ediblepoly

I am wondering if anyone has ever injected another material inside their hollow PLA prints to give them more weight, opaqueness and strength? Is there something that I could get at the hardware or hobby store that is liquid but dries solid and won't expand, crack or damage the PLA?

Thanks mr_seeker. Breaking it down into steps really helped. It now prints great! I printed out a couple test objects and then a low poly character model. Next I'll tinker with the settings to see what sort of quality I can get. Its really fun watching the Ultimaker work

Thanks for the help. I think I got mixed up because the options appear to be in different places. I found the "Edit Slicing Profiles" menu. I completely missed this before because I was looking for it after I clicked the "Generate GCode" button. I am still unable to print the test object. Here's what I am doing. I think this is right according to my interpretation of the instructions, but I'm not sure. I use the control panel to put the nozzle right at the blue tape near the center of the platform. I set the temperature to 215 degrees for PLA. I close the control panel, then click the build button. It regenerates the GCode and while this happens I can see the temp monitor drop to about 183 before I get to an error message that I bypass to start its printing. (Can you print without regenerating the GCode each time?) It drops the platform about 3cm, then the extrude gear rotates CCW for awhile. The PLA is not moving since its already against the nozzel, but the gear moves nonetheless. Then the extruder rotates backwards a little and this seems pulls the PLA away from the nozzle. Is this extruder movement normal? The platform rises. Then it starts the print pattern, but nothing is coming out (which is expected because it pulled away the plastic from the nozzle). Its about 1mm above the platform at this time. This is higher than I set the zero point to be. Sometimes I can get it to extrude plastic if I manually open the feeder and push up on the PLA, but at this point, the plastic is too high to stick to the paper. The errors I get before printing are: [18] ReplicatorG doesn't recognize GCode 'M113 S1.0' [18] ReplicatorG doesn't recognize GCode 'M113 S0.0' I notice that you cannot use same control panel once the build starts, but do I need to set the temperature in the "Real time control and tuning" screen as well? It always defaults to 200 here even though I set it to 210-215 in the controls before printing. Is there a way to maintain the temperature monitor through the build? >> find the M109 Sxxx, where xxx stands for the temperature in degrees Where is this set at? Thanks

I am trying to follow the instructions here at http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Newcomer_guid ... t_3D_print I am new to this and don't fully understand the process of generating gcode and printing objects. I am trying to print the first test object by following the instructions as closely as possible. At “Step 4: Generating Gcode” most of these steps are confusing and don’t reflect what I see in ReplicatorG. Are these instructions referring to different software? I am using ReplicatorG Ultimaker Edition – 0034. I have the 0.5mm thin wall test object open and am trying to print it. Here are the steps from the wiki page and my comments. The quoted steps have >> in front of them. >> In the GCode - choose GCode generator menu, select Skeinforge 35 >> in the model window, click on the "Generate GCode button” I followed these steps successfully. >> select the profile " Skeinforge 35 Ultimaker - Quality print" I don’t see this option. In the “slicing profile” pulldown, all I see is “PLA-Ultimaker-failsave-v1” >> The profile needs to be adjusted for the first batch of ultimakers. >> click "edit". This will open skeinforge. Where is this edit button? >> find the "speed" button. It's somewhere at the bottom row of all the buttons. I don’t see a speed button anywhere. >> set Feed rate (mm/s) to 50 I see this and changed it from 40 to 50. >> set Flow rate (mm/s) to 50 or slightly higher (depending on the thickness of the filament) I can’t find a flow rate box anywhere. >> Click "Save all" I don’t see a save all button. >> Close the Skeinforge window. This window is called “Generate Gcode”, not “Skeinforge” >> Click "Generate" in the profile selection window. the Gcode will now be generated. There is a “Generate Gcode” button in the “Generate Gcode” window, I assume this is what that is referring to. I click it and it takes about 10 seconds or so to generate the Gcode. Later when I click the “Build” button, it seems to generate this Gcode all over again, which is confusing to me. Isn’t it already generated? Then it brings up a Gcode Warning message saying that the pre-run check has found some potentially problematic Gcode, etc. Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

Thanks for your help guys! I think its working now and I’ll try to print something soon. I initially tried unplugging the USB, waiting, restarting RepG, etc. and couldn’t get it to work. I am using version 0034. I downloaded the older RepG version 0024-r3 and ran it. With 0024, I was able to connect and control the machine. I updated the firmware (Marlin 1.0.0 release candidate 1) and it says it succeeded. Is this the firmware I should be using? I don’t know which is the best one. If I connect now though the console says a lot of Unknown: garbage text. I can't seem to connect anymore in RepG 0024 now that the new firmware is installed. RepG 0024 seems hung up and I had to close it using the task manager. I open RepG 0034. I changed the driver to Sprinter/Marlin. Then clicked turn on. The bar above is green and it seems to be connected. The controls work. I'll post if I have any more issues.

I have recently assembled my new Ultimaker, but cannot figure out how to update the firmware. I have Netfabb and ReplicatorG. Using Netfabb, I can connect to my Ultimaker using COM3 and use the USB controls. The nozzle moves with the arrow keys and the platform works with the page up/down keys. The button to update the firmware is grayed out, but other than that, Netfabb seems to be working with my Ultimaker. However, ReplicatorG has problems connecting to my Ultimaker and I cannot update the firmware through it. When I open up RepG I get a “New Firmware Available” message box. It says “a newer version (1.0) of the Ultimater - Arduino Mega Shield v1.5.X (Mega 2560 only) firmware is now available...Please select the right driver when changing from 5D to Marlin”. I click okay. Then another message says “Old firmware detected! Firmware version 0.1 detected; firmware version 1.0 required.” I go to the menu Machine > Firmware Upgrade and choose “Ultimaker - Arduino Mega Shield v1.5.X (Mega 2560 only)”. Then on the next page I need to choose the firmware version to install. Of the four choices, I picked “Marlin 1.0.0 release candidate 1”. Then I pick COM3. Then finally I click the Upload button and it immediately says “Upload Failed: The firmware update did not succeed. Check the console for details...” This message comes up really fast as if it didn’t even try. There doesn’t appear to be anything relevant in the console. I tried this again with other cards and firmware version but get the same issue. It seems like ReplicatorG is still not connected to the Ultimaker as all the buttons are grayed out except “GCode” and “Turn On”. When I click Turn On this time it says “Connection error: Serial port 'COM3' already in use. Try quitting any programs that may be using it.” Nothing else is using COM3. Any ideas on what I’m doing wrong?