gr5

well then maybe try two towers - on on either side. When I printed really tiny people with a 0.25mm nozzle I had to print about 7 of them so each one cools quite a bit.

Maybe you need to tighten a set screw or something on the feeder.

Check the feeder more carefully - is it grinding a bite out of the side of the filament when this happens? I'd abort the print and then see if you can do a manual filament move on the front of the printer. If not then it's definitely hardware, right? This just sounds like a hardware problem to me.

That's a common problem. I usually solve that by printing two (or even 5) of the same object. Or I print a tower right next to the part. This allows the previous layer to cool a little while it prints the tower (or other object). Otherwise the nozzle never leaves the puddle/blob and so it can't solidify. Another solution is called "lift head". Enable that feature and set the minimum layer time to something like 3 or 5 seconds. Then when it gets to these tiny layers it will move the head away for a few seconds to cool. The problem is you are just trading one problem for another - while the head is "lifted" it will slowly (over 2 seconds) extrude a tiny little sausage-string and then when it continues it will glue that into the side of the part and you get these annoying hairs. I prefer the tower/2 parts solution instead.

So it doesn't stop moving? It keeps moving but stops extruding? Can you actually see the extruder not turning? Maybe the shaft is turning but nothing else? What kind of printiner is this?

You can also enable the feature "print thin walls". That gets you closer. You might be able to stay with 0.4mm line width if you check that box in cura. Printing .25mm lines (line width) through a 0.4mm nozzle will reduce the quality. You should play with line widths such that you have the largest possible. .35mm line width will be pretty much indistinguishable quality. 0.3 will be better quality than 0.25 for a 0.4mm nozzle. And so on. Another option is instead of making the letters stick *up*, make them stick down into the model. This way it won't matter if the nozzle is thicker than the line width. Or make your font a little bolder.

This is a common problem with machine settings. Go into the machine settings for your printer. There should be a checkbox for where the origin (0,0) is located. Uncheck that. For delta printers you usually want that in the center of the printer so the gcode includes equal amounts of positive and negative values. For pretty much all other printers you want that in the lower left corner. So cura thinks you have a delta printer for some reason. Anyway just make sure origin is set to lower left corner (not center of bed).

So support can be a bit buggy. What do you think of my idea of laying him on his back? If you insist on him standing, you can set "support horizontal expansion" to 3mm which will enlarge those towers but... look at all the crazy support it adds! You'll want to add support blockers to his neck and stuff. Really I think it's best to either design your own supports in CAD or put him on his back.

I don't see the problem. Are you saying the hands fall over or fall off or something before it connects the hand to the arm? Is that the failure mode? I would probably print this part on it's back. It's better to use as little Z space as possible. Usually the back of the model is what people pay less attention to so the worse quality of support attachment/removal might be best on the back of the print. You can use the cura tools on the left side - select the model, then select the rotation tool and rotate him onto his back. Alternatively you could model supports in CAD - or some of the supports. Make those two "arm towers" much thicker. You could just download 2 cubes and add them and size them with the scale tool on the left.

Well don't use zhop - that only seems to work well with delta printers. Here's a screenshot of what the poster is talking about.

Note that the most recent 3 printers from Ultimaker (UM3, S5, S3) have a disastrous issue if the part comes loose on the bed - if that happens when the part is wider than tall it can slide around the bed like a hockey puck. The head keeps extruding onto one spot on the print and you get a growing molten blob of filament. After a few minutes it goes up inside the print head and builds up inside the print head - a massive molten blob. Eventually the pressure slowly pushes open the head and then all the extruding is inside the head. It makes a massive mess. it's called "head flood". Because of "head flood" I think Ultimaker takes "making parts stick really really well" more serious than other manufacturers and so maybe they are more aggressive with first layer squishing. I really don't know. Just a theory.

