LePaul

A little follow up on this! I had a great phone conversation with GR5 about the print head bowden tube troubles. After checking how everything was connecting and the fact I could (potentially) lift the machine by the tube as its connected...that seems to be OK. The problem is the speed of print and pressures. I have done two more prints since we checked out everything and those worked fine (minus the second one where the filament broke apart in the extruder) So far so good

I've never been able to find this in the manual / wiki so I thought I would ask here... Last night I did a Torture Test print. It got to about 90% and the PLA material broke inside the extruder, just above the feeder/drive mechanism. It was a little tricky getting the remaining PLA out. Recalling what GR5 and others had posted elsewhere, I heated the print head to 185. Since I couldn't get at the remaining PLA from in the extruder, I removed the Bowden tube retaining clip I had printed and the was able to pull the Bowden tube off. That gave me access to the PLA and pull it out of the print head. With all the talk of clogs and "boogers", I was looking for the proper procedure to "prime" the print head. Should I heat to 250C and let whatever is remaining in the printhead drain out? Or should I assume that everything came out with the remaining PLA? (It had sat in the machine, off, for 6 hours) Next...putting the material back in. First, PLA is the most awful "Slinky" to work with. It doesn't seem to like to be on the spool. Last time, I just set the spool on the floor and let it pull up the filament as it printed. But since I had that breakage, that won't work. Second...am I the only person who nearly goes insane trying to make the PLA slide into the extruder and into the bowden tube? It is always a struggle! But...the material is in, the extruder is clamped shut. I heated to 220 and kept manually feeding (rotating the extruder gear) until I had PLA oozing thru. When the oozing ceased, I assumed the mat!)achine was "primed" Is that how it should be? If not, can something be documented and placed in the documentation/wiki? That would really be a good checklist item to have printed out (something us pilots are very used to!)

Ah someone is printing their own R2-D2 parts! Nice to see a fellow builder in here Paul https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pauls-R2-D2/433737735192

There's a lot of really old stuff on Thingiverse for the Ultimaker that made me wonder what's relevant and what isn't (or perhaps outdated ?)

Great to see some progress with this

Great idea! Anytime...the bus goes to Logan daily

Mark do you have an Ultimaker 1 or 2? I still haven't repaired my setup since I can't print any of the suggested fixes

BaasB tell me about the print head/feed system mod you have there. My Ultimaker keeps blowing off the bowden tube and while there are a few ideas I have yet to try (since I can't print them!), I was curious about what you have done.

Sorry I haven't been as active here as I wanted to be. Work, Halloween, charity work...but anyways, I am back! The situation I am in is I can't really print (reliably) and solutions at the moment! I mean, as an alternative, I can CNC something out of aluminum on the machine I have access too.

I don't think I have a blockage but it doesn't hurt to check...but what I am noticing is that the blue collar piece doesn't seem to really do anything. I haven't had a chance to mess with the machine much this week, with school finals and several Halloween/Charity events with my R2-D2 replica As mentioned earlier, I'm not convinced the white collar piece has a good "grip" and wonder if I should resemble the other end, where I have applied the shim? For example, see this pic Note how the top of the clamp is lifted upwards. Should this be how it looks on the other end above the print head? If so, I can try shimming it some more and make that will give me the hold I need

I'm a little frustrated this keeps happening to me. I wish there was a better fix

I agree completely, Thingiverse was very appealing for me at first but the sheer amount of very old files and , well, landfill, is pretty obvious. I'm also finding GrabCAD.com is a neat place to find drawings for projects I would love to print someday. To that end, the drawing to done and all I have to do is tweak and figure out how to print

I'm printing at 215 to 220 C on my prints. Is the Bowden tube a specific tube itself? Could I replace this with something found at a hardware store? I don't see any marks on the tube on the teflon end or where it is clamped into place with the blue piece. Alternatively, can a clamp like that used to control the movement from the extruder be used on this end?

Well I am having this problem again specifically with the silver PLA After a few prints with the blue PLA (2.8mm), I wanted to use the silver PLA again for a few prints (2.9mm) No sooner had I loaded it into the machine, the bowden tube popped off the print head (teflon tube). The blue piece was still attached up top, so that's not doing anything :( I know Barnacules made a piece to deal with this... ...but I know Sander had some worries about diameter of the clamp and heat. Any other ideas?

So I have a co-worker who is a very dedicated STAR TREK fan He has been after me to print an original series phaser We found great CAD files on GrabCAD http://grabcad.com/library/star-trek-phaser Using Solid Works I converted the STEP file... It looks very very cool! I saved it as an STL and fired up Cura I had to move it around a lot to fit the platform but having never done anything like this, have no idea of this would print Clearly a lot of the print would have issues printing.... So, guide me! How would one tackle something like this?

No R2D2 sound? I can fix that...allow me to show off a little

I agree, I have three cats, all resuced from shelters. They are getting old now (14, 13 and 9) but are great companions. They cautiously watch the Ultimaker do its work, sitting on the chair and quietly observing.

That's why I am so, so curious to see what others are printing with the dual extruder option! http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3072-dual-is-out-lets-see-it-in-action/

I gave up on the filament coming off the spool gently a week ago. I'd hear the SPROINNNNNG and plastic crinkle of PLA popping off the spool and causing all sorts of neat knots. Now I have it on the floor under the table, so it gently pulls upward and gravity tends to reduce the tangling I was seeing.

I'm curious why you used 230c ?

I push it as far as it'll go...so I imagine its getting in there before I manually crank the extruder. However it does take a bit to force thru the previous filament that was in there~ Sometimes, as the two mix, you get some neat colors (silver-ish blue is neat!)

I didn't see much info on how to remove filament so I heat (Ulticontroller) to 190, open the extruder clamp ,pull the filment all the way out...then insert the new filament I wish to use. I press it all the way in then close the extruder. I gently rotate the extruder manually until I see the color of the new filament appear. I hope I'm doing it right

Asides kidnapping Daid's cat and holding it hostage, I think you have a few weeks to go :cool: :mrgreen: