gr5

Sounds like something is wrong with your Z movement. The nozzle isn't separating from the build plate the correct distance (it's not moving at all or moving too little). I'd check things like stepper motor gear - there is typically a set screw that tightens that down. Tighten the hell out of that - typically enough to twist the allen wrench and potentially hurt your fingers for a few minutes. I'd search for other users of your type of printer as well. I'd also manually move the Z up and down and measure how far it moved with a ruler. It's also possible some jumper fell out and it is moving exactly half as far as it should. This is easier to diagnose with a ruler. It's common for stepper drivers to have jumpers to set the substepping.

Okay - I couldn't see that from the camera angle. That changes things. First of all I would consider turning off "combing" just to see how much that helps. "combing" in your case means it tries to stay in the interior of your part when doing non printing travel moves. Sometimes going half way around your circle or even 9/10 of the way around. With combing off it will go directly over the center gap of your part. There are versions of Cura that do this circular combing move more efficiently (never goes more than half way around the circle). This version from burtoogle just does a much nicer job of filling thin gaps in walls and does a better job of combing. So if speeding up travel and disabling combing doesn't help then please try this version of Cura: https://github.com/smartavionics/Cura/releases

A photo would be helpful. The bottom layer is different than all the other layers. Let's say the bottom layer is 0.3mm thick ("initial layer height" in cura) and you level it "perfectly" meaning if Z=1 then the nozzle is exactly (EXACTLY) 1mm above the bed and if Z=0 the nozzle is just barely touching the bed. The gcode will set Z=0.3 in this example and start printing the bottom layer extruding exactly the right amount of filament to fill in that 0.3mm thick layer. That would be bad because you want the bottom layer to squish extra hard such that the part sticks well to the bed. The most common reason for parts not sticking to the bed is "not enough squish". So when you level the bed you want approximately Z=0.1 (or Z=0.2 even) to be just barely touching the bed. This would be an excellent amount of squish as a bonus you should have very little gaps (there's always going to be gaps if you check with a microscope). So I don't know if you are talking about gaps that are: 1) Impossible to fill 2) Horribly huge due to bad levelling 3) Something wrong with Cura (least likely) Without a picture I don't know which the answers.

There are lots of food safe filaments. But there is a more serious issue. 3d printing creates tiny layer lines where bacteria can survive a brief washing. And worse, there's usually at least one tiny hole into the interior of the printed part where water can get in and stay for weeks to allow bacteria to grow. Most food safe filaments come with the caveat that the material should touch food only once and then be discarded (never cleaned and reused). If you are okay with this caveat, and if no one answers your question directly, let us know and I'll call in someone to the conversation who knows about this subject better than me. As far as dishwashers - PLA slumps/softens around 52C and dishwashers often have a sanitizing feature where they heat the water to something like 55C. Plus near the heater it can get to 95C. So pick a material that can handle being heated to 90C. Like ABS but ABS smells horribly so I recommend something else. Maybe CPE+. Nylon is okay but doesn't do great if submerged for days (it gets more rubbery but recovers when it dries out). Also Nylon doesn't look as good usually and is a bit harder to print. Most filament types (e.g. ABS or CPE+) have versions that are NOT food safe because of additives and also have versions that ARE food safe.

OH! It just clicked in my mind. The first two photos I believe show the model properly and wrong. Is it possible that in Cura you selected "make overhang printable"?? If so, uncheck that. That is a very dangerous feature.

