gr5

I have them: http://thegr5store.com/store/index.php/umo.html

That's called underextrusion. It probably isn't happening on the first few layers because it's printing slower and with less fan. Here are causes of underextrusion: CAUSES FOR UNDEREXTRUSION AND HOW TO TEST FOR THEM AND REMEDY THEM 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. 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) 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) Bowden pushing too hard - for the same reason you don't want the bowden pushing too hard on the isolator. 6c) 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. Or soak it in acetone overnight (after removing 90% of the material with cold pull). 8) 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 10) Other feeder issues, one of the nuts holding machine 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 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 and 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) 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. 15) 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. 16) 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

Nozzle too far from bed. Just push up on the bed a little to confirm that. To fix don't relevel. Just turn the 3 screws a half turn counter clockwise to move the bed up. Turn all 3 the same amount.

I've never ever heard of layers not sticking with PLA but this is common with higher glass-temp materials. Are you printing with ABS? I think your temp sensor is flakey. You should watch the temp while it's printing. It should move very very slowly by 1C at a time and never increase or decrease by 2C within 20 seconds. If it jumps 10C at a time you have a bad temp sensor connection which is what I suspect. You can't use solder in the temp sensors. Normal solder melts at 200C and even lead melts at 250C so instead it's a crimp connection which expands and contracts when you heat and cool. Some of these just weren't crimped quite right (imagine a tiny piece of brass o ring crimped around the wire connecting to the temp sensor lead). I recommend you get a new temp sensor. I sell them for $18 (I think) here: http://thegr5store.com or you can get them at fbrc8.

Yes. But the procedure is COMPLETELY different in cura 2.X versus 15.X. In 15.x you need a plugin called something like "switch at Z". Something like that. You slice it both ways (.1, .2) and save to two files then use switch at Z to switch to the other file. In cura 2.X you split your cad model into 3 cylinders, load all 3 stl files into cura and merge them (right click after slelecting all) then on left side you can change settings - oh! except not layer height[correction, cura 2.X now does layer height per sub-object also]. So, um, for this particular feature you need cura 15.X.

The OS should make no difference. I've done a thousand prints with Cura and never tried a mac but the quality is excellent. I think it's a coincidence so far. Please provide some photos. Cura 15.X remembers settings from previous prints so you could take the gcode file from a mac, and (if it's cura 15.x) do "file" "load profile from gcode..." to get the exact same settings copied into the pc. A photo of your print and settings might help us diagnose the issue also.

Yes. Many times. There's lots of discussion on the major tricks to get this to work (oil, hot, slow). Just use the search above.

Cura lets you rotate in all 3 axial rotations and if you hold down shift or ctrl or something it will go down to 1 degree. Does that help? Please include a photo. Sometimes I also have to sink the part into the glass. I forget where that option is. Please provide photo and which cura you are using.

You need something called "mold release". I don't know the answer to your question but I suspect you can google "mold release for PLA" and find some suitable materials. Hopefully one that you can spray out of a can like "Pam".

So the "change material" feature is something I never use. Just pull out the old pla and push in the new. There's a lever on the feeder. Lift that and you can pull out the old material. Then insert the new. I 3d printed a little wedge to help hold the feeder open while I do this. Not only do I recommend this when paused - I recommend to ALWAYS change material manually. Always. It's easier. It's faster. You may notice things (resistance in the bowden) that you wouldn't normally notice which can help you big time. Once I had filament that looked fine - it was a little chewed up. What I didn't realize was how crazy tight that filament was in the bowden.

Try this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53690 I'm told it actually works. The back board of a UMO is like a sound board of a guitar! Yikes! You can also just cut most of the back away and put the filament spool on the floor.

It's not a tension issue. If the belts are loose you get a different issue that's hard to explain. Well one factor is that a cube is not square and circles are not round. There is a tensioner in each block hidden inside. If you loosen the set screw on each pulley the spring should take up the tension. Anyway I don't think this is your issue. What do you mean about the bowden? It's tricky to get the bowden all the way into the head. It should be touching the white teflon part. Normally when I take my bowden out it takes several tries to get it all the way down into the white teflon part. The video is great but I'd like to see a photo of what you are not happy about. I'm sure you have underextrusion. It's just a very common problem. First give yourself a test case that can be printed continuously so that changing something gives you results in seconds. That way you can test 100 times as many things than if you are printing an entire print between each test change. Try printing at 10mm/sec when you get to the problem area. Raise temperature to 240C and set flow at 140%. If that doesn't fix it then maybe you are right and it's not underextrusion. Once you believe that it really is underextrusion here is a list of potential causes. CAUSES FOR UNDEREXTRUSION AND HOW TO TEST FOR THEM AND REMEDY THEM 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. 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) 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) Bowden pushing too hard - for the same reason you don't want the bowden pushing too hard on the isolator. 6c) 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. Or soak it in acetone overnight (after removing 90% of the material with cold pull). 8) 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 10) Other feeder issues, one of the nuts holding machine 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 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 and 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) 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. 15) 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. 16) 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

By law if someone modifies Marlin and sells it or gives it away in a printer they have to supply the source code upon request. So ask Wanhao for the source code. Configuration.h is one of about 20 source files. Oh - I think this is it: https://github.com/garychen99/Duplicator-i3-firmware Anyway below instructions are for Ultimaker original but should be identical instructions for wanhao except for the source code which you get at the above link. ================ BUILDING MARLIN thermistor tables: https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin/blob/Marlin_v1/Marlin/thermistortables.h'>https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin/blob/Marlin_v1/Marlin/thermistortables.h'>https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin/blob/Marlin_v1/Marlin/thermistortables.h'>https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin/blob/Marlin_v1/Marlin/thermistortables.h First get the source code. UMO files here: https://github.com/ErikZalm/Marlin Then edit Configuration.h – this is by far the hardest step and it's not bad. I recommend you go here: http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/ or https://bultimaker.bulles.eu/ and use that website only to get the Configuration.h file. Then run winmerge or some other diff program to compare the latest ErikZalm version of Configuration.h to the one from robotfuzz which is usually a few months behind. Edit the ErikZalm version to match the robotfuzz generated version. Make any other edits as necessary. It sound complicated but it is extremely clear and well commented. Sometimes with paragraphs of explanation. configuration.h file detailed explanation: http://airtripper.com/1145/marlin-firmware-v1-basic-configuration-set-up-guide/ Then you need to build Marlin. There are instructions that come with the erik zalm download in the "README.md" text file. Basically you download and install arduino ide: http://arduino.cc/en/main/software Then copy the sanguino software as explained in README file. Open Marlin.ino file in Arduino IDE by double clicking it (not pde file as stated in README - I think that's old). Select board as "Mega 2560" as explained in README file. Go to "file" "preferences" and select "verbose output" so you can find your hex file. Then build it by clicking the check box in the upper left corner. At the bottom you will see it compiling Marlin. At the end of this it says where the hex file is. If you are currently connected to your UM through USB you can just click "file" "upload" and you are done! But you should locate that hex file and save it somewhere along with the Configuration.h file used to create it so you can recreate the same version with maybe one change. Also you can upload the hex file using Cura in expert menu. The actual ultimaker firmware is built with make file and doing it that way generates a smaller more compact firmware but doing it through the IDE works fine. I've done it many times. Alternatively you can build Marlin with somewhat more detailed step by step instructions the command line way (which I don't prefer): http://www.extrudable.me/2013/05/03/building-marlin-from-scratch/

I'm not familiar with titan but isn't that an all metal hot end? Those don't work well with PLA and I really really love PLA. But if you are 100% ABS then go for it.

Filament is something you don't want to go cheap on. Some of the better brands are Ultimaker, Colorfabb. Printed Solid has some cheaper brands that they have tested in Ultimaker printers. They claim they aren't as good but are good enough for things that don't have to look nice and don't have difficult tolerances.

