billdempsey

#TSS-974-36751 I don't know who you are, but Anita Eising was the person "helping" me. If "helping" means repeatedly telling me I must have assembled it wrong. After many emails back and forth, buying a bunch of replacement parts, and repeatedly hearing it must be my fault, I stopped emailing her and came to the forums where other customers have helped me fix or work around all the problems, until now. You obviously didn't even read my post because you asked me if I tried different ports and if I'm using an Ullticontroller. I listed in the post everything I've tried (including different ports) and I said in the third sentence that the Ulticontroller failed long ago. I also already answered your question about the firmware update. The firmware update happens during the first run wizard, which I said couldn't see the printer. Cura doesn't see the printer at all, so obviously it couldn't update the firmware. How would it send the firmware if it doesn't see the printer? This is the same sort of thing she kept doing in the emails. I'd list everything I had tried, she would ask me questions I had already answered and then eventually she'd get back to saying it must be my fault somehow and not to blame Ultimaker. It was incredibly frustrating. I am using Windows 7 and the Auduino driver does connect to the printer. I get the sound that it connects if I unplug and replug the USB cable. This is why I believe it's the main board that has toasted itself. The two guys at my hackerspace have been printing happily for months with the printers they bought elsewhere, so I doubt they'll be very interested in fixing their Ultimakers. My experience parallels theirs - months of frustration - so they're probably sick of fiddling with that printer. However, I will pass your info along, to them. Thanks for replying, at least. This is the first time anyone from support has responded to my numerous problem posts on here. The only people who've helped me in the past few months are customers and Daid. Customers helping customers isn't the same as customer support from a company. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty skeptical that you'll even help me, based on months of previous experience.

I swapped out the Arduino MEGA 2560, since the USB port is on that board. It didn't change anything. Cura still can't find the Ultimaker during first run wizard.

I bought my Ultimaker last Thanksgiving. Didn't get it working until mid-January. Spent another couple weeks overcoming warping and plugging issues during which the Ulticontroller failed. Finally I had a few weeks where the printer worked without any problems. Then, late last week I tried a 26 hour print, which failed at 23 hours. The Ultimaker hasn't been able to communicate since. I tried different cables. I tried different ports on my computer. I tried a completely different computer. I tried reinstalling the Arduino drivers. I tried reinstalling Cura. I even installed the 13.1 beta. Cura never gets past the first run wizard, because it simply cannot see the printer. The printer is comatose. Considering Ultimaker has a completely different definition of "customer service" than the rest of the world, I'm back here in the forums asking other customers for suggestions - AGAIN. Any ideas guys? P.S. Saw Erik on 3Ders.org lying to people, saying the difference between the half price Chinese knockoffs and the Ultimaker was customer service. I would have laughed if I wasn't so pissed. Erik obviously has no idea what customer service means. Companies who actually provide customer service will offer to replace parts that are known to be bad and which fail within the first few months. They will also stop shipping the bad parts to new customers. By the way, forcing your customers to turn to other customers for help on forums is NOT customer service. Not givng a crap about the problems customers are having is also NOT customer service. Ultimaker offers the same level of customer service the Chinese would offer - NONE. I feel I've been cheated out of $3000 by Erik's company with nothing to show for my money. Here is an example of the reality of Ultimaker: There are two other Ultimaker owners in my local hackerspace. Until last week, mine was the only one of the three printers that actually worked. Now, none of them do. Both of theirs only worked for a half-dozen frustrating months. They already gave up months ago and bought other brands (Replicator 2 and MendelMAX.) They didn't bother posting here in the forums. They just abandoned their Ultimakers and considered it a hard lesson. It's looking like I'll be joining them. So, now our 100+ hackerspace members know all about the many problems with Ultimaker from three different sources. How many do you think will ever consider buying one? How many will recommend them to friends, family, or acquaintances looking for a 3-D printer? At a recent event, we had 6 people come in who were considering 3-D printers. Everyone told them to avoid Ultimaker. Yeah, Ultimaker's awesome "customer service" is working really well for them. They're going to kill any chance they have of selling printers in the U.S. within a couple years at this rate. Speed and print quality are useless when the printer works less than 25% of the time.

Love the fact that UM has been shipping non-functional electronics and not replacing any of them for customers. "Customer service" must have a vastly different definition in the Netherlands than it does in the U.S. First, my Ulticontroller died. Now, the main board is comatose.

Good question. When it stopped printing, it stopped talking to my computer. No matter how many different cables, USB ports, and computers I try, nothing sees the printer anymore. I'm guessing the main board finally went the same way as my Ulticontroller went. What irks me most is they knew they were shipping bad electronics and kept shipping them anyway with no offer to replace them when they go boom. They figure people will buy the electronics again. They figured wrong. I'm ordering a CubeX Trio from 3DSytems later this week. I'm sick of wasting time and money on a company who doesn't give a crap about their customers.

I bought my Ultimaker last November. Didn't get it working until January. Once it was working, I was having nozzle plugs constantly, too. I increased the print temperature to 225c for most of my PLA prints. That made the flow much smoother, but the high temperature creeps up past the aluminum heat sink and causes plugs up in the Peek and nylon area. So, I mounted a fan which only blows through the space between the aluminum heat sink and the bottom wood plate. That gave me about 6 weeks of constant printing with zero plugs until my Ultimaker stopped working completely a couple days ago. Sadly, it died 23 hours into a 25 hour print.

I'd be really interested in a tailored, scaled down version of SW specifically geared toward 3D printing. I was thinking about buying SolidWorks to use with my Ultimaker until my Ultimaker completely died on me two days ago. Now, I'm going to have to find another printer, first.

Actually, that's not strange at all. It's typical. Plastic shrinks as it cools, which makes the holes in particular shrink. For example, any time I want an 8 mm hole, I have to create it as 8.4 mm. A 3 mm hole has to be 3.1 or 3.2 depending on the filament I'm using. Sadly, the shrinkage isn't linear, or we could just calculate it. The larger the hole, the shrink percentage increases. It has been a trial and error process to figure out what dimensions to use for various holes I regularly put in objects. The good news is, you get better at instinctively accommodating the shrinkage the longer you use the printer. EDIT: Actually, if your shrinkage is remaining constant for every size hole, that IS strange. The holes look round, so it is probably not belts or motors as those usually create distortion in one direction or another. My money is on software. I'd download Cura and try it. I purchased NetFABB, but it never worked right for me, so I abandoned it in favor of Cura. Unfortunately, it's not perfect either. I've created a model which just won't slice correctly in Cura no matter what I do.

Wishes for Ultimaker 2 (in order of preference): 1. U.S. distribution/manufacturing center 2. Heated Build Platform 3. Dual extruder with PVA support capability 4. Aluminum or steel enclosure 5. Even larger build volume 6. Easier/quicker filament changing (not critical) With updates like these, I would even consider buying from the Netherlands again.

From what I've gathered in my reading, the Ultimaker power supply isn't big enough to power a heated build platform (HBP.) To me, that's one of the biggest pains about adding a HBP. You also have to add a power supply for the HBP. If the bed could just be connected to the main board and work, it would be an amazingly easy upgrade. As it is, you have to shop around for different parts from different places and then take a chance with an eBay power supply. I bought my PCB from Ultimachine. It's the Prusa v. 1. Still figuring out where to get the rest of the pieces.

After I used up and/or threw away (white) my 5 spools from Ultimaker, I bought 7 colors x 5LB spools of PLA filament from Ultimachine and so far it seems to be great stuff. I run it at 220-225c with little to no stringing. Flows nicely.

I agree with your boss on how it looks. The Ultimaker looks like a hobbyist machine rather than a business machine. The Sumpod and Replicator 2 look so much better, it's not even funny.

Plus 1 to this tip. I had lots of strange behavior with a couple of spools I got from Ultimaker. So far, I'm not having any trouble with filament from Ultimachine.

not necessarily... the new V2 hot end severely limits the amount of energy that can heat the upper portions of the hot end. also, the big alu plate acts as a great heat sink, which doesn't need additional cooling. long prints at high temperatures (i.e. 30h at 260C) will not cause any troubles. letting the printer idle while hot for more than 30-60 minutes is more likely to cause problems. I have the new hotend. Before I added the fan for the aluminum heat sink, I got plugs nearly every day at 225-230c. Since adding the fan, I haven't had a plug, period. So, in my case, it made a huge difference. In fact, I only have the fan on the heat sink now. I took off the other one. When I stopped using that one, my prints stopped warping. Since I mounted the heat sink fan on the right side, I could still put the other fan back on the left, if I needed it later for dual extrusion or whatever. I actually created my own heat sink fan, even though the one snowygrouch has is great. If an alternative to Thingiverse ever appears, I'll upload a bunch of my own designs. I'm not putting them on Thingiverse though. They've ruined that site by claiming ownership of anything which gets uploaded.

For some of us, time is worth more than money. Spending a day or two with a multimeter and soldering iron figuring out exactly WHY their product is faulty, is not worth the time or effort. Believe it or not, I have actual work to do. So, the UC is in a drawer and I'm out $150. Another Ultimaker lesson learned.

Hey Daid, Can you have the bed leveling wizard move the print head and bed to the proper starting position for the front left at the start of the wizard. Several times, I've tried the bed leveling wizard after an aborted print and the head/z-height just stays wherever it was when I aborted the print. Then, I have to guess the starting position where the head should be and manually move it there, in order to level it. Thanks!

You mean a grand total of 2? I know every single problem sucks, especially if it's a 80$ UltiController that is not working properly. But I can personally guarantee you that every UltiController is checked if it works (LCD, Button and beeper) before it's shipped. Seeing the shipping numbers (that I cannot disclose) then we would be flooded with support email if there was really a major production problem. Our current electronics producer is sub-standard, and we are working to change that. But changing this is not as easy as it sounds. Having electronics produced is not the same as baking a bread. The previous company I worked at made the stupid mistake of saying one day "Well, from now on, all electronics need to be produced at company X". Hilarity ensured and tons (100k) of money where lost due to lost in sales, extra support and lack of stock. Most of the electronic problems (I've checked out a few of the "bad" boards we have here) seem to be down to bad soldering. This can be on the UltiController side but also on the UltimakerPCB side. It kinda sucks if you need to check it, but it's not "unfixable" The Ulticontroller cost me more like $150 with the crap exchange rate and insane shipping prices to the U.S. The only reason I haven't contacted Ultimaker to ask for a replacement is because I don't want to pay the insane shipping AGAIN for a "free" replacement. So, I have a $150 paperweight. The shipping and exchange rate are also the main reasons I haven't ordered a second printer. With the part failure rate, their "blame the customer" support policies, useless warranty, poor exchange rate, time zone difference, frequently out-of-date documentation, and crazy shipping costs, the pains of owning an Ultimaker are just too high for people in the U.S. I've been warning friends to stay away from buying an Ultimaker by telling them my own expensive experiences. Ultimaker really needs a U.S. distribution/manufacturing office. Until they get one, they should really just stop taking orders from the U.S. They're going to have a horrible reputation in the U.S. before they even get a U.S. office at this rate.

Since I printed my replacement knurled shaft clip, I haven't had any problem with gear drift on the small gear or the large, which was what I was targeting with herringbone gears, since they self-center. So, I'm following your advice and skipping them. Thanks for the input everyone!

Oh, by the way. I still would like to have a drop-in set of herringbone replacement gears. Herringbone gears eliminate backlash and are self-centering. Does anyone know of a set which requires no recalibration of the feed?

Yes, that's exactly my problem and I'll try it. Thanks guys! EDIT: Here's a photo of the black clip which barely fits into the slot. EDIT 2: I designed and printed a replacement for the black clip which fits perfectly and works like a charm. It's a bit like the one on Thingiverse, but just decided to use my own measurements to make an exact fit.

Yes, you are correct. The entire assembly is sliding out. In order to get the knurled bolt to line up with the filament, I had to space it a little toward the nut, which shortened the side with the black clip. My clip is -barely- in the groove as a result and it pops off randomly.

It is assembled correctly. When the clip is missing, the entire bolt assembly slides right out of the filament feed mechanism. That's my problem.

Thanks Daid! Also, has anyone used Cura with other printers besides Ultimaker?

I have a couple questions. Will Cura get confused if I have a second printer connected by USB? Can I use Cura to send print jobs to both printers? Will I have to run two instances of Cura to do that?

Cura 12.12 lets you do both speed and temperature during printing. Both adjustments are on the print dialog which pops up during printing.