If you level a bit too close and if you have a powerful extruder you can get this pattern. It's "good" to level "too close" as that way it squishes really well the first layer and the part is less likely to "warp" or lift off the bed. I think this is on purpose as it should be invisible once you put down the next layer. Right? I mean we care how the part looks *after* the print is done, right? Not while it is incomplete? Or am I missing something? It could be that your other printer, because it has that really nice adhesion plate, doesn't need so much squishing so it levels by default with larger nozzle/bed separation. Those photos look to me like over extrusion - the nozzle is plowing through too much filament and making furrows. But I'm not certain as bottom-layer-overextrusion looks similar to other issues. Such as chipped glass, too much glue stick, underextrusion (I know, paradoxical, right?). Overextrusion makes an interesting pattern on the bottom layer that is related to the slowdown/speed up at each corner, how much the filament slips in the extruder, and cyclic patterns where the previous line affects the next line put down.

note to others - It was when I clicked the 3rd time on the photo that I could really zoom in quite a bit. Like I think I said in the other post - it looks kind of normal. It looks like maybe some oils got on the printer or maybe you used glue stick and the glue is thicker or thinner in those areas. It would be more interesting to see a photo of the bottom of the finished print but this looks pretty typical/normal to me for 3d printing.

oh. Yeah. But I thought maybe this is a new problem that just started and if you go back to the old slicer the problem might still be there now. Just one theory - easily disproved.

By the way, cura has search fields to find obscure features like this. Search for the term "sequence".

Oh and to explain what Z screw has to do with this - you are doing 0.2mm layer height. This will be incredibly accurate on average but each layer may be a little lower or higher than 0.2mm. If some are 0.19 (doesn't move enough due to sticktion) and then one is suddenly 0.21 then the 0.21 will appear underextruded (not stick out as far - a mini valley). Whenever the distance between nozzle and bed move less than 0.2 it will be slightly over extruded and stick out and the other's will be slightly underextruded and stick in giving you these horizontal lines. This effect is MUCH worse if you switch to 0.1mm layer height. This effect tends to be pretty repeatable as the dirt on the Z screw doesn't typically move around much print to print. So you can print a Cube and then a pyramid and typically they will have mostly the same horizontal lines in the same spots.

So you are talking about those horizontal lines on that flat area? Those are (seemingly random) over and under extrusion issues. It bother's me that your inner shell is a different speed versus your outer shell print speed. Any time you change speeds you get over or underextrusion and if some of those horzontal lines were created some left to right and some right to left that would explain the issue. But I suspect they are all printed in the same direction. Still if the print head starts that outer shell sometimes near the flat area, and sometimes on the "back" side of the model then that alone (speed changes) could explain your issue. Another common possibility with horizontal lines - the most common cause - is a dirty Z screw(s). It's good to clean this occasionally. You can either do a quick cleaning with some WD-40 and a qtip or even just a paper towel wrapped around a screw driver while you drive the screw up and down. Or you can do it right and take it apart (very easy on an Ultimaker - just 4 screws hold the Z screw and stepper in and it just slides out the bottom of the printer) and clean it over some newspaper with lots of WD-40 and then reapply grease (just one pea sized drop of grease for each Z screw). Note that the Z screw on pretty much every 3d printer in existence is typically a *triple* helix so if you clean in one track/thread you still have 2 other's to clean. Sometimes 4 helixes.

By the way, in general, with small parts like these, the quality will be much better if you print them all at once as one has time to cool while the other's print. I even arrange them left to right in a line so that the fans on either side of the head cool the neighboring parts. You could easily print in pairs or triplets by putting 2 or 3 of these in a single STL file and choosing "one at a time" mode. If you are getting stringing between the parts it might make more sense to tackle that issue instead.