In this case the printer is irrelevant. So what you describe sounds like a common and easy to fix issue. But first, could you describe the problem in pictures better? Please use PREVIEW tab (as you did) but please set "color scheme" to "line type" which is just on the line under the PREVIEW tab. Also scroll part way up your model so we can see an example layer where it is printing in an area where it shouldn't be. Also make sure that travel moves (blue) is enabled to eliminate the possibility it is stringing like crazy (I doubt it). So I'm going to attempt an answer even though I don't understand the problem fully. I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with your model. The Prusa slicer figured out what you meant to do (despite the error) but the Cura slicer did not. There are many types of errors but one of the most common is that the "normals" are wrong. For example in Sketchup (but there are 3 other CAD packages I know of that has this issue - most cad do not have this issue) you have to have all surfaces have the gray side facing into solid parts of the model and white surfaces facing out. If this is backwards you right click and select "reverse faces". This is one possibility. So 1) please tell us the CAD you used (if you created this model). 2) Please show better what the issue is with arrows or something and with color scheme set to "line type". Some other ways to fix this quickly without fixing it in cad: There is a free model repair service (but you have to create a free account) at netfabb https://service.netfabb.com/login.php Here's another service - drag and drop mesh repair service: https://3d-print.jomatik.de/en/index.php Cura has an amazing plugin to test your model to see if something is wrong with it and can repair a very few of the many potential problems: In the upper right corner of Cura click "marketplace" and make sure you are on the "plugins" tab and install "Mesh Tools". Then restart Cura. Now right click on your model, choose "mesh tools" and first choose "check mesh", then "fix model normals" and "fix simple holes" to see if that helps.

So you are saying Cura 4.7 PLA gives better quality than Cura 4.8 ABS?

First of all your travel is insanely slow. You want 150mm/sec travel move MINIMUM. You can even try 300mm/sec. The slower it moves the more "stringing" you will get (leaking during moves). The UM2 firmware limits to 300mm/sec and it should be able to move that fast without losing steps. Try it. It should be fine. I've actually *printed* at 200mm/sec in special situations with travel at 300mm/sec. You might want to oil all the rods (not Z) with a tiny bit of oil first. Any light oil is fine (sewing machine oil, 3-in-1 oil, etc). Also I recommend turning off acceleration and jerk control. These also slow down travel moves and additionally cause over extrusion on corners. And your print speed looks nice and slow which is good but I'm not sure what it is exactly. I usually do 35mm/sec for most prints for nice quality and accuracy but if there are problems with the quality of the print sometimes (rarely) I'll even go down to 25mm/sec. Make sure all *printing* (not travel) speeds are the same - well except initial layer speed - that can be as low as 20mm/sec but I never go slower than that for initial layer.

Oh! A picture is worth a thousand words!!!!!!!!! Then disable combing. At least in "skin". Those are 2 combing moves in that photo on github. zhop only "hops" if you are doing a retraction. There is no retraction in combing moves so it won't zhop for those. But if you disable combing moves you might not need ironing or zhop at all. It depends how perfect you want your part. Personally I have low standards and don't use ironing.

You are the second linux person to complain this week about not being able to use the rotation tool. Does the tool show up at all? For the other person there is no rotation tool - just the others (scale, move, etc). That person said it was fine with 4.71 but not with 4.8. 1) Do you get the tool button at all? 2) If not try cura 4.71 I also use Ubuntu but I haven't switched to 4.8 yet.

To be clear - when you run the 4.8 appImage, I think it uses a lot of the files in those 2 configuration folders and some of them may have been created by 4.7.1 or upgraded from the 4.7.1 files. Either way, if you delete them all and restart cura it regenerates them all from scratch.

Well you can blow away all the installed files by cura. Do "help" "show configuration folder" and two folders pop open. Close cura and delete everything in those folder trees and then try 4.8 again. Or stick with 4.71. I mostly use version 4.0 for the last year and I'm very happy with it. 4.71 is a great version of Cura.

WHAT???? NOW YOU TELL US??? lol. Okay. You should have mentioned that before.🙂 I forgive you.

Okay then I agree with you that it's a Z screw issue. Adding a weight is smart. At least 2 lbs/1kg. Maybe a brick or diving weight or exercise weight. Testing with PLA is smart. Make sure z-hop is turned off. It only takes 2 minutes with a toothpick and a paper towel to do a rough clean the 3cm of screw used for your print. Just make sure you get all 3 helixes (ultimaker z screws are triple helix). Just clean at the top of the Z screw where the nut is when the bed is mostly all the way up. If that helps then consider removing the entire Z stepper and screw out the bottom of the printer - really not hard but you have to remove the electronics cover to unplug it. Then clean it on newspaper with wd40 and after it's clean add just a pea sized drop of grease.

lol - I know, right? Lots of people ask a question and then apparently never come back for the answers.

