illuminarti

I think this is probably due to over-tensioning of the thumbscrews; get in touch with support.ultimaker.com, and they'll sort you out.

FWIW, I'm compiling it from the make file using the 1.0.5 libraries, basically using the same method as I outlined http://www.extrudable.me/2013/05/03/building-marlin-from-scratch/, for the Ultimaker Original firmware.

TO the USA, filament is a dutiable item at 6.5%, usually, but they might not collect that on small shipments. If the total value is over a threshold ($2500, I think) then you have to pay a US Customs handling fee (it's about 0.4% iirc). And then there are the fees that DHL tacks on for their part of it.

Irrespective of whether you buy from a reseller or direct from Ultimaker, support in the US is provided the same way now.

If you look in the Ultimaker store, the official lead time is now listed as 2-4 weeks.

I'd make sure that the short belts are tight, and the motors are pressed down and tightly screwed in place. Check that the pulley are tight and the axis rods don't wobble. And then add a drop of sewing machine or similar oil to the smooth axis- and cross-rods. And put a little green grease on the z-screw, and run the head up and down a few times. Your printer is older, so less likely to be affected by the problems, but if you haven't applied the http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/5935-z-axis-homing-inconsistent-on-um2-workaround-and-patch/?p=57095 to give more consistent z-homing, and avoid start-up extrusion problems, you might try that also.

That's a really cool looking print. There's no reason that you can't try a 0.4mm layer height, especially if the extrusion width and/or flow is sufficiently high to ensure that the layer gets squashed down onto the lower one properly. However, you will fairly quickly run into throughput limits in that case, so will be restricted to printing very slowly.

If it's chewing up the filament you should try increasing the tension a little on the extruder. Do this by turning the tensioning screw anti-clockwise (as viewed from above) in order to lower the white indicator piece slightly. If you can share a gcode file that causes problems, I'd be happy to take a look at it, and see if I can identify any potential issues. You should also consider installing the test firmware that I built which contains fixes for filament grinding at the start of prints (among other things): http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/5935-z-axis-homing-inconsistent-on-um2-workaround-and-patch/?p=57095 After installing that, I recommend re-leveling the bed.

The temperature you need is a function of the volume per second you are printing - which in turn is dependent on the layer height multiplied by the extrusion width multiplied by the linear speed. Have you tried printing the http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3976-almost-always-missing-layers-underextruding/?p=33427, to get a sense of what speeds your extruder can happily handle? I'd certainly try printing at 230º. Also what are you using as the shell thickness setting in Cura? Is it an exact multiple of the 0.4mm nozzle width?

Is the filament getting chewed up when the extrusion issues happen, or is the motor simply clicking back because it's unable to move the filament any more? Can you confirm that the fan on the back of the print head is running?

FWIW, putting it on the floor on a turntable works fine for me. I print mostly faberdashery filament. And in two years, I've never had a nozzle clog, debris-induced or otherwise.

And now I'm looking at it on the computer, and can see your photo, I realize that it's the Y endstop that's the problem. I've got no idea how the lever managed to end up bent like that... it's supposed to point up, not down. Are the cross rods that pass through the head fully seated in the sliding blocks at each end? Make sure there isn't a gap between the rod and the black plastic part.

I'm curious.. When you got your printer, was there cardboard wrapped around the axis rods? Anyway, the lever is what the head hits, and then the base of the lever trips the switch. You are going to need a new switch....

You won't do any major harm with the horrendous noise, but yes you should fix it. Yes, it's the metal tab sticking out of the black rectangle that's mounted under the top plate of the printer body. Turn the power off, and slide the head around by hand. The rear black plastic sliding block should catch on the lever, and you'll hear a 'click' when the switch activates. You need the click to happen before the fan hits the side wall of the printer.

Going thicker than the nozzle width at the same time as printing quite thick layers may be part of the issue; you're relying on the pressure between the bed and the tip of the nozzle to spread the plastic out thicker than it's being extruded. If your bed leveling is just fractionally high, that pressure won't be applied consistently. If you pick a 0.4mm width, then it's less of an issue; even if the extrusions are just laid next to one another, and not squashed out, they'll still be touching correctly. Probably going to a lower layer height - say 0.2mm - might also work with the wider shell thickness. Personally, I'd prefer if Cura did the base with normal nozzle-width extrusion, and only switched to wider extrusions for the sides of spiralized prints.

The z-scar is an artifact of how Cura generates the spiral version, I think. It's not the same, or as severe as if it was a normal layer-by-layer print, but Cura still slices the object in layers, and then adjusts them after the fact to give the gradually climbing edge. As a result, sometimes the start of one layer doesn't quite line up with the end of the previous one - in which case the head jumps back to the start point of the next layer - and leaves a mark.

The under-extrusion may simply be volume/second related. In 'Spiralize' mode, Cura will print the bottom layers using passes of the same shell thickness as specified for the rest of the print. Depending on your print speed, and first layer height, this can be too much plastic per second. What first layer height, speed and shell thickness do you have set? If you are simply trying to extrude too much plastic per second, there isn't a lot you can do to compensate, you really have to slow down or make the layers thinner. However, if you simply need more plastic to be extruded, and there's still capacity to do that, then the simplest way to do that is to go into the tune menu, and increase the flow percentage above 100%. (Reducing the declared filament diameter has the same net effect, but is conceptually a slightly less direct way to think about it).

What version firmware is on your printer? Go to Maintenance -> Advanced -> Version to check. You may have just ground up the filament at the start of the print - that's a bit of a problem with recent firmwares. Try this patched version instead... http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/5935-z-axis-homing-inconsistent-on-um2-workaround-and-patch/?p=57095 Just download the hex file, then install it using Cura's 'Machine' -> 'Install Custom Firmware...' option. Also, if your filament has gotten ground down in the extruder, remove it (via the 'Change Material' process on the printer) and then cut off the damaged part before re-installing it.

On which sides is it slamming - the left, or the back? Probably the left. Most likely, the head isn't triggering the end stop before it hits the side wall. What you need to do is a) to make sure the left side fan is bent down neatly, and there's no gap between the left shroud and the side of the print head, and then b) if needed, bend the end stop out slightly. It's located in the back left corner, under the top panel. Grip the lever on the endstop about one quarter of the way from the front with needle-nosed pliers, and push the lever to the left (so as not to strain the hinge) while rotating the end towards the right (to put a very slight kink in the lever, so it contacts the sliding block sooner). Be gentle; if you bend it too far, it won't contact the sliding block at all. In that case, straighten it a little bit. Probably when the head hit the frame and the motor kept turning, it jumped the belt over the teeth a little bit. To fix that, push the head all the way to the right, and then loosen the pulley at the left end of the loose belt, and let the tension equalize. Then tighten it up tight again.

You have to click on the loaded object to select it, then the buttons appear. I think that sometimes it's not possible to click on the object on a Mac, maybe? If so try quitting and restarting Cura.

Daid has already pulled this code into the official Marlin source, but I don't think a new release has been made yet. So for now, the hex file on post #108, above, is the latest greatest version.

Cura doesn't allow you to specify the position of the z-scar, no. It is one of the controls which has been sacrificed in the interests of a simpler UI. However you are free to any other 'generic gcode' slicers such as Kisslicer or Slic3r, or the commercial (and, IMHO, excellent) Simplify3D. Those provide more control over the layer start positions.

Thanks for checking it out, Steve. I submitted a pull request to integrate the changes into Ultimaker's fork.

I've tested my new code, leveling to a sheet of paper that is about 0.1mm, and then printing a single 0.25mm layer. Before the fix I initially got a layer that was 0.1mm too thin, and after power cycle, I got one that was thicker than it should be. With the fix, the initial layer is about where it should be and stays the same before and after power cycling. This also has the fix for the start of print priming, and the also does the 20mm retraction at the end of printing (and now as an added bonus doesn't try to do the retract if you abort during the heat up phase). The code is here: https://github.com/illuminarti/SecretMarlin/commit/4079f0f2d690e5330f6f41311dce439ece52506b A hex file to test is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/muppb7wev5afjs7/Marlin_UM2_Leveling_Fix.hex Thanks to Steve and Anders for doing most of the heavy lifting on this one.

I have the code changed. Just need to test it in the morning, and then I'll post a hex file again for people to play with.