gr5

I just looked up the ender and it has a heated bed. So do you really need blue tape? You want to heat the PETG above it's softening temp. PLA gets soft around 52C so we heat the bed to 60C. PETG - I'm not sure - I think around 70C? Here's what you do - heat the bed to 90C, put a towel over the bed. Cut a short length of PETG filament - maybe 5cm. Put it on the bed under the towel. When the bed is at temp, pull out the filament and bend it 90 degrees. Does it stay at this new angle? If so then it is above the softening temp. If not then it is below. Keep adjusting the temp until you know the softening temp. Then print with the bed about 10C warmer. Why? The reason parts come off the bed (and especially corners) is that as you print the upper layers they shrink and pull inwards on the part which puts a huge amount of upwards pulling on the corners of your part. If the part is rounded then the force is spread out a bit. That's one of the 2 reasons why brim helps also. Anyway but if the part is above it's softening temp then the plastic acts more like clay (plasticine) and the part warps slightly (so small you can't see it - we are talking maybe 0.1mm) and the forces are relieved and also spread out through more of the part. A heated bed also heats the air and reduces how much the part is shrinking before the print is finished. Especially if you enclose the printer so the air can warm up a bit. For PETG if the part is still coming loose it helps to add a layer of glue stick (PVA).

All painters tape is fine but some painters tape sticks better to the print bed. So if it sticks to the print but not the bed then you will wish you got the blue painters tape (sticks more than green) and 3M is pretty good. I recommend getting as wide a tape as possible (easy to find on internet and cheaper than in paint stores) as it sticks better to the bed and also goes down faster as you will be tearing the tape often. You must wash the tape with rubbing alcohol (aka IPA aka Isopropyl Alcohol). The tape has a waxy surface that keeps anything from sticking to it (otherwise the tape wouldn't unwind). You need to wash that off. it's very easy - just one quick wipe with IPA is all it takes. Other solvents may work - I don't know. I've never tried PETG with blue tape so I don't know how well this will work but it works great with PLA. Ultimaker recommends their "adhesion sheets" for PETG because PETG is more difficult than PLA to get it to stick to the bed. Someone on the forum claimed they are Avery L7567. I can attest that many materials stick unbelievably well to the adhesion sheets!

So if you want to spend the least money for an excellent feeder, do the meduza. If you don't mind spending 200 euros then get the bondtech - it's less work to install. The meduza is quite a bit of work (printing all the parts and getting it all to fit together): Instructions and links to all STL files. The parts you need to order are all on the meduza page on youmagine (linked from page below): http://gr5.org/med/ iroberti feeder (doesn't increase power but it's a great feeder!): https://www.youmagine.com/designs/alternative-um2-feeder-version-two

I have 5 um2 printers. One has "plus" feeder, 2 have "medusa" feeder, 1 has original feeder, 1 has bondtech. I like the medusa the best and it only cost $19. I have characterized the pulling power off all these feeders and I don't have my notes in front of me but they go something like this: original: 4kg medusa with iroberti: 8kg plus: 8kg bondtech 10kg This is (very rough - from memory) the amount of force (weight) that the feeder can lift if you only insert filament half way down the bowden. I have printed thousands of hours on the "original" and it has enough force for me but there is definitely an improvement with the other feeders. The extra power from the bondtech doesn't interest me and it's harder to slide filament in and out (the original feeder - you can't slide filament in and out at all - you have to use the menus).

So in other words, leave layer height at 0.2 and instead site "line width" to 0.1mm just to see what happens (don't actually print that way).

LAYER OFF BY ONE So you have to understand a tiny bit about programming - most programming starts loops and arrays with zero (not 1). So the GUI might count the bottom layer as "layer 1" but most software thinks of the bottom layer as "layer 0". I believe the plugin is "zero" based meaning it starts at layer 0. This is mostly a guess. I have never tried the plugin and I have not looked at the code. The error might actually be in the GUI and not the plugin (the gui might refer to the bottom layer as layer 1 might that might be considered a bug).

Look at the setting "enable draft shield". Make sure that is not checked. The only other thing I can think of is something weird with your model. But this looks like the "draft shield" feature. Very useful for high temp materials like Nylon. Not useful for PLA.

I don't have a feel for your budget. If you don't mind spending 500 euros you should definitely get the plus upgrade kit. If you are trying to save money, the two upgrades most worth it are the "plus" feeder (you can get a meduza upgrade for just $19 that's just as good in my opinion) and the olsson block. The um2 fans are good enough in my opnion. So I guess I need to know your budget. Yes I like the quieter fan - I don't know the part number for the one UM used to sell with the UM2 the first year but it's very quiet. I'm not sure the voltage of that fan either - did you check the voltage? It's probably 5V but some of the fans are 12V.

You can reduce the polygons without changing your part much using this method: http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/polygon_reduction_with_meshlab Also you can reduce this when exporting the STL - what cad software did you use to create this STL? Or was it not you who created it? Also what CAD software do you use - most CAD software only creates manifold parts but some like sketchup and a few other's don't always do that. I can link you to documents to help out depending which CAD you use.

3d printers overextrude a bit when they slow down. The faster you print, the higher the pressure in the nozzle, and the more it overextrudes on corners (it slows down to roughly the jerk speed on corners). So you can fix this by either slowing down your printing speed (e.g. 25mm/sec) or you can fix this by increasing acceleration and jerk limits. These are usually set on the printer. If they are set too high you can lose steps and ruin the print.

