gr5

By the way you have a second problem which you will probably think is your main problem. It's not! Your main problem is underextrusion. The second issue is you have some play (aka backlash). That is what is causing the two lines and then gap - two lines touching - then gap. I don't know what is causing the backlash - make sure the long belts and also the short belts are tight - possibly the X or Y stepper slid up a mm within it's slot - loosen the 4 screws and push down hard and retighten the 4 screws on the stepper. Repeat for both steppers. Alternatively you may have very high friction. Push the head around with power off - look at the two 6mm rods that pass through the head - do they look perpendicular or crooked? It's common that one of the belts slips a single gear tooth. To fix - loosen the pulleys at both ends - make the 6mm rods perpendicular and retighten. Tighten the hell out of those pulleys - enough to bend the hex tool. it's easy to make them perpendicular if you push the head all the way to each end until the blocks can't go any farther. it doesn't have to be perfect - just good enough that you don't have very high friction.

What temperature are you printing at? I would put flow back to 100%. You need to see how fast you can print before you get these gaps so reslice the cube to be solid and maybe set shell to 0% also (infill 100%). Set your infill speed to 100mm/sec so you can adjust the percentage and the percentage will equal the speed - so for example 20% will be 20mm/sec. Then ignore the first layer of the print. Once it starts the second layer slow it to 20%. The lines should be touching. Then speed it up slowly until you start getting gaps. Make a note of the speed. Then raise the temperature in the tune menu by 10C and repeat the experiment. Repeat this a few times until you are up to 240C maximum (for PLA). Post your results please. You will learn a lot in just 10 minutes because you can do this while it's printing from the tune menu. You shouldn't even have to finish the print.

neone is pretty experienced. I suspect he's getting pretty consistent results by now. Maybe this is more a design problem? So is this a fork and knife? Is the idea to click it together for storage only? Or is it used as one piece (could it be glued permanently)? Also are you printing flat and then heating this up after printing and forming the 3d curve? I'm thinking the part that doesn't have a hole could have a tiny overhang - maybe .2mm around the sides in a few places (but not the ends - just the sides of that bump). I did something similar and it worked great a few times. After 20 or 30 snaps though it got weaker and weaker.

Here are the latest teflon isolators from 3dsolex and Ultimaker. It's hard to tell in this photo I think - I photographed over a dark background to make it easier to see but they are more translucent than the older teflon parts because this is a newer higher temperature teflon. Notice that 3dsolex has a groove around it - that's just a marker so we could tell the older material from the newer material when 3dsolex switched brands of teflon. Also the 3dsolex one has a bit of a funnel inside (can't see it in the photo though). This is to reduce the likelyhood that the filament get stuck when inserting it - also lets you print with filament that is cracked due to the recent brittle filament issue. I was nervous that soft pla might get stuck in that cone but it seems to not be an issue.

ABS has an issue that PLA doesn't because the glass temperature is so high - adhesion. I suspect if you are printing at 215 and have even the tiniest 10% of fan you will get bad layer adhesion which means your parts won't be very strong and can break easily along layer boundaries. For parts that don't need to be strong this is absolutely fine. But if you want something as strong as PLA you need good bonding. Now I could be wrong - especially if you print slow and thin layers the nozzle might be in contact long enough to melt the layer below but I suspect your parts are weaker than you think. Try printing a 1cm cuboid that is 1cm by 1cm and maybe 5cm tall. Or much taller. Print it with fan off and nozzle at 240C and then print it with fan on 100% (maybe the second half?). Then try to snap it in half like a pencil and see how strong the zero fan portion is compared to the part that had 100% fan cooling. That will give you a good feel for layer adhesion issues. Turn off infill for this test. It will save you lots of time and help make the part a bit weaker for a more valid test. An ABS part with good layer adhesion will be very difficult to break even hollow with two .4mm shell passes (shell around .8mm or .75mm for .25 nozzle). Enclosing your printer helps quite a bit as now the fan is blowing 50C air instead of 20C air. Glass temp of ABS is around 100C.

I've seen the upgrade for sale already somewhere - I think maybe I saw it in canada - at 3dshop.ca? I hear it's involved and requires drilling holes in your printer. It's also quite a bit of money. What country are you in ianmellor? Please put your country in your profile location setting. CORRECTION 13 DAYS LATER - It's a pretty simple upgrade to perform because they have you replace the whole head as one piece and there is indeed no drilling. That was an incorrect rumor.

The original Ultimakers - in the first 4 months - had much weaker third fans. I have that on my oldest UM2 and it works fine for me. I hate the noisy fans. I doubt it's the fan. The difference between 0 km/h wind and .1 km/h wind makes a massive difference in cooling. The difference betwen .1km/h and 3km/h is small in comparison. I found this true with electronics in experiments I did many years ago. So I prefer quiet fans.

