gr5

The next time it is doing anything strange on the bottom layer, push the bed up or down gently to learn what the issue might be.

Is this on a PC? What is the "com" port? I think there was a bug in most versions (all versions?) of cura where it only uses com ports up to around 10 or 20? You can use arduino software to load the hex file or other software - I think pronterface might be able to upload hex files onto a UM2. But easier to keep switching PCs or Macs until you find one that has the com port < 10 (e.g. COM3) Power cycle the UM2 occasionally also. Also for some people the USB on their computer just doesn't have the power that a UM2 needs so adding a USB hub could help - or again - just try a different computer.

What kind of printer do you have? I recommend only doing manual leveling. Anyway - more importantly - don't necessarily blame leveling for your head flood. Head floods are usually caused when your part is (at that moment) wider than it is tall and it comes loose from the bed. Here is more info about getting parts to "not come loose" - both *what* to do and *why*:

Some people swear by sketchup and 3d printing but they all know everything in this article. I suspect you only need to worry about the "reverse faces" discussion. Please at least skim this article quickly if you must use sketchup: https://i.materialise.com/blog/3d-printing-with-sketchup/

I recommend you avoid active leveling and just do manual leveling procedure once. Then you should "level on the fly". If it's printing with blobs and gaps like the middle of those 4 parts then it's either underextruding due to failure of some kind or you are too far from the tape. The top part has just a few traces - maybe 4 - in a diagonal line that clearly look too high from the tape. Maybe you pushed down on the bed then briefly without realizing it? If you are too close to the part it will look transparent - sort of like the right side of that top part. Although that might also be underextrusion. So my guess is all of your issues are explained by underextrusion but it will be much more obvious if you just push up and down on the bed gently whenever you see something you don't like and remember which way made each of those 4 parts better. I suspect you will find there is something wrong that is causing underextrusion. Possibly you are simply printing too fast or too cold or there is a partial clog in your core or one of a dozen other causes. If you conclude it is underextrusion after pushing up and down on the bed during the first layer then let me know here and I'll post my list of possible causes. The first thing to try is doing a few cold pulls (it's an option in the menu on the UM3).

Looking forward to seeing the video. 🙂

I don't understand - is this patina some kind of paint that changes color over more than 14 hours? I'm ignorant of painting techniques and whatever "patina" is.

Okay well you will need to learn 2 more things. I didn't realize you would have steep, almost vertical, walls that you wanted air to flow through also. First: To allow this you need to change the infill pattern because "grid" will only let the air move vertically. Maybe try gyroid - try all the different patterns and think about which patterns will let air through horizontally as well as vertically. Also you need to set "wall thickness" to zero to remove the outermost solid wall. The second issue you may have is that now ALL of your mold lets air through including the lower most wall. Which might be a problem. To make the lower most wall solid you need to set the wall thickness back to 0.8 or 1.2mm. So you need to have wall thickness change such that it is 0.8mm on the bottom half of the part and 0 on the top half. Here you can see a screen shot where I have part of my print (left part) with no walls and the right side has walls. I did this by adding a cube. You can add a cube and size it with the scale tool and position it inside your existing part (before doing this you have to go to "preferences" "configure cura..." and uncheck "ensure models are kept apart"). Then select this cube and on the left you can see I made it mesh type: "modify settings". Then you can add the wall and line count settings and modify the settings inside the cube portion of your part. There are videos on youtube showing you how to do this better than I am showing you. There are other ways to achieve this goal - you could split your part into two separate STL files - the portion with permeable walls and the portion without. But I think this method I describe here is simpler.

Wow - that's new to me. Do you let the glass bed cool to at least 80C before removing the part from the glass? You got me quite curious. injection molding has similar issues - when the part comes out of the mold it warps - they have to do weird things like make 90 corners 95 degrees (or 85 - I forget). I think I need to see photographs of this warping.

Try 25mm/sec on first layer and 40mm/sec on the rest. Try coolest temp (230C). Yes, the UMO doesn't have that fan blowing on the teflon and the fan fixed an issue that looks like this where it prints fine for a few layers but if there's too many retractions the heat slides up and causes clogs in the teflon area or just above. I'd probably replace the teflon part. Also check the diameter of the filament. sometimes a 3mm filament really is 3.00mm (very very rare) and that can get stuck in the bowden. You'd probably notice though when you tried to slide the filament out a bit as part of some test. I'm a bit stumped however. Oh wait - it could be the extruder driver chip is overheating. If so it would sound a little different where the extruder turns off for a portion of a second and then quickly turns back on again. The fix for this issue is usually to *lower* the extruder current to around 900ma.

I always save every potential print as a project file (do file save as). That way you should be able to duplicate any bugs just by opening the project file.

So please explain in more detail. Are you saying: 1) you loaded an stl file 2) You added some support blockers 3) Everything was good and it sliced right 4) then you saved it as a project 5) then you loaded the project 6 Now the support blockers are part of the print Did I get that right?

50C air temp is pushing the limits where you might damage something. I'm not sure what the specification is for maximum air temp. If your ABS part isn't sticking well you certainly don't need an air manager at all as I've printed ABS even on a UMO. Raising the air temp is definitely a big help to getting parts to stick but it should only be one tool in your arsenal of tools. Here's a video where I describe all the tricks to get parts to stick well and not just *what* to do but *why*. Yes it's a long video (I edited it down a lot) but hopefully you'll learn a few key details:

I don't think they are printable. Please show in PREVIEW mode. Please show screen shot.

1) Look at the part in "prepare" mode. Note red areas. Those are considered areas that may need support. 2) By any chance did you use sketchup to create your model? If so, right click on all gray surfaces and select "reverse faces" and try again. More info here: https://i.materialise.com/blog/3d-printing-with-sketchup/ Please supply photos of your part in prepare, xray, and layer view (some of us are too lazy to open a gcode file until we get intrigued). Also posting the project file is more helpful (in cura do file save).

It's probably over cooking in the nozzle. You can fix this by printing cooler or faster. Do .3mm for bottom layer (default I think) and 0.2mm for remaining layers. Until you've experimented more. You can certainly do 0.1mm if you stay at 40mm/sec and your nozzle is cool enough. So what temp is best? I'm really not sure. I think you want to stay between 240 and 245C but start out at 230C as an experiment. So for now, try 0.2 layer height and also do 20mm/sec print speed on that bottom layer to keep the plastic flowing. That's clogging. Other problems you will have is layer adhesion and parts sticking to the bed. You really want the bed at 105C minimum, 110C recommended for the ABS to stick extra well to the bed but I don't think you can get it up to that temp without enclosing the printer - as a minimum enclose the 3 open sides and throw a big box over the top. Let the air get up to 35C (servos will be fine even at 40C air temp). This higher air temp will help with layer adhesion. Also lower the fan a lot - print at what sounds like 1/4 power (around 30% I think). If fan is too low then overhangs will look bad. If fan is too high then part will seem fine until you break it and you will realize it breaks along layer lines which means you didn't have good layer adhesion. It should break in a way completely (or mostly) ignoring layer lines.

Could you be more specific regarding the gcodes? Which gcodes are required by your machine to turn on both fans to say 0%, 50%, and 100%? What gcodes does cura create when you set cooling fan number to 0 and to 2? If you are not familiar with any gcodes, here is a good place to start: https://reprap.org/wiki/G-code

Did you look at the "top bottom" settings I described? Did you try them out on your mold? You can see what the result will look like in "PREVIEW" mode in cura and you can adjust the infill pattern and density for good holes in the mold. UM2+ should work great for this. You will have to adjust the size of the holes in your mold. I think you will want the "grid" pattern for infill but you can experiment and look at it in "preview" mode to see what infill pattern is best to let the vacuum through the mold.

Don't forget that S5 prints larger objects than i3 and don't forget that S5 prints Nylon and other high temp materials easily that are difficult or impossible on i3 without modification. Also S5 is a dual printer that is quite good at printing PVA support which is a difficult feat. If you want to print: 1) Only PLA and 2) Don't mind PLA support (don't need dissolvable support) and 3) only Small parts Then the S5 is definitely not for you. There are other printers that are much cheaper and print with even better quality (for a given speed) like the i3 or the um2go. There are other features of the S5 that the i3 does not have that I did not mention but the 3 above are the most important I think.

Is that one of those printers where the Y axis moves the entire table? That axis might have some play. either axis might. Push the nozzle a bit and the table a bit with power off and nothing should move unless the stepper also rotates. Sometimes you can hold the stepper with one hand and push on the bed a bit to see how much play there is. You seem to have about .5mm - not a lot but enough to feel it. Also you are underextruding. Pretty sure.

You have at least 2 issues. One is that you are underextruding a bit. There might be something that needs replacing on the printer. What kind of printer is this? The other problem is that I can see your issue is worse in one axis more than the other (can't tell which though). This indicates you have some play. What kind of printer is this? For example if this is an Ultimaker printer check that the belts are the same tightness on X and Y axis - especially the short belts from the stepper. Pluck the belts with the head in a corner and make sure the pitch is about the same. Also push the head around and make sure one axis doesn't have much more friction than the other. What kind of printer is this? I ask 3 times because your issues are your printer and I have different advice depending upon the printer. I guess regardless of the printer you should get less underextrusion if you print at 1/3 speed (most printers (all printers?) including all Ultimaker printers let you adjust this live in a "TUNE" menu)

Sorry I'm not answering your question but I hope I can be helpful anyway. Is this PLA? What kind of printer is this? Raft is an old technology already on it's way out before Cura was written. Because of this I suspect it doesn't work very well in Cura (probably works better in slic3r). You shouldn't need a raft unless you are printing high temp materials (like ABS) and don't have a heated bed. Is that the case? Do you have a heated bed? Are you printing something other than PLA? I have more information about this topic here:

Sometimes Cura ignores text because it is too small. But there are many other possibilities. Please show some screen shots. If something isn't printing it could either be because it is too small or because the model is not manifold (solid). In particular, sketchup is the best cad for making non manifold designs but the solutions are simple, and easy. Please provide more info for your particular text: 1) What cad are you using 2) Is the text thinner than the nozzle diameterX2? (0.8mm typically) 3) Show screenshots of the model in prepare mode, slice view, and xray view

@omerselcuk - sorry but I thought your post was an advertisment. But after reading it a few more times I think you are asking about makeing cardboard molds and want to know cura settings. To make your cura parts porous (to let the water through in cardboard making) you want to set "Top/Bottom thickness" in cura to 0. And experiment with the "infill density" and "infill pattern" should probably be "grid". There's a good youtube video about this:

Over a million polygons is, well, a lot. For the model in this article you can see that even for a detailed car... well check it out: http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/polygon_reduction_with_meshlab