billdempsey

Yes, the print quality is similar. So is the price. The single extruder model of the CubeX is $2499. I spent $3000 on my Ultimaker replacing parts for 3 months before I was able to get a print of this quality. The Ultimaker is only cheaper if you live in Europe. The exchange rate and shipping make it more expensive to U.S. residents. Plus the build volume is MUCH larger and the printer doesn't look like it was built in somebody's basement. Currently, my Ultimaker stopped working again and I'm so tired of it, I haven't bothered fixing it or even complaining about it on here. I'm likely going to strip it for parts and build something different. No more hobbyist printers for me.

I agree with you. My CubeX separates the bed leveling process from the Z-height adjustment and I've found it to be easier to get a really level bed without having to set perfect print height at the same time. Once it's perfectly level, the Z-height setting is truly the same over the entire bed when you set it. On the other hand, it's a 3 point level system and I prefer the 4 point on my Ultimaker for the leveling aspect. Just because a plane CAN be defined with only 3 points, doesn't mean it SHOULD be defined that way. Because it's 3 points, when you lower the right rear corner, the front left corner moves up. It's definitely trickier to get to "level" than four point. At least the CubeX has lock nuts which prevent the bed level from changing print-to-print. I have to level my bed every 3 or 4 prints on the Ultimaker. I did it once on the CubeX and tightened the lock nuts down to keep it that way. Plus, the plastic build plate isn't perfectly flat on my Ultimaker. It has a slight upward warp on the right side. It makes large prints less accurate and perfect leveling impossible. The build plate on my CubeX is laminated layers of glass with a white ceramic surface. It's really flat with no flex. If it just had 4 point leveling, it would be perfect. As it is, neither is perfect.

Yeah, I was blind. I eventually found the upload button. I'll add a couple pics to this post. Here is a picture of the first print I did: Here is a picture of my two printers side-by-side: My cat knocked my print platform off my counter and broke it, so I'm waiting for the free replacement they offered to arrive. I told them it was my fault and they still insisted on sending me a free replacement. Wow.

I must be blind because I clicked on my name, went to gallery, and I still can't find an upload button anywhere.

I never saw that SLS print near the CubeX at CES. *shrug* Everything I saw was filament. Anyway, I finally got my CubeX Trio last week. It took me 20 min to unpack and setup. Took another 10 min to install the software. I started my first print at the 30 minute mark. It's a 5 inch tall "knight" from a kid's chess set. I left it set at all of the default settings. It was medium quality (0.25 layer height.) It took about 5 hrs to print. Here is an image of the print: :mad: Hmmm it seems I cannot upload an image of the print quality. It wants me to link to a file somewhere on the web. The "My Media" button doesn't let me upload new media, either. Well, there is no point saying anything more without pictures. Sorry guys. Btw, this thread probably should be moved to the Gossip section of the forum.

@Edis I've had those same print results before and it turned out to be a sudden wide variation in the filament diameter. When the size is set at say 3.0 and it suddenly drops to 2.8, you get a section which is under-extruded. It ends up uneven with lots of empty spaces and blobs within the print. It looks a bit like a raggedy sponge. This is always a horizontal problem that starts at a random layer and usually continues for a while until the filament changes size again. Measuring the filament at a number of different places over a 5 or 6 foot run will give you an idea of what the average size is. Setting the average size, instead of the largest or smallest, will help minimize the variations in extrusion, but if it varies widely, you'll still get some of that texture. The best solution is to pay the extra to buy higher quality filament which is a more consistent diameter. Faberdashery is the go-to place for very high quality filament. Unfortunately, it doesn't come on spools. It comes loose. If you have old empty spools, you could always wind it onto one, I suppose. Some people just throw it into a bowl and lay it horizontally under the extruder to feed it. Anyway, that's one more thing you can check.

Great idea! Did you use a fine machine lubricant or actual grease? With the speed those mouse motors run at, I would think machine oil, right?

I just remembered a time when I had a couple of horizontal lines like yours. It turned out to be a tiny error inside the Sketchup model. I figured that out by looking at X-Ray view in Cura. It showed a stray red line at the same height as my print glitch inside the solid model. I loaded the file into netfabb and hit auto-repair. That fixed the model and it printed fine after that. I had this sort of flaw happen several times in models I created with Sketchup. Since then, I switched to using Cubify Invent ($50) for modelling and never had the problem again. I'm now using a trial version of Alibre Pro, since it's the "pro" version of Cubify Invent and appears to have many functions which would make my life much easier. (Actually, Cubify Invent is a scaled back version of Alibre. Alibre existed first.)

I got a texture with a lot of air in it at one point during a print and it turned out to be a bad extrusion rate because the filament size had suddenly changed quite drastically partway through a print. It dropped from 3.1 down to 2.7. It took me a few to figure that out. Another time I had this sort of print, the black clip had popped off of the axle on the extruder, so the filament was contacting the wrong part of the axle, which caused slippage. The top surface in both cases was covered with tiny plastic blobs sticking up. It also appears that your holes are oval, rather than circular. So, I'm wondering if your z movement is a little off. Perhaps somebody else could tell you how to check that. I haven't had to do that yet, so I'm not familiar with the change.

There is a very slight difference when the layer height is halved. If you change layer height, definitely do a partial test print and adjust the model. Also, as gr5 mentioned, the adjustment is different for horizontal holes, because the bridge portion tends to flatten the top a tiny bit and the plastic is shrinking in a different direction. Plus, depending on the size of the hole, your filament, and your print temperature, the amount of flattening changes. So, it's more of an art than a science. Test prints are your best friend. :-P

[Clarification] You didn't contact me. I had to contact you a week after you originally said you would send them out. That's when you told me about the supply problem. When you originally said you would send them out, If you found out the next day that the cables weren't going to ship for two weeks, you should have told me, rather than waiting for me to finally contact you a week later to find out what happened to my cables. Hopefully, you'll do that in the future. People are more appreciative if they aren't left in the dark. [/Clarification]

Hi Sander, [Calmly explaining] The supply problem at the beginning of last week was over a week after you told me you would send the cables out. From my perspective, it looks like you forgot about my cables for an entire week, before even attempting to send them. Then, you found out there was a supply problem and still didn't contact me to let me know. The reason it looks that way is the fact that I had to contact you a week later to find out what happened to my cables. Here is my constructive suggestion for how you should be handling situations like this: If you find out the day after you promise something that you can't deliver on that promise, let the customer know immediately. Don't wait a week until the customer eventually contacts you to find out what happened. Regarding my hostile tone, my tone gets hostile when I feel like I'm being jerked around or attacked. In this case, I feel both. To paraphrase you, I was not fond of the tone of Daid's message or yours. Why are Ultimaker employees allowed to be condescending, pompous, and entirely dismissive of problems while customers are forbidden to react to being treated that way? In nearly 40 years of dealing with companies and even running a couple, I've never encountered a less professional company. I just can't understand that. Perhaps it's a cultural difference where people in your country are accustomed to being dragged along for months when they purchase a several thousand dollar product which doesn't work. People in the U.S. simply don't accept that sort of behavior when they spend this much money on a product. Personally, I see keeping my complaints in this forum as me trying to give you a chance to finally make this situation right without going even more public about my experiences. If you're actually reading the forums, you should also have noticed that I try to help as many people as I can because I understand how alone they feel to have a non-functional, very expensive product. All I ever hear about is my unacceptable tone. I never hear about all of the positive help I offer others. Bottom line: I just want everything I paid for last year to finally be working. Months later, that still hasn't happened. How could I not be more than a little bitter about that fact? [/Calmly explaining]

Sadly, building things from melted plastic strings isn't very accurate. Plastic shrinks as it cools from a liquid state. What I've had to do when I needed precise holes was to do two or three prints to determine the measurement I need to send to the printer which corresponds to the size I actually need. For example, when I need an 8mm diameter hole, I design it as 8.4mm and send it to the printer. It prints out as 8mm. It was just a trial and error thing to figure out what design measurement to use in order to achieve the required real world measurement. After a bit, I just started remembering the "fake" sizes of things I use often.

Re: Faberdashery. The quality is generally lower from most other suppliers. That means the diameter varies widely on the same "spool." (They don't actually use spools.) The shape (oval vs round) varies widely. The elasticity varies widely. The number of contaminants in the filament varies widely. Faberdashery is known for very consistent shape, size, and texture. It melts at a consistent temperature throughout the roll. It is also free from excessive contaminants which lower quality filaments have. That's why everyone is so crazy about it. Personally, I've found Ultimachine filaments to be good quality and a much better value, especially since I'm in the U.S., not England.

Really Daid? What I said is bull? Sample size of 2? You say you've only seen one(!?) in pictures?!? Why lie? Every picture I've seen on here shows how that shaft only has one tiny strip of usable machining on it. I see you on the forums, so you must be reading at least a few of the posts. I've only been on here 4+ months and I've seen a lot of posts from people who have reported issues which ended up being either aggravated or wholly caused by the incomplete machining on those bolts. I've also seen a lot of pictures of the bolt surface posted. Usually they have an arrow pointing to the ONLY usable portion of that entire shaft. Every time I see one of those posts, the replies are filled with many OTHER people, including myself, who once had the same issue describing how they had to move the shaft around using spacer washers in order to find the tiny "sweet spot" that would reliably feed filament. In fact, Mr. Arrogant, answer this: Why is there only a tiny sweet spot on that shaft to begin with? The entire axle surface is machined. Why not machine the entire axle surface the same amount? Who was the brilliant person who decided to only make one tiny patch of that shaft usable? Seriously, is it saving you maybe 10 cents per shaft to half-ass machine it? If the shafts were properly machined, people wouldn't need to spend a lot of time moving washers around to get the exact spacing in order to carefully position the filament on that tiny 2mm wide patch which is machined well enough to grip the filament. Why not machine the entire bolt surface as well as you are machining that 2mm patch? Then, you'd never see this issue in the forums again. Then again, you apparently don't see it now. Or perhaps you just don't care if others are having trouble as long as yours works fine. Either way, you and I obviously have a completely different definition of properly machined. We also have a completely different definition of sample size. It appears that Ultimaker had decided to return to blaming everything on the owners again. Ultimaker is, after-all, without fault. Problems are never the result of poor design or poor manufacturing practices. The public lying, covering up, and lack of concern for customers are the reasons I called Erik a liar on 3Ders.org when he said Ultimaker has higher quality and better customer support than the Chinese Ultimaker clones. Here's a big surprise. After pointing out Erik's lies and listing my own experiences with Ultimaker on 3Ders.org, I suddenly got decent customer support for a couple weeks from Sander. They finally replaced the dead motherboard, So, thinking I was finally getting their normal customer service, I apologized on 3Ders and on here. Big mistake. Since that apology, I've been waiting weeks for parts for my dead Ulticontroller. Between that and being told that calling their bolt poorly machined is bull, it looks like I was right the first time about their customer service.

Was told via PM on Mar 20 that new cables were going to be sent. After a week with no ship notification, I reminded Sander. He said they'd go out the next day. It's now 4 days later and still no ship notification. *sigh*

Hey gr5, thanks for that excellent photo reference! I shows precisely what I have been thinking I'm seeing on various prints. A change in the surface texture quality usually happens when I switch filament, so this visual scale will help diagnose whether the new filament requires more heat or less heat than the previous. I wish I had thought to print out this sort of reference weeks ago. The strange thing about the original poster's prints is the fact that it seems to be exhibiting totally different symptoms at the same time on the same piece. This makes me think mechanical sloppiness rather than temperature troubles, or at least in addition to temperature troubles.

It looks like a mechanical issue. Do you have belt tensioners installed on the belts? If so, make sure they're not contacting the moving wooden blocks. I'd also make sure your print head rods are squared and all pulleys are tight.

Sounds like the X motor has the wires attached in the wrong order.

Warranty? Might want to read their disclaimers on the site. My printer is about four months old and I've replaced a huge number of parts, most within the first 6 weeks. I'm on my second nozzle, second aluminum heater block, second heater wire, second temperature sensor, second Peek, second brass tube, second nylon tube, second Bowden tube, second wooden top plate, third set of horseshoe clips, second build platform, and second main board. I had a nightmarish sequence of mechanically destructive events on my first print attempts, which resulted from following out of date assembly instructions on the Wiki.The only thing I didn't have to pay for out of my own pocket was the main board, which was just obviously bad. I'm still waiting for the replacement set of cables for my Ulticontroller which they promised a week ago. Personally, I would suggest paying extra for an assembled Ultimaker so you don't fall victim to bad instructions during assembly, like I did. In the end, I paid far more than the price of the assembled unit with all of the parts I had to replace. If the assembled unit had been available when I bought mine, I would have purchased that instead of the kit. If you are bent on buying the kit, in addition to the items others have listed, I'd also pick up an extra knurled drive shaft, an extra nozzle, and an extra Bowden tube. The tube gets chewed up over time by the locking mechanism and cutting off the chewed part really only works once before it gets too short to use. The knurled shaft is often poorly machined and getting a second one will improve your odds of getting one that feeds well. The extra nozzle just makes it easier to clean the hot end. I swap nozzles and clean the clogged one while I continue printing using the clean one.

My PCB fan has been getting progressively louder, so I expect I'll be replacing it in the not-to-distant future. I already replaced the fan on the print head with a quieter, higher air flow fan. I only run it at 50% and it pushes about twice the air that the old one did at 100%. I imagine I'll do the same sort of upgrade when I replace the PCB fan. The ones they're using are bottom of the line junk. Seems a bit odd to put a $2.50 fan on a $2300 printer. *shrug* I'm also considering making an EMF shield enclosure out of sheet aluminum to put over the entire PCB with a better fan built into the shield. From all the trouble I've had with the electronics, I want to block out any potential interference.

Yes, I use Cura via USB to print and UC to adjust print speed, fan speed, and watch print status. I don't use the SD card slot. I don't want to slice, then copy the file to an SD card, then take it over to the printer, find the file on the tiny screen, and finally print. I much prefer the simplicity of just pressing the print button in Cura. I've always used the same cables, since only one set came with the UC when I bought it. I've never had difficulties with any of my tens of thousands of dollars worth of electronic equipment. We had this house built brand new 5 years ago. The whole house has gigabit ethernet and AV cabling which works perfectly. All of my equipment is plugged into filtered surge protection. Many of those power strips are connected to UPS systems. I get no interference on anything else in my house. Plus, the UC worked fine for a few weeks before it originally went crazy. It only worked for a day when I reconnected it earlier this week. What do I do next?

@MSURunner There is no SD card in the Ulticontroller. I found it and plugged it into the slot and the display didn't change. I unplugged it and replugged it several times, to be sure. Same result. Hey, btw, Why doesn't the Quote button work anymore?

Oh man. The UC just tanked like it was doing before I took it off the printer the first time. First, it started displaying random ASCII characters like it did originally, then 5 seconds later I got this: What next?

Here's a new piece of information. I switched off the power to the Ultimaker and the display looks normal again. Switch it on, yellow blurry areas. Switch it off, perfect blue. Turn power off: Turn power on: This looks to me like electrical interference is causing it.