illuminarti

The biggest issue here is that the print has shifted. Assuming it didn't come loose from the bed, then the problem is down to the motor skipping steps and/or pulleys shifting. In particular it looks like there is a shift in the y-axis direction, so check the pulleys and belts for that. Double-check that all the pulley set screws are tight. It's a good idea to use a permanent marker to make a mark on the pulley and axis (or motor shaft) adjacent to it, so that you can tell if the pulley ever slips. Also, power the printer off, and move the head by hand. It should move with just fingertip pressure on each sliding block in the pair. Compare how x and y move. See if there are any tight spots. If it's hard to move, try loosening the end caps over the axes. Also grab the printhead and move it back and forth quickly, first in one axis, then the other. Look at the short belts as they reverse direction, and look for any signs of twisting. They should run smoothly along the same path in both directions, and if you squint at them, you shouldn't really be able to tell that they're moving (apart from any writing on the belts moving). If they are twisting that could be because the pulleys aren't in a line with one another, or because the belt is catching on the frame of the printer. Either can add resistance, and cause the motors to skips steps occasionally, causing the print to gradually shift layer-by-layer. Finally don't forget to lubricate the axes and cross-rods with some light oil, like sewing machine oil.

Ultigcode expresses the E coordinates in cubic mm; the printer firmware takes care of converting them into linear mm of filament to feed in, based on whatever filament size you specify in the machine.

It's not a build up pressure, I don't think. All things being equal, that would indeed just cause the filament to extrude faster. But it might be a gradual increase in resistance due to e.g., heat spreading into the teflon part, causing either a constriction of the bore, and/or a softening of the PLA that results in greater friction.

Yes, the problem with narrower tapes is that you inevitably end up printing on or near the edges of the strips, and if there are any warping forces causing the print to try and curl, it will pull the edge of the tape up, letting air get underneath, and offering little resistance to the warping. Wider tapes are much quicker to put down, avoid getting edgelines under the print, and give more curl resistance to the extent that you are less likely to be printing near the edges, all things being equal. Also, it helps to wipe the tape down with isopopyl alcohol prior to printing - it makes the print stick better to the tape, and I think it helps the tape stick better to the bed.

No need to remove the bed from the printer. Just move it down a little bit (often it's easier to power off the printer, and jsut turn the z-screw by hand), and then pull off the damaged strips of tape, and put some new ones in their place. Overall, you will get better results by using the widest tape that you can find; the narrow tape that UM supplies is a pain to use and isn't very resistant to print warping because the edges lift. Buy yourself some 3 or 6 inch blue tape instead.

But then it got damaged shipping it back to California, so I gave him another one :-)

Mostly it looks like you are just printing a bit too fast, so the plastic doesn't have time to cool. You might do better printing something a bit larger. To improve the extrusion at the start of the print, try changing the last few lines of the start gcode in cura to look like this: G1 Z15.0 F{travel_speed} ;move the platform down 15mm G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length G1 F60 E6 ;extrude 6mm of feed stock slowly G4 P2000 ;pause 2 seconds G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again G1 F{travel_speed} ;Put printing message on LCD screen M117 Printing... This will prime more plastic through the head at the start, and then pause 2 seconds to allow you to grab the excess plastic before it gets dragged into the print (Needle-nosed tweezers are a great investment for this). Also, the circular disk on the nozzle's brass tube is supposed to be up against the underside of the PEEK part.

Some photos would be helpful at this point, but I think the forum photo upload is broken, so perhaps share them via drop box or something. Show some examples of the first layer going down. Also, please show photos of your loaded extruder assembly and nozzle.

If the nozzle is hot, it's going to continue to leak plastic. So, the head will be empty when the print starts, and it will take some time to fill it back up and repressurize it before the print starts to extrude. Do you have an ulticontroller, or are you printing over USB?

When you load the filament, push it through the tube until it goes into the nozzle, and plastic starts extruding. Then lock the tension clamp on the back of the extruder. When setting up a print, you should do several passes of 'skirt' around the print (at least 3) so that there is time for the plastic to fill up the head before the print proper starts. You might also modify the start gcode to extrude a bit more before the print starts, to be sure the head has been filled with plastic.

