jcosmo

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

Interestingly I had exactly the same problem with the same model. As Daid said, it was due to under extrusion, possibly due to printing a bit too cool for the speed, or possibly because I'd just put in a new roll of filament which I should have measured the diameter of. I'm trying slic3r next time I print it because it allows for a few more settings in terms of speed and layer count on 'top' areas. Ideally I'd love to be able to have one profile for part of the object and another profile for another part. In the cube for example the bulk of it can be done quite fast and with minimal fill, but I'd like to change the top 20 layers or so to be printed more slowly and at a different fill. I don't know if Curas project planer can do this. If not I could post process the GCode, or merge two different gcode files produced at the two different settings. Anyone else doing this?

I posted somewhere else that I've found a couple of companies in melbourne who will sell it between 17 and 27 per metre. Not sure where you are in aus though. I've not yet tried I for quality, though I hope to get a chance next week.

Yes, that was my concern, so good to know. I've found a company in Melbourne that sells PFA tubing, up to 260 degrees, 1/4 inch OD, 3.2 mm ID, at about $27 a metre. It also seems they will sell it by the metre. Another crowd is in the process of confirming they can do it at $17, and they have confirmed they will do it I'm small quantities. If anyone wants the details let me know.

There is a way you can accidentally get an incorrect value for the steps per E when using the calibration feature of Cura. If you run it through from the start of the wizard it goes fine the first time, but if you adjust the value and retry the 100mm, adjust and repeat, then it gets confused somehow. Or something like that. I reproduced this a number of times but as I had a workaround I didn't chase it,or report it formally in the Cura repo. Interestingly I think it kept making the number progressively smaller by half, not multiplying by 100

I'd be interested, although I will keep you up to date with my attempt to buy shorter lengths here in Melbourne. I'm trying to source PFA rather than PFTE. There is a local shop that thinks they have some, but they are only open 8:30->4:30 weekdays, so having trouble getting there. I'm also a little hestitant to buy large amounts until we see the next hot end, which UM support keep hinting at in all their emails to me at the moment.

I have not tried changing the nozzle size in Cura. Is it something that should be fiddled with, or should it always be set to the size of the real nozzle?

Isn't Teflon PFTE, not PFA? Meaning it doesn't do as well at higher temperatures? I've seen some ppl say they are using PFTE, anyone care to comment on its effectiveness?

I've found 3 possible companies in Melbourne, currently trying to confirm quality and sizes. One wants to sell it to me in 20 m rolls . Another is very local and about 17 dollars a metre, but doesn't have much variety.

My OD was certainly wrong, speaking with UM support it is "about" 6mm, so maybe it's not metric...

Re your comment on replacing your Bowden with a 4mm ID tube. I'm interested in trying that also and was wondering where you sourced it, and what the OD is? Thanks for any help, James

When you say "not round" are you saying you get ovals, or that the circle consists of a bunch of straight sides and thus you get polygons? Your photos seem, to me, to be highlighting the second option - that you are getting flats on the insides of your circles. This is explainable as possibly a problem in your model. All circles are printed as many sided polygons and perhaps your models just don't have enough sides to hide the flats. I've no idea what a good value is, but I put 100 sides on most circles. By tightening our belts your printer could be more accurate and thus better able to render the corners between flats, where in the past they just rounded out due to inaccuracy.

My situation got a bit more urgent recently when I managed to somehow ruin the end of the Bowden cable when a plug happened early in an unattended print. This resulted in having to remove several cm of the tube, making it too short to reach the 0,0 position. UM support is being very helpful, but shipping the replacement tubing most of the way around the world costs crazy amounts, so I'm trying to source some locally in Australia. I'm not sure how many other Australians we have on the forum, but has anyone found a supplier for this in the past? I understand it's a 3.2mm ID, 5mm OD tube, PFA up to 260 degrees, 67cm long, though to my thinking and extra cm or two wouldn't hurt, esp if using Owens clamp which adds height to the hot end.

I'm using these at the moment. I find that the ones for the y-axis occasionally hit the belt blocks (I've shaved a bit off them with a knife to decrease this) and also rest against the underside of the top of the cage. Still they make the belts nice and tight

Someone posted this somewhere - sorry to not credit the right person - It's a PDF of the KS settings for an Ultimaker. (Can't attach PDFs to the post - doh): http://tinyurl.com/7n4k9r7 I'm not sure I agree with the massive improvement with KISSlicer. This thread made me try it and I've got some very nice edges with it, but I prefer Cura's fill options, and Cura also seemed to give me better top/bottom, although I might have been trying KS whilst I had a nasty plug.