You want to set the setting "print sequence" to "one at a time". Note that it will not honor your request if the parts are too close together relative to your machine settings print head size. And it will not honor your request if your parts are higher than the "gantry height" (also in machine settings). But these parts look plenty small enough so you may be lucky and not have to mess with your "machine settings". Also note that several plugins that rely on "layer height" have trouble with "one at a time" mode. Such as the plugin "tweak at Z". But most likely you don't use any plugins. You will know it worked because as you scroll through layer height in preview screen you will see it doing one part at a time.

Cura *does* identify "top" layers as top layers. The term in cura is "top layers" and sometimes "skin". So for example if you print a wedge such that the top of the part is a gentle slope, you can print with only a single "wall line count" and say 20% infill but if your layer height is 0.2 and the the top thickness is 0.8 you will get 4 "top layers" (that's a setting in cura that normally auto calculates). You will see these 4 layers as tightly compact diagonal pattern just like the bottom most layer. Maybe you could post screen shots of the part and where you think it's not doing top layers. It's possible that the "normals" in your STL file are backwards for the top of your part. Did you use Sketchup? If so and the top of your part is gray then right click on that top layer and choose "reverse faces" (or something like that) such that it is white.

So instead of doing what you suggest, another solution is to print a ring - a shell-like ring under the wall (for the wall a layer or two higher up). This feature was created by someone who doesn't work at Ultimaker: @burtoogle. I'm pretty sure this feature got merged into the latest Cura but it's almost certainly turned off by default (Ultimaker doesn't like to mess with profiles on a whim because some changes might help wedding cakes but hurt other 3d prints so it's a big deal to change a profile so it's rarely done - plus customers may get really pissed off when profiles are changed that make their personal print "worse"). Look for something like "skin under walls", "skin below", or something like that? I don't have the latest cura. On the custom cura that I use which was created by @burtoogle it is called "skin edge support". That's probably what it is called in the latest cura. Or something quite similar. While you seem to care a lot about top flat surface quality, look at the "ironing" feature as well and look at posts by neotko who invented the idea and has suggested settings.

So the UM3 has a heavier print head (and the S5 even heavier) than the UM2 and it can have a lot of ringing. A lot. So all the print profiles for the UM3 try to reduce that by lowering acceleration and jerk. But this slows down the print head a lot more on corners and so you get overextrusion (there is pressure in the nozzle and slowing down for the corners just means it's going to overextrude). So if you don't mind ringing (many people absolutely hate ringing though) then you can just uncheck "acceleration control" and "jerk control" and that will improve the corners. And it will print faster. I also recommend making all the print speeds the same. However if you *do* hate ringing then leave those alone and just print slower. Try 25mm/sec for really good quality. That's pretty slow so I recommend 0.2mm layers at the same time. I think it's a good compromise for many. Personally I don't care about ringing. If you aren't already very familiar with ringing then look for google images of "ringing 3d prints". The first result with the XYZ cube is good. Some call it "ghosting".

By the way - a third issue - in the bottom most photo you posted - those 2 vertical lines look vertical so no axis slipping there - but the curve is wrong - concave instead of convex. That's typicall when the bed is too hot. As you get farther from the bed you get less heat. With high heat the liquid PLA is pulling inward like a liquid rubber band as it prints that end of the part. But as you get to cooler air a few more mm off the bed it recovers. 60C is a good printing temp - if you have an IR temp sensor you can check the bed temp with that.

For the upper photos it looks like one of your axes is slipping. Do you know which one? X axis? This can have MANY causes. The most common is a loose screw on a pulley - you have to tighten the hell out of those set screws - enough so the tool twists (typically - I don't know your specific printer). Also if you built this printer yourself or messed with the settings, you may have "jerk" or "acceleration" set too high on the printer for the axis that is slipping. Typically if the entire bed moves - that axis has to accelerate more slowly. Also the slipping axis might have much more friction and the steppers just can't accelerate that axis normally. Or your stepper drivers may be overheating and shutting off (they typically shut off for a portion of a second).

I agree - for the bottom photo you need better adhesion - level your printer so it squishes the bottom layer more: