calinb

Where did you see this? I only saw $25/month ($300/year!): http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/News-and-Announcements/Pricing-for-Fusion-360-Announced/td-p/3873212

That looks like a nice machine and, given that your projects fall within its size constraints, it should work well for your plans. I have highly a modified mini lathe and mini mill. Many forums and websites are devoted to improving these machines. Assuming you don't have a production schedule to worry about, machining is 90% machinist and only 10% machine! Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do great work on inexpensive Chinese rigs. Doble Troble does amazing work--all on small Chinese machines: http://www.sporterizing.com/index.php?showtopic=3939 http://personal.geeksnet.com/soderstrom/ReamerMaking/HowImakechamberreamers.htm Good luck and have fun with it!

If an object with square sides is rotated by 45 degrees away from square with the bed, the X and Y components of the velocity vectors are reduced by a factor of root-2 over 2. I have noticed significant changes in prints when changing the orientation by 45 degrees.

>Finally got my lasercut parts made at a local shop, but unfortunately I had to go >with MDF for the 6mm parts, which proved to be a bit soft. What? Too lazy to make your own 6mm plywood? You've probably already considered these items but does the head have the same high resistance in both X and Y directions? What happens when you remove the short belts (or just let the pulleys spin freely on their shafts)? How about the same for the long belts? Make sure the head moves very freely without belts and then add the belts. It's easy to have something rub on a belt near a pulley, like a stepper motor wire, and cause resistance. You've made great progress. Quite an accomplishment!

A MakerGear BigHead nozzle http://www.makergear.com/products/nozzles and 36mm heater "barrel" http://www.makergear.com/products/plastruder-replacement-parts are pretty much plug'n'play with the UM, though Joergen and I have posted about our simple mods in the forum, which enable nozzle temps above 260C. Joergen and I both recommend the 0.50mm for ABS. For PLA, you should be fine with the 0.35mm. >Is there any place in Canada or North America that sells the nozzle? Would this be something covered under hardware >failures? I really don't want to ship from the EU for a tiny part.

Yeah--according to the menu design, you have to be an "Expert" to make a vase using Cura!

Haha--perhaps that's a good reason to slot the top end of the lead screw so a screwdriver can be used to turn it through the top hole! When there's enough room under that stage, you can grab the coupler, of course.

Yes--perhaps side-to side (though my nut is rigidly held but it's also straight). I doubt the UM designers would kill Z-hop capability by letting it move in Z, however!

Re: 1 &2: Yes--those are the problems I encountered too. The correct position of the lead screw nut is unstable in the wooden holder (it does not naturally seat in the correct position) and I found it difficult to keep it in the correct position while I tightened down the box assembly around it. The lead screw nut always wanted to shift. However, with extensive fiddling (the specifics of which I do not recall) I got it in the right position and it stayed put after the assembly was tightened. It remains in that position to this day. Sorry I don't have any hints for you. Perhaps other will have a better memory for it than I. Re. parts: I don't think there are any .stl models for the wooden parts because they are laser cut. You can find the .dxf files, however. I think I found them on Thingiverse. I have a heated build platform and I often run temps of 75C inside a bubble wrap tent when printing ABS (my material of choice). The wooden Z-stage is not perfectly stable in height and level with temperature changes. I have a heated aluminum bed that I made from 5/16" precision Mic6 aluminum tooling plate, which is very flat and very temperature stable. If I were in your shoes, I'd build the entire Z-stage from Mic6, but I have a milling machine and bandsaw too! When I have a fair amount of spare time, I plan to do the upgrade, but Mic6 is also pricey.

Agreed. Ideally the Z-lead screw should be straight and perfectly aligned in the Z-direction. I think the fitment of the lead screw nut and Z axes bearings into the wooden parts of the Z-stage was the most demanding mechanical part of my assembly experience. I messed with the nut for a long time before I could find just the right position to get it to seat accurately. Also, fitting the Z axes bearings was the only place in the build where I had to sand or file any wooden parts, beveling the edges slightly to improve the fit of the bearings into their cavities. Afterwards, the bearings were cradled in good alignment with no slop and no "negative clearance" with the wooden parts (which results in gaps in the wooden parts stackup). One reason the lead screw is not anchored at the top is probably to permit it to bend and deflect slightly to accommodate slight misalignment and non-linearity. The two thick and well-anchored (top and bottom) axes rods should keep the Z-stage tracking straight and "convince" the lead screw to follow a straight path. Well--maybe it's only one axes that keeps it straight. As I recall, the Z-stage arm on the other side floats.

