czucker

Problem solved. My neighbor came by and had a look. It was indeed the darlington. He had a TIP120 handy and didn't think it would cause any issues. I don't entirely trust that assessment so I ordered a few BD679s.

So, my print head fans aren't working. I've tested them on another power supply and they run fine. I've poked around the forums and it seems likely that I may have blown out the darlington transistor. Unfortunately I'm not very good with a multimeter. Can anyone tell me what Ishould be measuring/looking for?

Cool. I'm going to give the ABS a shot tonight because I have a spool laying around. I may have to pony up and get myself a spool of XT for the future though. Thanks for everyone's help throughout.

This topic has been a little quiet over the past week. How are folks liking the UBIS hot end? I'm mostly very happy. My prints are coming out great and heating up very quickly. I am noticing some ringing that I think is coming from my mount slowly warping from the heat. I'm going to reprint it in ABS this week and see if it is a little tougher. Best, Chris

I finally got my hot end set up and so far I'm very pleased. I'm have one issue though. . . . I'm using Nick's design for the mount and it's messed my end stops up a bit. The head is hitting my blocks before the stops are engaged. What are people doing about this?

Thanks for the advice. However, I have another, possibly dumb, question. . . What is the proper way to wire the thermistor to the board? It's 2 wires vs the three that come from the thermocouple.

I ordered one and its on the way. As for over taxing the electronics, the seller offers a separate PSU for $30. He was very easy to deal with and helpful. I'll post more when it arrives and I've got it all hooked up.

I'm getting ready to try out my new hot end and have some wiring questions. Will 22 gauge stranded wire be good for the heater and 24 gauge for the thermistor? Thanks. Electrical is not my strong suit. Best, Chris

I'm pleased to announce that after futzing with the tension on my extruder and mounting the motors directly to the rods, my problems have disappeared. My printer is pretty rock solid at the moment. Thanks for all the excellent advice. Here's a much improved print. Best, Chris

If I can find the time I'm going to go direct drive this evening. I've had a fair amount of trouble with the short belts and I'm looking forward to ditching them.

I'm using a v3 bolt and yes, I have the printed bearing axle. I'll try and make a new axle out of washers as described on thingiverse.

Cool. I'll get to fiddling. As a side note, The gears that I'm using for the extruder have the same ratio as the stock gears. I had assumed that I wouldn't have to make any changes to the retraction settings.

Thanks for the advice. I'm using the Chopmeister's H3 extruder, on my UM 1. It's been working flawlessly on smaller prints. I'll check the spring tension and also make sure that the filament isn't snagging on the spool. That seems to happen here and there. As for the temperature. . . . Is 240º okay for PLA? I've never gone above 220º.

I was hoping someone could help me figure out what's going wring with the attached print. I printed Nick Foley's motor count last night and in a few places towards the top of the print the quality decreased quite a bit. You can see the banding that begins about 1/3 of the way up and the gaps in the wall above that. This did not happen consistently across the layer. I don't have a photo handy at the moment, but the other side of the print looks just fine. This was printed at 218º, 50mm/s, .2mm layer height. Any thoughts? Thanks, Chris

Well that's heartening. I'm on an upgrade kick after letting my printer collect dust for way too long. I'll be following everyone's progress here with great interest. -Chris

Hmmm. . . Is this correct? I have a cartridge version on the way as we speak. I'd hate to go through all of the hassle for no real gains.

I the Cura to slice and print. I'll print some test objects and try to better dial in my temperature. As for the extrusion, is there a starting value that you'd recommend?

Good point on the powdery nature of the stuff. I use a PTFE lubricant in my cabling, which shouldn't be conductive. But I think you're correct, it could make a big 'ol dusty mess.

I attempted my most ambitious print so far last night. A replacement fan duct. I printed with supports, mostly just to see how it worked, I don't think it was necessary in the end. Anyhow, this is how they came out: You can see that on the sloped bit the strands of PLA didn't really stick together and the areas around the screw holes aren't fully filled. Anyone have any thoughts on how I can improve on this? Thanks, Chris

Thanks guys. I've gotten a few small prints out in the last few days and while they leave something to be desired, I'm pretty pleased overall.

I checked my OS X install and it looks like the only version of Python installed is 2.7. Slicing to gcode, hitting print and then connect produces the following in 12.08. 12.07 still works fine for me. Last login: Thu Oct 25 22:18:51 on ttys003 Kitchens-MacBook:~ tv$ /Users/tv/Downloads/Cura/cura.command ; exit; objc[40627]: Object 0x10a129f30 of class NSConcreteMapTable autoreleased with no pool in place - just leaking - break on objc_autoreleaseNoPool() to debug Exception in thread Thread-1: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/threading.py", line 530, in __bootstrap_inner self.run() File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/threading.py", line 483, in run self.__target(*self.__args, **self.__kwargs) File "/Users/tv/Downloads/Cura/Cura/gui/printWindow.py", line 460, in PrinterMonitorself.machineCom.sendCommand("M105") File "/Users/tv/Downloads/Cura/Cura/util/machineCom.py", line 178, in sendCommand self.serial.write(cmd + '\n') File "build/bdist.macosx-10.7-intel/egg/serial/serialposix.py", line 489, in write raise SerialException('write failed: %s' % (v,)) SerialException: write failed: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor

Hi, Just wondering if anyone has tried using a "dry" lubricant. I use a teflon lube on for my motorcycle cables. It doesn't get gummy at all.

I managed to get Crua 12.07, and RepG, working under OS X. The NetFabb demo connected on the first try. I still can't get Cura 12.08 to work though. When I try to connect to the Ultimaker in the first run dialog the motors tense up every few seconds and then I get the error above. I'll poke around when I have a moment and supply more info, but I believe that I'm running the latest version of Ubuntu (in a VM). I'll try re-installing Python as well. Now that this seems to be isolated to a problem with Cura, can this thread be moved to the appropriate area?

Hi, I finished my Ultimaker over the weekend and after some software hurdles, it seems to be up and running. Just thought I'd take a moment to say hi. I'm sure you'll all be hearing plenty from me in the coming weeks. Best, Chris

Update: The same exact errors occur in both Ubuntu and OS X (10.7.4). I can see the com port and update firmware, just not connect. Hi, I just finished building my Ultimaker and installed ReplicatorG. I've set the driver and port, but can't get the software to connect. When it tries to connect I can here the Z motor whirring, but that's it. ReplicatorG gives the following error: [22] Ultimaker not responding to RTS reset. Failed to connect after 4 attempts. [22] Supports RC Any thoughts? Thanks, Chris