gr5

I've never printed TPU but go at least to 235C since that is recommended all over the place from Ultimaker. Fan recommended 35% (you showed 50%). Also for UM3 fan=50% is exactly the same as fan=100% so if you have a UM3 I would go to 5% fan (which is about the same as 35% on UM2). https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/22235-how-to-print-with-ultimaker-tpu-95a Maybe bottom layers came out better because fan speed was lower (nozzle was warmer).

Try printing at half speed. Quality just sky rockets at 20 to 25mm/sec. And make sure ALL printin gspeeds are the same - none of this "infill faster" stuff. Fast travel speed is good but slow printing speed.

Use ABS support with ABS print. Don't use PVA.

Combien de morceaux est ce squelette d'oiseau? Où puis-je obtenir les fichiers STL?

So I finally did it - I made a thorough video about how to keep your parts from warping and how to keep them from coming off the bed during a print. Please give it a like on youtube!

If what Arjan is talking about isn't what you are talking about then please provide a photo with what you mean by "blocky". I use DSM also and I like it. Mostly.

Those are retraction settings.

I dry with rag or paper towel. I'm making a video - hope to release it this weekend.

The new light gray and dark gray areas are set in some file. I don't know where the file is, sorry, but it's a polygon file so you can do more complicated shapes than rectangles. I'd start by finding the location of the files that define the printer.

Lepaul - just turn the 3 screws counter clockwise a little more. I know you think it's perfect. I know you showed me photos. But obviously it's not sticking. If you squish it so much it's transparent (shouldn't have to go that far) it sticks better than if you don't. Every little bit of increased squish helps adhesion. Also have you cleaned the bed in the last week? It's good to clean it occasionally to get dust off and any oils from your fingers.

G1 F1800 X119.437 Y107.840 E391.44929G0 F9000 X118.800 Y108.701M107G92 E0G10G0 X118.800 Y108.701 Z14.999G0 X110.001 Y132.914;Layer count: 49;LAYER:0G0 X104.001 Y126.914 Z0.300;TYPE:SKIRTG11G1 F1200 X126.000 Y126.914 E5.27976 Above is the code generated from cura 15.04.4 (what version are you using @peggyb ?) If there is a bug it's probably related to the G92 E0. The G10 does a retraction and the G11 undoes that. But I'm thinking the G92 E0 which resets where the firmware thinks the E axis is positioned back to zero and this somehow makes the G10 retract too much or insetad makes the G11 do nothing. I guess G11 doing nothing is more likely. Either way it seems more like a Marlin bug and not a Cura bug. Maybe this was fixed? Did you try latest firmware @peggyb? Or was this on a UMO? I think you said um2go. Sorry didn't reread.

It's incredibly easy to load a non-ultimaker filament. Just go to the menu and tell it what type of filament you just loaded. But these NFC chips can be recycled - I believe you can actually write to one with a gcode - not sure - but someone will come out with a hack to do that. Than you can just pull the chip off an old used-up UM spool, reprogram it, and tape it to a non-ultimaker spool. Or buy a whole bunch of these chips. And like Korneel says you should be able to program them with a droid phone if someone writes an app. Do iphones do nfc?

I don't know. I recommend you try all of them and look at it in layer view and decide for yourself. I think it's kind of obvious when you see them in layer view if the structure makes sense for your particular print. There is an infill called I think "lines" that makes unconnected parallel walls - that one I think is the weakest - the walls can easily fall over. Grid I think is like graph paper lined up with X and Y axes. There is one called triangles maybe? That one should be even stronger but your problem was at the bed - not up in the air. I'm thinking "raft" will help your support stick to the bed but I really don't know. I've never tried raft and rarely use support but for your BB8 print I think support is mostly required. You can have it abandon the raft when the angle of support is maybe 60 degrees from vertical. Certainly by 45 degrees you no longer should need support. Increasing this angle can save a lot of print time. Especially if you will be sanding and painting this anyway - in that case I would go with at least 60 degrees support angle to save tons of print time.

I have these and I love them. I feel your lack-of-sleep pain. I have a pink noise generator on my phone always running at night so I can slip these on and block out sound *and* light if I choose to. https://www.amazon.com/CozyPhones-Sleep-Headphones-Travel-Bag/dp/B012YFVN90/

Better to use raft than to have supports that fall over. Instead of Zig zag maybe pick some of the stronger structures such as grid?

@lancelet - do you have a friend who is good at soldering? I recommend you go for it. That indeed looks to me like the missing step issue aka "zebra stripes". You can always undo the change. Just use powerful jewelers or reading glasses and take your time and use the right equipment.

Maybe there is convection. The bed air is heated and rises and cooler air enters the front so it's cooler near the front of the printer. Ooops - this is backwards from what you see. I don't know but temperature varies a bit depending on where on the bed you are. Within 3cm of the edges the glass is maybe 10C cooler. Well try lowering 62C to 55C before you go all the way to 45C. If your parts are not sticking at lower temperatures, then squish the bottom layer into the glass more. Don't do the leveling procedure - instead just turn the 3 screws 1/3 rotation counter clockwise to move the glass 0.166mm closer to the nozzle. If you turn all 3 screws the same amount you don't have to redo the levling procedure.

This has happened to me also. I usually add extra skirt to fix this. or brim.

Okay - well I wasn't sure if it was extruding or not from the photo. But it clearly sounds like "not". So the advice so far all mostly wrong and geared towards "sticking to bed". Well it's very strange that it sometimes extrudes fine and then suddenly stops for no apparent reason. It's possible that there is a grain of sand or something inside the nozzle but I suspect the feeder. Go to the "move material" menu and just extrude constantly until it stops extruding (should only take a few minutes I assume) and then look at the feeder while trying to extrude some more. Is the gnurled wheel moving? Try lifting the lever and pushing the filament by hand. Pull out a few inches of filament (I see you are canadian so I'm guessing you do inches - or is it cm?) and look to see if the filament is chewed up. See if it takes an incredible force (~ 10 pounds) or is easy (a few ounces). It should be easy to remove and slide back in. But it does take quite a bit of force to get it extruding again.

You can darken the lights with a gcode added to your gcode file. That means though you probably want the entire print dark - can't easily change it part way through. This is discussed on Daid's wonderful post about gcodes I think.

You can darken the lights with a gcode added to your gcode file. That means though you probably want the entire print dark - can't easily change it part way through. This is discussed on Daid's wonderful post about gcodes I think.

I don't know anything about geckotek but... is it extruding and sticking to the nozzle? If so raise up your bed by a half turn on all 3 screws. If it's not extruding then it's of course something else. When not printing - heat up the nozzle to printing temp and hold the feeder open with one hand (or use a wedge to hold the feeder open) and slide the filament in and out a bit to test for friction. See how much force it takes to get filament to come out of the nozzle. I'm guessing something simple like some filament string in the bowden is clogging or the feeder gnurled sleeve isn't screwed in tight and is splipping.

Are you printing PLA? This is common with PLA. Lower the print bed by 5C and it should improve. Maybe lower even further to get it perfect. More info here (5th photo down on left - "cave in"): http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/23-a-visual-ultimaker-troubleshooting-guide The basic problem is that the part is too hot and soft and that PLA shrinks as it cools the first few milliseconds so it is almost instantly like snot - like a liquid rubber band. It is still liquid and at the same time pulling so outer corners or outer curves get pulled inwards. but as you get farther from the heated bed it's fine again. For PLA 60C is about perfect for heated bed but the adhesion is great all the way down to around 45C. For other materials such as nylon you can have this same problem but the glass temperature or softening temperature is much higher. Basically no matter what material you are printing - lower the bed temp by 5C to 10C.

Did you buy this in Canada? @valcrow - Did you contact this customer yet? @telkinvaga

Why the gaps on the bottom layer? Is that the support structure? Hmm. Cura needs an option where the bottom layer is solid below the support structure. maybe that's what brim does to support?