I print ABS nearly exclusively and I usually print solid parts. The situation you cite is typical for me. The rate that I can feed, melt, and force plastic through the nozzle is usually the factor limiting my print times. In addition to the possibility of converting to 1.75mm filament, I think some speedup (or. alternatively, sub 0.40mm nozzle use) is still available for the taking with a stronger filament feeder. I'm using a 0.50mm MakerGear BigHead nozzle and, much like Joergen's somewhat modified setup, my hot end can handle higher temps than a standard Ultimaker. I'm not inclined to use a larger nozzle because the quality (resolution) of the visible printed surfaces suffers. I haven't suffered from jams using quality ABS since making the minor changes to my hotend so I'm not interested in a shorter melt zone, if it cannot melt ABS as quickly as my relatively stock setup. BTW, I made a passively cooled, short stainless steel hot section on my lathe once. It didn't work. After several minutes of printing, the ABS filament would always begin to resist feeding and eventually come to a grinding (literally) halt, or nearly so.

Thanks, Daid. I'll try it!

I consider 40 cents to be expensive when some of my prints only have 40 cents worth of plastic in them, but what's even more expensive is the large amount of time required to lay the Kapton tape down nice and flat with little to no gaps. (Soapy water and a makeshift squeegy help.) What's not expensive? Bare heated glass, which I always use when feasible. By the way, not all Ebay Kapton (or "Kaptan," "Kaptin," etc.) is created equal, but I've not found the price to correlate with performance, surprisingly.

I decided to give Cura a whirl again and I'm currently using 13.06.3 I'm very impressed with the recent improvements! However, l'm using support type "Everywhere" (needed for some overhangs that extend over topskins) and I need Cura to generate more support than it's currently generating. (The part doesn't print well.) Looking at the results in both Cura "Layer" mode and also Rep-Host, it seems Cura starts supporting overhang angles only once they reach about 60 degrees from vertical and I'm guessing I'll need something more like 45 degrees for my current project. Is there a way to set Cura to generate a more cautious support strategy?

BTW, it's possible to vary layer height in netfabb to multiples other than 1, 2, and 4, but you have to be clever about it. You can create a region definition that disables/suppresses some or all extrusion/layer types (creating "null" layers, if you wish). Then you increase the flow by the correct arithmetic multiplier for the actual printed layers. All of this stuff is adjustable on a layer-by-layer basis.

It's also possible in netfabb. Just use 50 micron half-layers for all layer type definitions on whatever layers you want printed thin and 200 micron "every second layer" assignments on the layers you want printed thick. You can define these two strategies as "Regions" and assign them on a layer-by-layer basis (or on the basis of layer number ranges or layer area or perimeter length ranges).

60 microns is what I print the most and I've gone down to 30 microns with no problems. With ABS, the layers become nearly imperceptible at 60 microns, if the bed wasn't ringing or shaking during the printing! You can use the Cura "Initial Layer Thickness" feature to make the first layer more forgiving or double or triple the flow for only the first layer in netfabb. However, for slicers that don't offer these features or for an alternate and more flexible approach, I just use my Ulticontroller to make realtime adjustments to produce a thicker extrusion on the first layer. After the first layer, I reduce the flow back down to 100%. Of course it's highly desirable to still get the bed as level as possible (I'm using 5/16" thick Mic6 precision aluminum tooling plate for my heated bed) but Ulticontroller realtime flow adjustments can save you time over tinkering with bed adjustments or scraping off the first layer when the results aren't good. Just adjust the first layer extrusion in realtime to match the actual nozzle height above the bed. Depending on the toolpath for the first layer, you can even adjust for a non level bed somewhat, though you might want to make realtime adjustments to the bed in this case too. In a few bad cases, I've continued to do realtime adjustments into the second and third layers to "level" the build instead of the bed! When using expensive Kapton tape (or even worse, tougher, more expensive, but still razor blade sensitive PET tape) I really hate to abort and scrape when I see a first layer problem developing!

I have a much heavier than standard bed (heated 5/16" Mic6 precision aluminum plate) and the extra mass just changed the resonant frequency nodes. I've not done any experiments to confirm my suspicions but I think most ringing artifacts are due to bed movement rather than head errors. You can try changing speeds (not always slower) and also weighting the bed differently in different places to try to hit other less resonant frequencies. In general, while most people focus on the head drive mechanism for upgrades, I think efforts would be better spent improving the z-stage. I think there's enough room in the two front corners of the UM box for two additional track rods for guide bearings mounted just off the front two corners of my already oversize bed. This placement would not create any significant inconvenience in hand access to the bed but would probably do wonders to stabilize it. I always print parts as far to the back of the bed as they will fit and oriented with the long dimension left and right. Obviously the lateral movement from any z-stage ringing is greatest at the front of the stage, given the length of the shaking arms! This is also one of the reasons I've stuck with the UM default maximum z speed in Marlin (5mm / second). I can go a little faster, but it's not worth it. The stage starts to ring vertically before the print times drop by a compelling amount. The horizontal ringing is more difficult to manage and the impact on print times can be significant. Any one has experience with glueing some heavy part to the print bed to keep it from shaking (something I have read, not sure if that's such a problem, I would expect more vertical shaking that horizontal from the bed)?

It is the same in my business too. We cannot afford to have even a single unhappy customer! The cost analysis is simple on its own. How much does it cost to fulfill a customer's needs and expectations vs. the cost of ill will and damage to a company's reputation? Usually, the answer is a no-brainer! I know of a few companies in a variety of fields that sell premium products and they will replace parts, or even the entire product, if necessary, to the original purchaser (and sometimes subsequent owners) in perpetuity. I'm not saying that UM, Ltd. is in a position to do this, economically, but these other companies do not have any notion that they "have to draw the line somewhere."

This is exactly what Van's Aircraft does with their airplane kits, and "real" airplane kits are, by far, the most complex kits ever developed in any industry. The Van's sheet contains both the inventory requirement and time limit for claims and hints on unpacking and getting started. Owner Dick VanGrunsven ("Van") is an honest engineer (of Dutch descent, even ) and not at all embarrassed to admit that shortages sometimes occur in the kit contents. Like I said, he's not worried about any marketing implications here. >Show me this "this should be in the box and you have X time to check >it or we won't help you" card, because that's what calinb is suggesting. Myself, I have no interest in proving to Ultimaking Ltd. what constitutes sound business policy and excellent customer service. I'm certainly not going to submit comparative evidence in order to support any of my suggestion. Again, UM, Ltd. can take the suggestions contained this thread or leave them.

No--I have not read it. My time is too valuable and life is too short to read nine pages of lawyer-inspired crap just to purchase a simple consumer device at retail. For a real estate acquisition, business contract, or loan--yes. For a simple retail purchase, I'm far from alone in saying that I ignore such nonsense (software is the worst and I never read the voluminous software user agreements either). If you read all that stuff before you click "Agree" (and read it all again to parse for changes every time you update any software) you have a far different life and schedule than I! Also, rather than making customers rely-on less than "rigid" policies and more favorable disposition when reporting kit shortages, I would prefer that Ultimaking, Ltd. publish a more lenient and reasonable policy, well in excess of the current published 14 day window.

At least you didn't say "only an idiot" would do this! I've built one of these things: http://www.vansaircraft.com 16,000+ rivets and several thousands of hours in construction time. The requirement to promptly conduct an inventory was published on an easy to read information sheet with the kit. Van's is, by far, the most successful manufacturer of kitplanes in the world and has been for 40 years. So successful, in fact, that more new Lycoming piston aircraft engines are installed in Van's airplanes than any other airplane brand made, including commercially manufactured planes. Guess engineers are just honest people and Van's doesn't seem to have any marketing problems! Ultimaking Ltd. can take my feedback or leave it, but I have plenty of kit-building experience (other projects as well) and I'm not buying your reasoning!

Daid, That web page (which I've never seen before) is nine pages long when printed! I'll call it obfuscation! I'll wager there is simply no way that 90% plus of Ultimaking Ltd. customers are going to parse though all that crap, even if they manage to find the page. Put the inventory reporting requirement on the card and in the box and your customers will almost certainly see it, read it, and be fairly notified and informed. A summary of the pertinent warranty terms would be good too, even if Ultimaking lawyers say the additional nine pages must follow a common sense summary of the warranty terms. And yes--two weeks is far too short for the official time limit on this product.

An "Imagine It, Make It" card is included in the kit box. I recommend that Ultimaking Ltd. print the terms on the card. The card should explicitly state how long a customer has to complete their inventory of parts in order to receive replacements free of charge, if part shortages or defects are discovered. In fact, it's ridiculous that the terms of the Ultimaker warranty (is there one?) are also not explicitly included and published. I don't know about Europe but very few companies in the U.S. fail to offer a written warranty on their products and services. In the very few cases known to me where they don't offer a warranty, it's because they don't like the "consumer protection" government controls on warranties and the resulting obligations mandated by government, if any warranty whatsoever is offered, but these companies offer excellent customer service, nonetheless. Benjamin, If your kit was lacking the Arduino board (it's not clear to me that's what you are missing), you can find some good deals on them stateside. Make sure you get one with the appropriate stepper motor drivers. It's not difficult to download the free Arduino IDE software and load the Marlin firmware yourself. You'll find plenty of people here that can help you and it won't cost you anywhere near 200 EUR--even including shipping! Build your Ultimaker and use it. You've paid for it and might as well take care of the problem yourself.

Good point, illuminarti! And if you like to run travel speed on the hairy edge of what's possible, you'll have no head room to use it! (Don't ask me how I know. ).