jcosmo

The M0 won't move the head away from the print so I presume you'll have to edit the GCode and add that before the M0, so that you can safely change colour and prime the head without getting plastic all over your print, and then have GCode to return to the correct place after the M0, although this will probably happen anyway if the next command is a start of a layer. ,

I'd replace step 8 for a beginner with "print from Cura using the print model button", Although these days I use print run most of the time.

Hi, I've managed to lose the grub screw from one of the pulleys on the the non-driven rod for my Y axis. I've no idea when it came out and only noticed because during a semi-regular check of the machine that the pulley was able to move along the rod. Has anyone else sourced one of these in the past and if so then do you know the size & thread details, or is the quicker solution to just get a replacement pulley? Cheers, James.

Retraction isn't always great, at least for me (I've a slightly screwy UM with a non-standard ID bowden tube). - It always leaves some traces as it arrives at the point where it 'recovers' from the retraction, - It results in a greater chance of a plug inside the bowden, - With a stock feed mechanism (as I have at the moment) there is always a chance of grinding the filament, - It's damn noisy That said I've had a fair success with retraction so don't use this idea all the time, but when I do I'm usually very happy with the resulting object.

Yes - I've been editing the gcode myself to make sure that, for more complex objects, the head doesn't collide with what's already printed. Obviously it requires some thought as to the orientation of the piece on the platform, and to which bits get printed first. A tool which allowed you to carve up a design, based on when layers required travel outside the model, would perhaps be an aid in doing this.

You should not randomly change you steps per E, use Curas configuration wizard to reset it properly. It sounds like you have other problems, not over feeding, which is pretty much impossible without a misconfigured step per E value. Packing, for PLA, should be 1. I'm not sure of the filament density value, never fiddled with it sorry.

Experimenting with merging gcode from several slicings. In this case the base printed and then the two pillars were printed one after the other, entirely completing one pillar before moving to the other. End result is no stringing, and also no retraction which means I get a more consistent rate of flow. Would be nice if there was a facility in the slicers to do this - although I'm putting in my own code each time to safely move from one part to another and arrive in a 'non-visible' location if possible, so any blobs left by bringing the flow up to speed again are hidden.

I also experienced deformation of the end of the bowden. I _may_ have had too much pressure due to over-tightening the 4 screws - pretty understandable when you are a new user and trying to stop plugs. Unfortunately over-tightening probably increases the chance of the white clip giving way. I was only printing at 210, although there is all the unknown inaccuracy in the temperature measurement - and I don't have a reliable way to measure the temperature via a different device. This is the first I've heard of having to trim the bowden on a regular basis though - does anyone else do this?

I'd lower the temperature, 230 is quite hot for PLA. I saw a process for working out the "right" temperature for a particular piece of filament, posted by Joergon here : viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1253#p7731 I must admit I don't follow it religiously, I tend to just use 210 To stop leaks you can use the piece of ABS that came with your kit - run it through the printer at 260 degrees. It will melt and fill all the gaps, and from then on when you are printing PLA you don't get hot enough to melt it, and thus don't leak. To make your first layer stick better, lots of hints around. Mainly make sure your bed is level and the Z end stop is set correctly, so that you get a good adhesion to the blue tape. There are a couple of nice things that can aid with this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19912 Printing your first layer a little hotter, and a little thicker can help, don't enable cooling. When I was starting out I used to try using rafts, I've given them up as a bad idea, when you have the Z height set correctly you get good adhesion, and I've printed bolts over 6cm tall with nothing more than a 6mm "head" attached to the bed. You can also, when using Cura, fiddle with the 'start gcode' to trick the printer into thinking the 0 Z position is actually 0.2 (or higher), and thus push the print closer to the bed. Printing over a large area is always problematic, even with PLA, and you'll get curling in the corners as your print gets higher, but you should be able to get the first layer to stick well regardless. Printing in a warm place can help with curling after the first layer - I don't know if anyone has tried enclosing their printer to aid in this? The best mod for solving this is to add a heated bed (so I'm told - I don't have one, yet).

I just divide the price I paid for a spool by the amount on the spool, nothing special. If its been sold by the meter then I enter the price per meter, if it was sold as a "by weight" spool then I calculate and enter the price per Kg.

+1

There have been some posts from UM on the google group regarding this recently. Erik posted this: A few days was later updated to be the coming UltiEvening on Monday.

Are you in Melbourne?

Hi, I bought tubing from swagelok in the end - 1/4"OD, 0.047" walls - this is closer to a 4mm ID, which is larger than the original. They were the $17/m people. They have a 0.062" wall variant (in theory 3.2mm), but get them to test it before you buy it, because the piece they offered me was closer to 3mmID. Their site only sells it by the 100ft, but I phoned them and they were willing to just sell me smaller bits. With respect to cutting it - be very sure you have to before you do - realistically I should never have had to cut mine. Be wary when putting the machine back together after a plug not to overtighten the bolts on the hot end and thus put unnecessary upwards pressure on the tube - in my case I did this and I suspect this was what caused the tube to deform over the last few centimetres.

Now you've got me going back to look at the markings on my filament in more detail

Good point. Any update on how it's been going? I've not found Owen's clamp to be 100%, so it might slip over time, but this will, at most?, cause a minor flow decrease for the period of the bowden movement and nothing else.

For me it has been a case of just not over tightening the adjustment bolt on the stock feeder. I've perhaps been lucky with the quality of the filament I got when I bought the UM, and have not bought any more since. I do intend to build one of the others at some point though

I don't consider 70 slow I've not had this problem, but a lot of people do when using the stock drive mechanism. It is very intolerant to changes in the diameter of the filament. You could try backing off the tension screw on the drive a whisker, but then you might get slippage if the filament has a thin spot. If you are watching a print and notice the grinding you could try to adjust it on the fly and add a little manual extrusion help to get it past the point of grinding. Long term your best bet is to produce an alternate drive. There are a number on thingiverse, and posted here. Bertho and chopmeister both have one. Their designs are much more tolerant of filament change due to a bearing and spring mechanism.

Your only way to reliably check for a plug is to take apart the hot end. I've had ones where manual extrusion still worked, but whilst printing the flow is just too small. You only have to undo e four large screws and lower the peek away from the tube, not take the whole hot end apart. Read the wiki page before you begin. Once you have it back together put a small mark on your Bowden just where it passes through the top piece of wood of the hot end, then you can later monitor to see if it's slipped and thus almost certainly has a plug.

I ad exactly the same problem, with just the very end of the tube suddenly being only 3mm ID. Never solved it, maybe too much heat? Was supposed to only be 210 though. Stupidly cut off too much of the tube and ended up sourcing a replacement in Australia.

Likely that your pulleys are slipping, check their grub screws are done up tightly to the rods. Large single layer slipping like that is more than just loose belts.

I've seen comments that the UM stock silver can be problematic, I've a roll I've only just started so can't be sure. It's don a couple of 1.5 hour prints without problems though.

I don't see that this is a long term solution. The space/gap in the Bowden is just going to make slippage in the standard Bowden clamp even easier.

When I cut my tube too short I just moved the x and y end stops until I got a replacement tube. It cut about 5 cm off both dimensions, but I didn't find it limiting as I rarely print anything that fills the bed.

I think both have offices in multiple states. Swagelok.com had it for 17/m I think, and phillro.com.au for 27ish. I've the contacts for the Melbourne offices if you want them but you migt try them locally in Perth first I got 1/4" OD, 0.047 walls from swagelok yesterday, their 0.062 walled tube should in theory have given a 3.2mm ID but it measured at 3mm. The 0.047 walls give an ID of closer to 4mm, which might be bad during retraction, I shall see. $15 per meter. I also picked up a bulkhead coupling from them, which I hope to use as a clamp at the top of the hot end.