kristen

I know I should experiment with other slicers more, but with all that Daid has done with Cura it would feel like trading in Solidworks for Openscad. I appreciate that dumbing down the number of options (in the general interface) probably reduces the amount of support Daid and the rest of the crew at Ultimaker have to do, The skinning and the infill options really did improve the quality of prints 'tho and it would be a shame to take the ultimate out of Ultimaker. For now, I'm pretty happy rolling back to 13.04 and testing the waters with some other slicers.

I've been noticing a real decrease in the quality of my prints lately. The sides look rougher (more blobbing) and the top fill tends to get small holes in it. I had been thinking it was due to some poor filament, but I found that reprinting items I'd sliced some time ago still produces nice parts. I'm wondering how much of this is due to the old parts having the more random fill (or alternative fill options enabled) vs. this new grid pattern which is leading to sagging/bridging issues when printing the top. Likewise the duplicate external layers appear to have been axed. It was really nice getting the 100 micron finish on a quick 200 micron part. Any chance we can get some of these options back ?

I finally upgraded from Cura 13.04. There is no way 13.10 should share almost the same version number!! On my first run I thought the time estimation was a bit gimmicky and didn't really need to be regenerated every time I moved the part a bit... I had no clue the new slicer, or any slicer, could be that fast ! Awesome job Daid! You should have bumped the version number up to 14 or 20 or something 'tho so I'd have upgraded sooner.

Spot on ! The Ulticontroller proves awesome yet again. Control -> Motion ->X-steps/mm, then back one screen and "Store memory" That is going to make fine calibration pretty sweet.

I upgraded my printer with the direct drive modification and replaced the pulleys and belts with custom ordered GT2 parts, however my prints are now coming out a bit undersized. 98.5% of what they should be in the X and Y directions. I'm looking at Ginge's custom firmware builder and trying to figure out if I need to increase or decrease the steps per unit. I'm guessing I should multiply the X and Y steps per unit by 101.52% to get me properly calibrated. (was 78.7402, changed to 79.9393) http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/ Can someone in the know check over these settings (I do have a heated bed and an ulticontroller). http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/801/w4my.png/]

Just a quick question, does anyone know what the bolt pattern for the mounts is supposed to be exactly? I was just writing some code to cut a new heated bed from some MIC-6 and I left the original at home.

Your wiring sounds all wrong. Hopefully there's no permanent damage to the UM board because they're not cheap. Your computer PSU should be connected to the switched side of a relay going to the heated bed, while the leads from the heated bed outputs on the UM board should go to the switching side of the relay. While the traces in the UM PCB beneath the heated bed connectors could probably handle 10A (assuming it's a 2oz board), the rest of the board is not setup to handle switching that sort of current. Read the heated bed wiki again, it's pretty clear. http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Heated_Bed

Ya, I had been eyeing up that block setup, but my system was getting pretty sloppy so I figured I'd wait until these mods were done. I'll give it a shot when I get back from vacation. Thanks for the feedback !

Took a bit to cut and grind the new longer rods. I also swapped over to slightly shorter (and now very tight w/o any additional tensioners) GT2 belts and pulleys. If anything the new setup feels like it has more drag, but I'm sure it has more to do with the very tight new belts. They all sing about the same note. I swapped the wire pairs on the motors as it only took a few seconds and I should never have to worry about customizing that bit of the firmware. Just curious about placing the cooling fans; any reason not to mount them atop the stepper motors as pictured ? Alternatively,I was also thinking about placing them under the motors and adding a couple zip ties just to make sure the adhesive doesn't fail.

I'm using a full synthetic sewing machine/tool oil now call "liquid bearings". It only takes a drop on each rod, no sense in overdoing it and lubricating your print surface. A drop of oil makes a world of difference in the ease of moving the printhead around. I was using regular sewing machine oil previously, but it doesn't seem to last as long.