Something is wrong. There is a little white plastic lever on the right side of the print head. Push that forwards and backwards. That is supposed to lift the BB core up and down. If that is working then there should be a block like piece of plastic over on the right side towards the back of the printer. That is supposed to push that lever. It may be missing the lever or it may be missing from your printer (may have fallen off - I think maybe it's glued??). There is a calibration for that to line up the lever with the slot. It's somewhere in the calibration menus. Something like "calibrate core switcher" or "calibrate switcher block" or something like that.

What kind of printer is this? Do you have the marlin settings for your printer? Did you build your own Marlin? Who built the marlin for you? You really need to get the source code of the Marlin for your particular printer and then modify just the Z max pos. If you are terrified of building Marlin you *might* be able to use this but only if you have a UMO style printer: https://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/

Marlin has a feature called "software endstops". This sets the print volume. You need a custom version of Marlin to get this to work. For example in the code below from Configuration.h you would change the 200 to something larger: #define min_software_endstops true //If true, axis won't move to coordinates less than HOME_POS.#define max_software_endstops true //If true, axis won't move to coordinates greater than the defined lengths below.// Travel limits after homing#define X_MAX_POS 205#define X_MIN_POS 0#define Y_MAX_POS 205#define Y_MIN_POS 0#define Z_MAX_POS 200#define Z_MIN_POS 0

You never said what the problem is. Your bottom layer looks textbook perfect. However I'm going to have to guess you don't like those lines between the holes. Those are non-printing moves that have no retraction. Is this what you are talking about? To get the printer to retract during infill like that (the slicer thinks of this as infill) you have to turn off combing. Combing is a feature where it tries to do non printing moves within infill and as a side effect it doesn't bother retracting as it's (wrongly) assuming this layer isn't visible. Then on top of that - there might also be a "combing on first layer" option or something like that. So make sure you found all the combing related options and disable them all.

That clear tube is called the "bowden" tube. Remove the colored clips at each end of the bowden and push down on the ring around the bowden while lifting the bowden at each end so the bowden is no longer connected to the machine. Remove the bowden from the wiring also. If the filament is stuck in the head then heat the head to 180C and then pull it out and let the head cool down. If the filament is stuck in the feeder then cut the filament well past the end of the bowden. If you still can't get the filament out put it in a pan of boiling water. A lasagna pan is perfect. Put the bowden in the pan. Pour boiling water over the bowden. Wait 20 seconds. Use gloves to pick up bowden, pull filament out firmly.

I have seen this problem 100 times now and the answer is still the same: http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/23-a-visual-ultimaker-troubleshooting-guide Third picture down on right side.

Brass is popular for 2 reasons: It's nice and soft so very easy to machine It has excellent heat transfer. Steel not so good on the heat transfer. So I wouldn't leave the nozzle at 240C when you are warming up or paused but once you starting printing I would definitely heat the nozzle up 10C hotter than what you use for brass. If doing that gives you a "heater error", only then would I recommend a more powerful heater. I have 35W, 40W, and 50W heaters for UM2 in my store.

So cura 15.X and 14.X also had plugins (15 stands for 2015 and 14 stands for 2014) but those plugins are incompatible with cura 2.X. I don't know but I'm guessing that pauseAtL is a cura 15.X (or older) plugin. Plusins for Cura 2.x most likely will specifically mention that they work on cura 2.X. As for where they would go? not sure but probably in the appdata local cura folder - something similar to this: C:\Users\your_username_goes_here\AppData\Local\cura\plugins

That sucks. I would try printing through the USB flash drive. I don't have any other ideas other than power cycling/rebooting.

I heard this was fixed in a very recent version of jedi-marlin (the firmware) (today is feb 27 2017). But I don't think it's the normal version - I think it's the developer version or something. Can anyone else answer this?