming the 240mxl is metric like eveything else on the machine. The english units only have 19.2" long belts which is too short. What tooth style am I looking for? What is the pitch length I am looking for? Assuming 6.4mm in width. thanks! Chuck

I saw that post on the neon light... I am assuming he means florescent. I did try his batter light idea... same results. Might be my house power though. I have burnt up 3 routers in the 5 years before I put in a UPS on the power supply. Might be time to get one for the printer.

totally... I see some places sell in 10lb lots. That baby would hold that no problem!

I tried wiggling the power connector... didn't mess with the print I just tried. How did you know it was bad. I mean what were your symptoms leading up to find out about the connector? Chuck

The power supply thing makes sense... now that I think about it. It will printing fine for 10 hours, I'll come in the room to check on it and BAM that's when it skips. I wonder if vibration is shaking the plug loose. Was joking with my wife, the machine functions on the quantum level.. works fine until you look at it. hmmmm.....

Last order of PLA from Ultimachine didn't come with a spool.... been winding it onto smaller spools I had laying around. Been looking into making my own spool-reel combo. Swung by the local big box hardware store and asked what they do with their old electrical spools once they used them up. Turns out they just throw them away. I Just asked If I could have one and they more than happy to give one to me. Chuck

Definitely on my next purchase list. I can print very fast now 100mm+ with 150mm travel speeds. Jobs under 3 hours print flawlessly. Once I get into the 3-12 hour mark, large prints I have skipping in the Y. I have awesome belt tension (due to my new clips i designed http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17058 ). The xy shafts are super smooth (took em apart, sanded the interiors lubed with low viscosity sewing machine oil) I am using Pronterface, Marlin etc... whole nine yards. This thing is moving at crazy speeds. I started suspecting temps being an issue seeing this never fails under 3-4 hours. Someone suggested it might be printer driver temps. Anyone else tweaked their printer driver voltage?

nice stuff... wish I could print big... having issues with long print jobs skipping. Chuck

Very cool!

I just picked up a huge spool of PLA from Ultimachine (silver) and it takes a ton of heat to get this to do anything decent. Anyone else have issues with their PLA like this? With the PLA from Ultimaker I could run high speed at 220-230. The Ultimachine stuff needs a minimum of 250 and I can't run at the speeds I dd before. It also tends to web and curl more coming out of the nozzle. Good thing I bought the 5lb spool... it has taken me 2 hours and a lot of blown prints to figure this stuff out. Anyone know where the Ultimaker guys buy their stuff from? Chuck

The belts are pretty tight, I printed out some belt tighteners. I read the marlin info and it does talk about some arc calculation algorithms. I did an experiment where I printed a sphere, (85000 poly) then printed it slightly larger and one small (2%) and compared what the thing was coming up with. The larger and smaller printed fine. The original printed with a slightly flat side. I also printer super small spheres (1/4") and got the same thing. It's like there is some mathematical sweet spot on firmware that does this. Really odd. Chuck

Do you have any pics of the finished working extruder? Chuck

Used Pronterface ( https://github.com/kliment/Printrun) and it eliminated almost all the hiccups. I still get them every once and a while but so far it helped a lot. Been printing at 150mm and it's pretty smooth. One thing I am noticing is the firmware's "smoothing" of the meshes makes for sometimes inaccurate surfaces. I will print a perfect sphere and it will end up with odd shapes in it. Basically anything with a long mathematically perfect curve will get "re-interpreted". I expect this from an algorithm smoothing out a course mesh but I am feeding the machine pretty dense meshes. Is there anywhere in the firmware to dial this back or turn it off for problematic prints? Chuck

How do you modify rep g to talk at 250?

I just conducted a bunch of tests. It has nothing to do with the print speed. I just cut the speed to .25 of what I was printing before. It just stutters randomly and only on complex head moves. You could print boxes at 150mm all day with no problems. Anyone know how to report marlin bugs and to whom? Chuck

I set it to 250000 before and repg couldn't connect to it. That was the cruddy version of Marlin though. I will gives your suggestions a try. Thanks! Chuck

Marlin updated firmware still stutters on complex moves. A simple circle will sometimes end up with super tiny pauses that make small blobs. The machine is running spectacular and I can do head moves in the 200+ range no problem. The motors definitely sound like it's choking in the communications area. Even when I dial back the feeds to 50 or so, large complex moves stutter. WIll PrintRun solve this issue? Is there anything else I should be looking for? I am using this version of Marlin http://forum.ultimaker.com/download/file.php?id=49 Supplied by Dave Durant... (thanks Dave!) it was the only version that I could get to work. I am currently using Vista 64. Chuck