will_57

Are the stepper drivers the only parts on the PCB that could potentially be damaged, or are there other components that I should test?

It appears that I have broken some (or all) of my printer's electronics. I just installed the dual extruder upgrade, and I made the mistake of installing the stepper driver incorrectly, where I was off by one pin. When I powered on the printer, it must have short circuited, since the power supply shut itself off after a few seconds. Also, the electronics fan was running at a noticeably slower speed. When I opened up the electronics, I saw the mistake I made and moved the stepper driver to the correct position. I powered the printer on again, and the fan ran at normal speed for a few seconds, util it slowed down suddenly. However, the printer did not short circuit itself, so I connected the USB cable to my computer. The printer did not connect, so I followed the instructions on the wiki and tried disconnecting the Arduino from the main electronics board and connecting it to three different computers, but none of them recognized the Arduino. This leads me to believe that the Arduino is broken, but I suppose it's possible that the main electronics board was damaged as well. So, my questions are, is there any way to know if my electronics board was damaged? Additionally, do I have to purchase the Arduino through Ultimaker? I can get what looks like the same part http://www.amazon.com/SainSmart-Board-Arduino-Robot-Duemilanove/dp/B00761NDCI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389222842&sr=8-2&keywords=arduino+2560 for about 1/3 of the price, but I don't know if the one in the Ultimaker store comes pre-installed with firmware that I wouldn't easily be able to install myself. Thanks! William

Check that all of the pulleys are screwed on tight, including the ones on the small belts and the ones on the stepper motors. I once had exactly the same problems (funnily enough, while printing out the same belt tensioner) because of a loose pulley, but I didn't notice it until it got so loose that movement in the Y direction stopped completely.

I just switched to the red PLA, and literally every problem I was having before has been resolved. I printed out one of the small gears as a test, and it turned out perfect. Thanks!

All of the PLA I have came with my Ultimaker that I got 6 months ago. I just measured my two rolls, and the silver PLA I have varies from about 2.80mm to 3.15mm in diameter. I also have a roll of red PLA which is a little more consistent: about 2.95mm to 3.05mm in diameter. Should I give the red filament a try, or is the diameter still to varied to work well?

I haven't given the spring extruder upgrade a try, and I'm using Ultimaker silver PLA. I also haven't noticed any slipping, but I'll at least try turning down the speed a bit.

I've been trying to print out a Screwless Gear Cube, but I've been having issues getting my Ultimaker to extrude properly. Namely, midway through a print, it has a tendency to have a very sparse extrusion on the outer walls, as seen below. This problem is very unpredictable, though. It is usually just confined to a few layers of a print, as it is here. Also, sometimes it does not effect all of the outer walls of a print. (For example: if I try to print some square object, only one or two of the faces might be affected.) It tends to be localized, and it usually fixes itself by the time the print is completed. There are some other issues with the extrusion as well, such as the blobs on the side of the print, but I think the sparse extrusion is more annoying, since it can't easily be cleaned from a completed print. Because of this, I was wondering, what might be causing these issues with the extrusion? Are there some settings in Cura that might be causing this, or is there something wrong with the printer?

A cuckoo clock in my house recently had one of its plastic hands snap while being adjusted. Glue didn't hold up for long, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to use the Ultimaker to print replacement hands. The broken hand looked like this: I then scanned the parts, and used Inkscape to make a .dxf version of the image: After a simple extrusion and running the model through Cura, The result is this: I might paint this so it matches the original more closely, but it's otherwise good as new. The process was amazingly quick; from the time that the hand broke to the time it was put on the clock was just one and a half hours!

The tube took about one week to arrive.

My Ultimaker that I ordered about 2 months ago and that arrived about 1 month ago had the issue with the switches needing to be swapped.

So, I contacted support about the issue, and they sent me a new bowden tube. It arrived today, so I tested the tube, and the friction of filament passing through it was significantly lower. After installing it in the machine, I started a print, and ran into no flow issues. However, it started becoming misaligned in the Y axis, and even skipped a few mm on one layer. I knew my belts had always been a bit on the loose side, so I printed some belt tensioners and installed them in the machine. After trying the print a second time, two problems arose. The print was still getting misaligned in the Y direction, and it again ran into flow issues after 10 layers or so. I checked and there is no blockage in the extruder, and the bowden tube is no longer an issue. I can now see that there is some PLA that is leaking out between the PEEK and the aluminum block, as well as between the aluminum block and the nozzle. I'm guessing this is most likely what is causing the issue, so how should I go about taking apart the hot end, and what needs to be fixed now?

I followed your suggestion for removing the plug in the hot end and attempted a print. Once again, the first few layers printed fine, but then I began running into flow issues again. I cancelled the print and removed the hot end expecting another plug, but there was none. So, your suggestion did fix all issues with the hot end, but now there must be some other problem with the feed mechanism. It is extremely difficult to feed material through by hand, so I'm guessing this is an issue with the bowden tube being defective. Is there anything else that could cause these problems?

I get the feeling that this might have been caused by a combination of both of the problems you described. I followed the first suggestion and took apart the hot end. Removing the solidified filament from the hot end revealed that the bowden tube was about 2mm short of how far it was supposed to be inserted into the hot end. I then took out the bowden tube to test how easily filament passes through it. I can push filament through with one hand, but it certainly is not loose. The tube will not slide along the filament with gravity alone. Is this what it is supposed to be like?

Hello everyone, I just attempted a first print. It was supposed to 20mm test box, but after printing about 3 or 4 layers just fine, something seemed to begin blocking the extruder, as the flow rate began to drop until it completely stopped extruding material. I cancelled the build and tried printing the box a second time, but the extruder still wasn't extruding. Now, it has reached a point that I can't even get it to extrude anything, even pushing the material by hand. Is it possible that the extruder managed to get blocked this quickly? If so, what must be done to fix the issue? Thanks, William