Calum, could you post up some of your previous motor mount designs ? I like the new springy mount in theory, but my printer is having a fit jumping from the support material to the thin side features. I'm not sure if it's just a retraction issue, bad filament, or a need for better fan ducting, but unless I can sneak a couple prints into the Stratasys, I'll have to go back to the old design.

I see you've got yet another new motor mount design up (really at version 9 ?). Any tips on slicer/print settings for the best results ? I'll probably be pulling the first one off my printer before you get a chance to read this. Thanks for continuing to work on it

The SSR's are polarity dependent (for the load as well as the signal) unlike an automotive relay. My first one went up in a puff of smoke right off the bat.

Any progress on adapting the arduino due instead ? It's certainly the most direct replacement for the mega.

If you still need testers, I'm game. Any chance the new version comes with multiple firmwares (ie, ready to go heated bed support).

I find the dual fans are a necessity for small and/or thin features. I designed a wine glass that's a single wall joris print and with no-fans, it's just a stringy mess not even resembling a wine glass, with a single fan, the fan side turns out ok, but the opposite side is riddled with holes. I'd like to see a plugin that adjusts the fan speed to be inversely proportional to the layer time. I'd also like to see some more nozzle-centric fan-ducts (that don't grossly increase back pressure on the fans. If anyone's played with the new Replicator 2, you know what I mean. I'm loving my heated bed, but as soon as I have time, I'm going to machine a new one out of cast MI-6 rather than the horribly un-flat T6.

My SSR was a dc-dc. My buddy helping out connected the load side backwards which is apparently bad with SSR's. Got a basic automotive 40a in and it's working flawlessly. It cycles on and off for 10-20 seconds at a time which should be fine with the current relay, but I'll probably still mount a new SSR on a heatsink layer for piece of mind. I need to machine the bed flatter still for printing bigger parts, but it's pretty sweet having the parts pop free as the bed cools. Hope those files work out for you.

Any idea what the default heated bed relay operation was ? ie. was it setup for fast switching (requiring an SSR) or slow ? My SSR went up in smoke and I'm having trouble sourcing a replacement right away, think it should be alright with a mechanical/automotive relay ? Here's a link to the firmware I created w/ Daid's builder for those who need it. All default settings with Ulticontroller and Heated Bed selected. http://sdrv.ms/12uuVEy (skydrive)

The fan's I've opened up just have a dab of grease in them. There aren't any seals to speak of, so I don't think the machine oil would stay in place very long. Just about anything will do.

That sucks about the hard drive failure ! Glad I got my build done last weekend. Hope you get it up again soon, it was/is a great support (hint, should be an official project) resource.

Looking at the components in Eagle, the drivers For the hotnend and board fans should definitely handle a few more fans in parallel, but I'm not 100% sure about the traces or how that might affect the board temps. I'm planning to run my stepper fans and some led lighting off my second power supply for the heated bed. It definitely aucka to miss a step on a big print. I've only had it once, it at 8hrs in it is super frustrating.

That's not a bad point. If I want to do a demo, it might be nice not having to lug the extra power supply around and instead just slap some blue tape on the bed.

Just finished machining the plate and wiring up the heated PCB. Can anyone point me towards the firmware source code that would apply to the heated bed control ? I'm not crazy about the thermistors that I received and I'd like to make sure that if it fails (ie. resistance goes to infinity or zero), the heated bed shuts off vs. going full-on.

Soldered in the resistor and picked up a 25A SSR to go between the UM boards heated bed output and an extra 650W power supply I had. Just in the process of machining a piece of "optically-flat" aluminum a friend found for me to fit the PCB. Also scored some 220mm wide polyimide tape from Protoparadigm. Almost there.

Thanks for posting up those links. Just curious if there's any reason NOT to solder in the 4.7k resistor prior to completing the heated bed build. I've got a buddy coming over who's soldering skills are far better than mine, but I haven't finished machining the aluminum bed yet. I'll probably still need to do some prints w/ the blue-tape method before this project is completed.