When leveling the bed, the nozzle should be touching the bed. When trying to extrude plastic by hand, the nozzle should not be touching the bed, otherwise there is no way for the filament to get out. But, if the filament is still moving when you turn the wheel, but it isn't coming out of the nozzle then you haven't fed it all the way into the nozzle yet. It's not particularly compressible; if its moving, then it is moving into empty space in the nozzle.

When you turn the gear, is the filament moving? What is happening during those twenty seconds? It's a closed system - you can't move the filament for twenty seconds without it coming out of the nozzle, unless it hasn't even made it to the nozzle yet. If the filament isn't moving, then stop turning, because all you are doing is wearing away the filament by turning the extruder gear when the filament isn't going anywhere. What temperature are you heating the nozzle up to before you turn the gear?

Cleaning the hot end of PLA is usually just as simple as heating it up, and then using a paper towel to wipe off the melted PLA. When assembling the head, you need to screw the brass tube up against the PEEK part, and then screw the nozzle into the block until there's about one turn of thread left until it's tight. Then screw the brass tube down into the aluminum block until it just runs up against the end of the nozzle thread. Then finish orienting it all in the head, and then use that last turn of slack in the nozzle threads to make sure that the nozzle tube is tight up against the brass tube. It's ok to end up with the nozzle not quite touching the block. The extrusion system is pretty simple - it's a tube with a hot bit at the end. There's really no where for the plastic to go for twenty seconds. Maybe it was temporarily blocked, but if the filament now comes out of the nozzle when you heat up the nozzle and turn the big extruder gear, then you are good to go.

It's been mentioned by other users on other threads. UM is aware of it, and hopefully they'll get it fixed soon.

Looking at the gcode the Nicolinux provided... it's exactly correct. the infill lines on the top are spaced 0.57mm apart along the edges of the square, which is the correct distance to give a perpendicular separation of 0.4mm, given that the lines are angled at 45º to the edges. The extrusion amount for each line is exactly correct for a 0.2mm layer height, and 0.4mm extrusion width.

Probably not, no.

Here is fine. If you save the gcode from a 'QuickPrint' mode slicing, you can change into 'Full Settings' mode, and then use the 'File -> Load profile from gcode' menu item on that file to read all the settings back in.

It sounds like there is a problem with your screen and/or ulticontroller board. The earlier problems make me think it might be more than just the screen, but perhaps when the screen was failing it was shorting something out and upsetting the rest of the functionality. I'd recommend you put in a ticket at support.ultimaker.com, and paste a link to this thread.

Does the button still work - if you rotate it and click it, does it beep, as if clicking on (invisible) things on the screen? The next thing I would check is that the tiny ribbon cable from the screen to the ulticontroller board behind it is connected properly. The assembly guide that nicolinux linked to above will help with that. Take the electronics board off carefully, and slide the screen out. Then check that the ribbon cable is inserted evenly into the the retaining clip; the bar on the front of the socket slides out parallel to the board, towards the edge of the board: grip the ends of the bar with you finger nail to slide it out.

Most likely one of the ribbon cables that runs between the two electronics boards is loose. Take off both covers, and make sure that they are seated properly at both ends.

Welcome, Stormclad! We look forward to hearing more about what you make with your new printer.

I've seen a few printers that are roughly correct at room temperature, but off by about 10% at normal printing temps. This can make the difference between completing the extrusion test happily at 10mm³/s, and failing at 7 or 8mm³/s. I'm not sure however if this is something that degrades over time.

Leon - sorry to hear that you're having ongoing issues... I sent you a PM with some suggestions.

How to add images.... http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4525-how-to-upload-an-image-to-the-forum/

I sounds like it might be a problem with the end stop underneath the printer at the back that senses when the bed is at the bottom. I saw something similar jsut yesterday on a printer with some PLA jammed down into the little hole. above the switch. Can you check whether there is anything stuck there that prevents the lever on the switch from operating? When you press the lever, do you hear the switch click?