That looks like a bug. Negative 1 doesn't have a meaning in the feedrate multiplier. Anyway, it looks like you answered your own questions. Note that the M220 was inserted right after the line with the Z5.75. It's that 5.75 that determines where to insert the new gcodes. So if you tell it to pause at 5.75 or 5.74 (or other smaller values), the first time it sees a "Z" value > than what you entered in the post-processing-script - that's where it inserts the new gcodes.

It's okay. You just helped the next person who googles about this same problem.

One more thing about sketchup - see in sketchup you can create panels - walls - cylinders - that are infinitely thin and just leave them there and sketchup is fine with that. You can color one side of an infinitely thin wall with house siding and photos of windows and paint the inside with your interior wall color. But that's not real - it isn't solid - the wall has no thickness. Most CAD packages - packages meant to actually create things in real life - won't let you do that. It doesn't even have the capability - you don't have to worry and go back and check your model (like you do in sketchup). It's just impossible (or nearly impossible) to create non solids in most CAD. That's why I reocmmend DSM or openSCAD or onshape or tinkercad or any of 500 other programs if you will be doing this a lot.

The quick answer is probably to use those 2 repair tools I linked you to. I used sketchup for several years and was quite good at it but I never learned how to do threads. I stopped using sketchup years ago and haven't looked back. Sketchup is fine for 3d walkthroughs and architecture visualizations but not so good at creating solids. I use DSM (design spark mechanical) but it's a big learning curve. Actually for threads I don't know how to do that in DSM either so I use openSCAD. But that also has a big learning curve. But your project is perfect for many "free" CAD packages like onshape. onshape is professional level but there is a free version. onshape has thread libraries. openSCAD also has thread libraries - it has built in standard threads or you can create your own - I created a double helix thread (for a maglight flashlight) and it worked perfectly the first time.

There are many solutions. 1) In sketchup it's important to make sure surfaces are white, not gray. Right click on the inside of the cylinder (in sketchup) and select "reverse faces". This should fix your problem. 2) Sometimes you can just uncheck "union overlapping volumes" (that's if your model is really messed up and has extra walls) 3) You can try these repair services: netfabb free repair service is here (you have to create a free account first): https://service.netfabb.com/login.php Here's another service - drag and drop mesh repair service: https://3d-print.jomatik.de/en/index.php I recommend you read this so you don't have these problems in the future: https://i.materialise.com/blog/3d-printing-with-sketchup/ from labern: When using sketchup always use these 2 plugins: cleanup3 (may be 4 now) Solid inspector. Both of these plugins remove any problems with the model unseen by the eye and turn it into a solid model.

Ultimaker supposedly allows any material with their printers - the more critical thing is if the material physically fits into the material station. I don't have the material station but I believe you can maybe select "ultimaker CPE" on the material station? I really don't understand how this works. Maybe @Dim3nsioneer can explain.

Another solution is to plan for the Z seam and change the part in CAD so that it is cut off on the corner.

My first thought is that if you turn off jerk and acceleration control and if you print slow (e.g. 25mm/sec) this will go away. I believe people call this the "Z seam". In the old days some slicers printed the outer layer last and at the end it changes layers and if your Z acceleration is low it would overextrude and make a bump there which would be a vertical seam/bump. Cura changes Z on an internal layer to fix this but the outer shell has to start and end somewhere before moving to the interior of the part. This is *still* called the "z seam". There are z seam options in cura to move the location. A well tuned printer shouldn't create a z seam - or certainly if you print slowly. Basically you want to crank up the acceleration and jerk values on your printer and lower the print speeds such that the head never slows down. Any time the head slows down and you still have pressure in the nozzle you get a little overextrusion which causes these bumps. Printing the outer shell before inner shell may help also (that's not default so you have to change that in cura).

Okay, thanks for the correction. But you still can not put a "plus" feeder on a UM2. And the gear reduction is in the feeder, not the stepper. So buying only the stepper is useless as it has the wrong shaft. You need the entire feeder.

Retraction (if enabled) doesn't work so well on the bottom layer because ideally you want to over-squish the bottom layer (so the part sticks well). Which means there is always extra material leaking out. The bigger question is if you print two columns how badly does it string from one column to the other.

Check your model with the plugin: 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 if that passes choose "fix model normals" and "fix simple holes".

I'd love to see the line above what you showed. I suspect it has a "Z" in it where it changes the layer height maybe? Anyway, each line of gcode is executed and then it goes on to the next line. So the 20% feedrate happens at that point where the M220 is. Why is there no extruding going on after the speed change? I don't know.

Can you show what it looks like in PREVIEW mode (click that near the top center of screen) after you slice? Does that also show the print stops after 4%? Please post a screen shot.

what sticks? 4% of what? I don't understand.

This is real data but I forget from what, exactly. I think it was the original UM2 feeder which was a bit wimpy. I recommend most people don't go over these speeds but the UMO can go probably about double these print speeds. Anyway it gives you an idea of how temperature affects viscosity. Note that your teflon part in your UMO will die faster (maybe 500 hours instead of 2000 hours?) at 230C or 240C. Don't go over 240C for PLA. PLA is wonderful in so many ways - one of them is the range of temperatures that you can print at. ABS in contrast only prints well in a tiny range - around 5C. I could argue it has a negative range (there is no good temperature for ABS - too hot and it caramelizes and clogs in your nozzle - too cold and you get bad layer adhesion). How beautiful your part looks will go down with these higher temperatures. Especially bridging and overhangs and, well everything. But functionally the part should be good. You should definitely be printing at 210C minimum when you are printing this fast.