I've had the printhead vanish off in strange directions when the pulleys are not properly screwed onto the drive rods.

This is my latest, I use it as a bit of a test print at the moment because I'm trying to make it work It's one of those spinners you use in board games like Articulate, which we inevitably break after playing enough times, because you have to flick them pretty hard. You can't tell from this print, but the pillar in the centre has a narrow portion (2.2mm) and a slightly larger knob on the top (2.3mm). This one was done with Cura at 0.15 layers, which had a problem with the thin portion of the pillar, too much plastic coming out. A few questions for the more knowledgeable: 1 - It's hard to tell, but the 'from above' picture shows that the two halves of the large circle are not directly aligned. Different slicers make no difference to this - Cura was better than KISSlicer - though I should rotate the model 90 degrees and try again to prove it's a model or slicing problem rather than a printer problem. 2 - too much goop in the pillar - I had a minimum flow limit set to 5mm (default?), perhaps that was the problem. Also of interest was the minimum layer time (10s), which seemed to be ignored for the pillar. Does anyone have any hints for tricks when moving from large areas of fill to small bits, as occurs in this case?

I'm printing the clamp, just thought the idea of the extra clip was quite elegant, esp when combined with something as simple as a pull tie. Also trying the idea of printing with excess bowden through the white clamp and then waiting for a plug to cause the teeth to really bite in. Isn't there some concern with options like the clam that you compress the tube, thus adding friction? @futurejames - yea and for us ppl all the way up here in Aus - no chance Thanks

On that note, wih particular reference to Cura, what options have I got for controlling the number of shells? The nozzle diameter is 0.4 mm, but it can print thinner, though I gather less than 0.3 is considered problematic? I can fiddle with wall thickness, which has an effect in the number of shells, thus should I be setting my wall thicknesses to multiples of 0.4? What happens when I set it to 1 mm? Do I get 2 shells and a bit of fill? Or is Cura smart enough to do two shells of 5mm? I've tried KISSlicer and it produced very nice edges - it allows you yo specify the number of shells - but I much prefer the infill and support settings in Cura

Is anyone able to provide a site where these can be bought? I don't even know what to call the things so I can try searching myself. Mine are ok, but I've seen several people comment on having 2 of them on the bowden as a means of stopping slippage+plugs, and without them you're in a fair bit of trouble so having a spare probably wouldn't hurt. Thanks, James

I'm having fun with plugs at the moment - I printed fine for the first week, but started to have problems after that. I was able to get a seemingly good extrusion for a while and then it would die off. I was able to use printrun to trigger an extrusion, and I was able to hand extrude. Eventually I bit the bullet and took the hot end apart - I'd been hesitant to take it apart in case there wasn't a plug and I was introducing a possibility of one. Turned out there was a plug, about 3mm in height. I've currently got my printer right behind me taken apart again for exactly the same reason, and have a similar plug. It seems that whilst the plug is still small its possible to push an amount of filament through it, but once you start to print, and if you print at all slowly, then you have problems. A hint when re-assembling the hot end, if all you do is push the bowden through the white clip again and then put it back together, then it's going to plug up again, because the teeth in the white clip will already have carved a path for the bowden to slide along. To avoid cutting a bit off the end of the bowden, try the idea of rotating it to give the teeth more purchase?

Hmm - the idea of rotating the bowden, presumably to get the teeth inside the white clip to bite hard, is a new one for me - I might try that next time I have to take everything apart for a plug.

Hmm - this is certainly a 2012 model ( 2.5 weeks old - I suppose I can wipe off the oil Unfortunately I installed the tensioners and oiled it at the same time, so any change in noise I can't attribute exclusively to either one.

Ok, I can see how it shouldn't have an impact on the position of the head, though it can minutely alter the alignment of the belts it carries (x axis) to the rods (drive for y-axis belts) under them. On that point do you have any hints or technique for aligning these, of is close enough generally considered good enough? Whilst tightning the short belts I found 2 of the pulleys had come loose, and have tightened those. one of these I have failed to get tight enough to stop it being able to translate along the rod, am concerned the pulley nut is damaged or has damaged the rod underneath it. Ill take it apart completely this evening. Thanks for all your help, it's got me finding problems much faster than random guessing

I certainly have possible movement front-to-back in the rod that runs front-to-back on the left side of the machine. It's the only one where this is possible and I can only presume it's not a good thing - there seems no good reason to want to have movement in that area. Any hints on what could be done to fix this? Those rods should - lightly - rest against the wood stops I presume, but it's not like I can bring those any closer together. That leaves me with trying to pad the inside of one end or the other :(