Unless you have a delta printer (google image search delta printer - it's not like a normal XYZ printer) then I would avoid ZHop. If zhop is turned on then you need a really good quality z screw and z nut. Otherwise you will get lots of horizontal layer lines in your print and your prints will be still pretty accurate but much more ugly. If for example you have a $50,000 printer with very high quality Z screw and Z nut then z hop is great. Or if you have a delta printer which doesn't have a Z screw. You may be fine with zhop. Especially if your printer is still new and the Z screw is very clean. But in general I don't recommend it.

I'd be suspicious that they might not have replaced the teflon. Seems crazy not to but still. First go through the menu systems - somewhere in there it tells you Meters of filament printed and Hours as well (I forget if it is hours hot or hours printing but it should be the same thing). But you can test the teflon. Do a cold pull (typically at 95C - read about this practice - there are tons of videos and posts) to get all the filament out of the nozzle. This alone may fix your issue. Then, remove the nozzle. Remove the bowden from the print head (remove clip, push down on the outer collet (important!) while lifting out the bowden). And then while head is cold, feed filament through. The plus feeder can push with about 5kg of force. If you feel more than 0.3kg of force then maybe the teflon needs to be replaced or the 4 screws in the head are just too tight. But I would concentrate on the easier things like checking filament diameter with micrometer.

Okay well you have underextrusion and here is the complete list below. It's a big list with 26 items but many should be easy to eliminate. For example if temperatures are <75F 24C in the room with the printer that's one thing you can instantly eliminate. You can ignore #1 as well as long as you are printing at 200C or hotter. I would first look ABOVE #1 below and test the feeder. It is so damn easy to test the feeder - takes a minute. Then I would measure the filament diameter (#11 below). Then I would look at #18 and #23 and #6 below. Also easy to check. All those above should take 5 minutes. Next is #7 - clogged nozzle. Especially on a new printer - some bit of dust/sand. Read how to do a cold pull properly. google it. It's the same procedure for any bowden printer. Really make sure you are doing the cold pull properly. One more thing - check that the nozzle really is a 0.4mm nozzle. Maybe you have the 0.25mm nozzle in there? CAUSES FOR UNDEREXTRUSION UM2 AND HOW TO TEST FOR THEM AND REMEDY THEM One can quickly check the feeder (it takes seconds) so I would always do that first. The feeder on UM2+ and UM2 can push with 10 pounds (5kg) force easily so first thing is to lift that lever (if um2+, if um2 regular do move material) and insert filament so it is only part way into the bowden (e.g. half way). Then move the filament with "move material" command in menu so the feeder is energized and then pull down on the filament under the feeder. You should be able to pull with 5 to 10 pounds force without it slipping. Then have it move the material up while you pull down. 5 pounds force (2kg) is enough to make decent prints at moderate speeds listed below but you need 10 pounds (5kg) to print fast (e.g. 0.2mm layers and 60mm/sec) As far as underextrusion causes - there's just so damn many. none of the issues seem to cause more than 20% of problems so you need to know the top 5 issues to cover 75% of the possibilities and 1/4 people still won't have the right issue. Some of the top issues: 1) Print slower and hotter! Here are top recommended speeds for .2mm layers (twice as fast for .1mm layers) and .4mm nozzle: 20mm/sec at 200C 30mm/sec at 210C 40mm/sec at 225C 50mm/sec at 240C The printer can do double these speeds but with huge difficulty and usually with a loss in part quality due to underextrusion. Different colors print best at quite different temperatures and due to imperfect temp sensors, some printers print 10C cool so use these values as an initial starting guideline and if you are still underextruding try raising the temp. But don't go over 240C with PLA. 2) Shell width confusion. Shell width must be a multiple of nozzle size (in cura 15.X. In cura 2.X it doesn't matter as much but still makes a difference). For example if nozzle size is .4mm and shell width is 1mm cura will make the printer do 2 passes with .5mm line width which is possible but requires you to slow down much more to make a .5mm line out of a .4mm nozzle. If you really want this then set nozzle size to .5mm so it's clear what you are asking Cura to do for you. 3) Isolator - this is most common if you've printed extra hot (>240C) for a few hours or regular temps (220C) for 500 hours. It gets soft and compresses the filament under pressure. It's the white part touching the heater block. It's very hard to test when not under full pressure (spring and bowden) so sometimes it's best to just replace it. Also if you notice parts of it are very soft (the blacker end where it touches higher heat) then it's too old and needs replacing. 4) Curved filament at end of spool - if you are past half way on spool, try a fresh spool as a test. 5) curved angle feeding into feeder - put the filament on the floor -makes a MASSIVE difference. 6) UM2 only: Head too tight? Bizarrely MANY people loosen the 4 screws on the head by just a bit maybe 1/2 mm and suddenly they can print just fine! Has to do with pressure on the white teflon isolator. 6b) UM2 only: Bowden pushing too hard - for the same reason you don't want the bowden pushing too hard on the isolator. 6c) Um2 only: Spring pushing too hard. Although you want a gap you want as small as possible a gap between teflon isolator and steel isolator nut such that the spring is compressed as little as possible. 7) clogged nozzle - the number one problem of course - even if it seems clear. There can be build up on the inside of the nozzle that only burning with a flame can turn to ash and remove. Sometimes a grain of sand gets in there but that's more obvious (it just won't print). Atomic method (cold pull) helps but occasionally you need to remove the entire heater block/nozzle assembly and use flame. I found soaking with acetone does not help with caramelized pla. Even overnight. Maybe it works on ABS though. Simpler cold pull: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u07m3HTNyEg 😎 Temp Sensor bad - even the good ones vary by +/- 5C and bad ones can be any amount off - they usually read high and a working sensor can (rarely) fail high slowly over time. Meaning the sensor thinks you are at 220C but actually you are at 170C. At 170C the plastic is so viscous it can barely get out of the nozzle. You can verify your temp sensor using this simple video at youtube - on you tube search for this: mrZbX-SfftU 9) feeder spring issues - too tight, too loose. On the black UM2 feeder you want the tension such that you can clearly see the diamond pattern biting into the filament. You want to see at least 2 columns of diamonds. 4 columns is too much. On the white UM2 plus and UM3 feeders you usually want the tension set in the center. 10) Other feeder issues, one of the nuts holding UM2 and UM3 together often interferes with the feeder motor tilting it enough so that it still works but not very well. Other things that tilt the feeder motor, sleeve misaligned so it doesn't get a good grip. Gunk clogging the mechanism in there. 11) Filament diameter too big - 3mm is too much. 3mm filament is usually 2.85mm nominal or sometimes 2.9mm +/- .05. But some manufacturers (especially in china) make true 3.0mm filament with a tolerance of .1mm which is useless in an Ultimaker. It will print for a few meters and then clog so tight in the bowden you will have to remove the bowden from both ends to get the filament out. Throw that filament in the trash! It will save you weeks of pain 11b) Something wedged in with the filament. I was setting up 5 printers at once and ran filament change on all of them. One was slowly moving the filament through the tube and was almost to the head when I pushed the button and it sped up and ground the filament badly. I didn't think it was a problem and went ahead and printed something but there was a ground up spot followed by a flap of filament that got jammed in the bowden tube. Having the "plus" upgrade or using the IRobertI feeder helps you feel this with your hand by sliding the filament through the bowden a bit to see if it is stuck. 12) Hot weather. If air is above 30C or even possibly 25C, the air temperature combined with the extruder temperature can soften the filament inside the feeder such that it is getting squeezed flat as it passes through the feeder - this is obvious as you can see the problem in the bowden. The fix is to add a desk fan blowing on the back of the printer. Not an issue on the UM3 or UM2 "plus" series. 13) Crimped bowden. At least one person had an issue where the bowden was crimped a bit too much at the feeder end although the printer worked fine when new it eventually got worse and had underextrusion on random layers. it's easy to pull the bowden out of the feeder end and examine it. 14) Worn Bowden. After a lot of printing (or a little printing with abrasive filaments) the bowden resistance can be significant. It's easy to test by removing it completely from the machine and inserting some filament through it while one person holds it in the U shape. Preferably i nsert filament that has the pattern from the feeder. 15) Small nozzle. Rumor has it some of the .4mm nozzles are closer to .35mm. Not sure if this is actually true. I'm a bit skeptical but try a .6mm nozzle maybe. 16) CF filament. The knurled sleeve in the extruder can get ground down smooth - particularly from carbon fill. 4 spools of CF will destroy not just nozzles but the knurled sleeve also. Look at it visually where the filament touches the "pyramids". Make sure the pyramids are sharp. 17) Hot feeder driver. I've seen a more recent problem in the forums (>=2015) where people's stepper drivers get too hot - this is mostly a problem with the Z axis but also with the feeder. The high temps means the driver appears to shut down for a well under a second - maybe there is a temp sensor built into the driver chip? The solution from Ultimaker is that they lowered all the currents to their stepper drivers in the newer firmware. Another solution is to remove the cover and use desk fan to get a tiny bit of air movement under there. TinkerMarlin lets you set the currents from the menu system or you can send a gcode to lower the current. Ultimaker lowered the default currents in July of 2015 from 1300ma to 1200ma for X,Y,Z but left extruder at 1250. Other people (I think the support team of a major reseller but I forget) recommend X,Y,Z go down to 1000mA. M907 E1250 Above sets the extruder max current to the default - 1250mA. So try 900mA. This will only change until next power cycle so if you like your new value and want to save it use M500. You can just put these into an otherwise empty gcode file and "print" this and it will change. Or get tinkergnome marlin! You will wonder how you lived without it: https://github.com/TinkerGnome/Ultimaker2Marlin/releases M907 E900 M500 18) third fan broken. This tends to cause complete non-extrusion part way through a print. In the rear of the head for UM2 and the front of the head for UM3. Without this fan several things can go wrong. It can take a while as usually you also need several retractions to carry the heat upwards. There are a few failure mechanisms and I don't understand them all. One of them is probably that the molten PLA spreads out above the teflon and sticks to the metal in a core or fills the gap at the base of the bowden in UM2. Later it cools enough to keep the filament from moving up or down. 19) Spiralize/vase mode. This is a rarely used feature of Cura but you might have left it on by accident? In this mode the wall of your part is printed in a single pass. So if you have a .4mm nozzle and the wall is .8mm thick it will try to over extrude by 2X. This is difficult to do and may instead lead to underextrusion. 20) non-standard or bent fan shroud. Sometimes people print some fan shroud off of thingiverse or youmagine out of PLA or ABS. Some of these are great but most of them are crap. One needs to do good air flow modeling. Also if it's PLA it will slump and direct air differently. Air directed at the block or nozzle can cause severe underextrusion and also sometimes HEATER ERROR. Put the original shroud back on or just turn off the fan to prove that the fan is the problem. 21) Firmware settings - for example UM2+ firmware on UM2 or vice versa will cause 2X over extrusion or 2X underextrusion. Downgrading or changing firmware can mess up steps/mm and other settings - so if you updated firmware and then problems started then do a "reset to factory settigns" which corrects all the steps/mm values. 22) too many retractions (this causes complete failure) - if you have too many retractions on the same piece of filament you can grind it to dust. 10 is usually safe. 20 is in the danger zone. 50 should guarantee failure. You can tell cura to limit retractions to 10 per a given spot of filament. Do this by setting "maximum retration count" to 10 and "minimum extrusion distance" to your retraction distance (4.5mm for UM2 and 6.5 for UM3 and 8mm for S5). 23) Brittle filament. Espciallty with older PLA but even brand new pla can do this. If you unspool some (for example if it's in the bowden) for many hours (e.g. 10 hours) it can get extremely brittle and it can snap off into multiple pieces in the bowden. It's not obvious if you don't look for this. Then it starts printing just fine and at some point one of those pieces reaches the print head and gets hung up somewhere and the printer suddenly stops extruding for now apparent reason. This usually happens within the first meter of filament - once you get to printing the filament that was recently on the spool it should be fine from then on. 24) The "plus" feeder can have an issue where the filament doesn't sit properly for one print and it permanently damages the arm inside the feeder as shown by this photo - the hole is ground down asymetrically: http://gr5.org/plus_feeder_issue.jpg 25) Other feeder issues. You can test the feeder by putting the filament only part way down the bowden and with the feeder electrically turned on (or moving) pull very hard on the filament until it slips. You should be able to pull with about 5kg or 10 pounds of force before it slips. 4kg is acceptable. 2kg is a problem. If the stepper motor isn't engaged you can try going into the move menu. After a minute or so power is removed again from the feeder stepper. 26) Meduza - some people who install the Meduza feeder upgrade (2x the pushing power versus standard black UM2 feeder) make the belt so tight that the printer starts underextruding - typically as the circuitry heats up the extruder driver has less and less power and extrusion gets slowly worse over the course of 10 minutes or so.

.2 * .4 * 50 = 4 cubic mm/sec. That's pushing the printer reasonably hard. It should be able to do that at 210C. Probably not at 190C. Almost certainly that's too fast at 190C. With speed at 50% that's 2 mm^3/sec which is easily done on even the UM2 "plain" and even easier on the UM2+ series. Only 10 hours? Is this brand new? Teflon part usually lasts at least 500 hours. More typically 1000-2000 hours is a good time to replace it even if it seems fine. Some people get more than 2000 hours but I suspect they print slower or cooler or something.

Blue titan reports:

One more thing - try printing at half speed in the TUNE menu on the S5. But never increase flow above 110%. Calculate your printing volume. With 0.4mm core, a new printer can print 10 cubic mm per second. With an old printer you should be able to do at least 5 cubic mm per second.

Printing at 150% flow make things fail fast as you will grind up the filament. Never go above 110% flow for PLA. Unless you are doing something very unusual like trying to make it fail. Have you printed much CF? CF can potentially degrade the feeder. I guess I would test the feeder first. Slide the material so it is half way down the bowden. With the MOVE command on the S5 you can energize the extruder motor. Fight the motor by pulling down on the filament. If it can hold 5kg/10 pounds force then it is fine. A brand new S5 can do about 15 pounds. Even just 5 pounds is good enough for most printing. If the filament slips at 5 pounds then the problem is your feeder. Also try printing in the right slow to utilize a different feeder. If all that works fine then it must be your cores. Try getting a new one. They aren't free but cheap compared to the cost of filament. If you are trying to scale up production (speed things up on your printer), try a 0.6 nozzle (from 3dsolex) or a 0.8mm nozzle. I use these often and the reduced quality is pretty minor. the 0.6 can print double the volume. The 0.8 can print 4X the volume.

It's very very common with ABS to have layers split due to shrinking and inferior layer adhesion. I'd destroy a part on purpose and see how much breaks along layer lines (it shouldn't). You could be right that it's Z related. In that case try printing a cube to see if you get layer lines at the same spot. Or just try cleaning the Z screw. It's triple helix so make sure you clean all 3 grooves. But layer adhesion makes sense at "the same height" partly because it gets worse as you get farther from the heated bed. Partly because of the other geometries on an upper layer that pulls more inward on the layer that cracks. Try lowering your fan speed. A lot. 45C is helpful but ABS gets quite hard at about 99C. So you still need low fan speeds. So pay close attention to the sound of the fan. Some printers won't even turn on at 30%. Other's are still blowing full power even when you have the fan set to 10%. So experiment with fan speed. Listen to it. Try different speeds. Pick one that is more than off but still very low. Don't pick one so slow that the fan won't turn on at all (these fans usually need a higher % to start and then can stay spinning with a lower % so make sure you can go from 2% to your desired speed and the fan turns on. The fan should audibly "sound" like it's putting out 1/4 power than normal. 1/4 as much noise. Or even slower. If you turn the fan completely off you will get bad overhangs, bad bridging and other issues. So you need a little bit of fan.

You should have mentioned that this is an Ender 3 as there are lots of ender 3 people on this forum but they may not have noticed this post as you didn't say anything in the title. I'll update the title now just in case that helps.

continued (sorry for being two posts) It could be your results are worse than what you have seen on internet because of the shape of your nozzle tip. Not all nozzles are the same. Usually you want as small as possible a shoulder but for ironing I'm not sure what is ideal. The only thing I remember from neotko regarding ultimaker defaults was that he though there should be some extrusion happening during the ironing. Something like 10%. I think he complained that early profiles defaulted to 0% in ironing. I don't know what they are lately.