>The third point for leveling is not operated with a screw. Oh. Really? That's... that's horrible. How do you adjust the leveling during a print? did they add something in the tune menu? I think the tinkerMarlin lets you adjust Z after the print starts. Adjusting leveling screws only helps the first layer. Not other layers. It allows you to have a tradeoff between a perfect bottom layer dimensionally (like a gear that is perfect) and having the part stick well. 95% of the time "sticking well" is the more desired property for the bottom layer. Some of your photos showed parts not sticking to the glass (the parts which had more spaghetti than the mask). That's why I brought up that issue. That is fixed by my comments above about getting parts to stick better. new topic... The head commonly hits the part and makes a loud noise and can be the equivalent of hitting the print hard enough with your fist to move the printer a few inches -- in other words quite high forces! The fix is to get the part to stick extra well to the bed. (again raise the bed more than the leveling procedure tells you to - for example don't use any paper also use glue). This banging usually is related to overhangs like on the mask but can be related to globs of filament being dragged around and stuck down into a layer - then it hits the blob for a few layers. This is easier to fix than the overhang issue as it is usually an error in the model. Overhang issues are best fixed with more fan (for pla anyway). Anyway the banging is rarely a problem as long as the part is stuck very very well to the bed. I think it's a coincidence when you stopped printing ABS. The mask is a different print than you printed in the past and it's not great - the eyes have an air-ring all the way around them so the center of the eyes is printed in mid-air. This is not good. Not a good cad model. Ideally you should remove the eyes and print them later? I'm not sure what the goal is to have floating eyes there. Anyway this is problematic. It makes me think there may be other problems with this mask. Ideally you should look at your models in layer view in Cura and after a little experience you sould have seen that the eyes were gong to be a serious problem before you started the print.

Nice! what did you pick for K and K2? What kind of printer do you have?

200 dollars? You should be able to get one for free - isn't it covered by warranty? Yes you can change the firmware - the easiest might be to change it in pins.h - swap the pins for the 2 sensors there and rebuild. I've rebuilt the firmware many times not so hard. I posted instructions earlier in this thread.

It's probably going to take you 100 PLA prints also before you can get reliable prints. Owning a 3d printer is like owning a lathe - there's several things to learn. The main problem you seem to be having is related to leveling. Do not use the leveling procedure more than once. You already did it. You are done with that procedure. Now you need to fine tune it while your printer is printing the bottom layer. There's two different leveilng heights I print at. 95% of my prints are printed such that the bottom layer get squished down a bit such that when the part comes off you can see a very tiny rim around the part where it touched the glass. Even if you don't use the brim feature. You haven't leveled to that particular recommended height so you are getting parts that aren't sticking well to the glass and hence the "spaghetti". I only have to level about once every hundred prints (actually less often than that) so once you get the proper level height you can stop. So start off by turning the 3 leveling screws counter clockwise as seen from below - turn each screw the same amount - try 1/3 to 1/2 a full turn. Then start your print - watch the begining of the print - if it's not squishing the filament flat like a pancake then it won't stick well so adjust the 3 screws while it's printing! Hopefully it is already "level" just not at the right height which means you want to turn all 3 screws the same amount but you can compensate a low corner at this time also. Ideally you do this at the start of your next 10 prints until you are an expert and by then you won't be moving it anyway. For me when I print something relatively different (smaller, larger, mechanical, articstic, water tight, hollow, whatever) then there are new things to learn and new challenges. For example you can reduce stringing by lowering the temperature to say 190C but the lower you go in temperature the slower you have to print. That should probably be a different topic for you on this forum - in otherwords feel free to start a separate topic about each of your issues - one for strings. This topic for parts not sticking. Here is the full advice to get parts to stick to the bed well. If you stick with this printer a while longer eventually you will stop being frustrated with it and will love it. ======= lifting corners, curling corners, part sticking to glass 1) Make sure the glass is clean if you haven't cleaned it for a few weeks. You want a very thin coat of PVA glue which is found in hairspray, glue stick, wood glue. If you use glue stick or wood glue you need to dilute it with water - about 5 to 10 parts water to 1 part glue. So for example if you use glue stick, apply only to the outer edge of your model outline then add a tablespoon of water and spread with a tissue such that you thin it so much you can't see it anymore. wood glue is better. hairspray doesn't need to be diluted. When it dries it should be invisible. This glue works well for most plastics. 2) Heat the bed. This helps the plastic fill in completely (no air pockets) so you have better contact with the glass. For PLA any temp above 40C is safe. I often print at 60C bed. 3) heat the bed (didn't I already say that?). Keeping the bottom layers above the glass temp of the material makes it so the bottom layers can flex a bit (very very tiny amount) and relieve the tension/stress. For PLA 60C is better than 50C. 70C is even better but then you get other "warping" like issues at the corners where they move inward but if you are desperate it's worth it. For ABS you want 110C (100C is good enough). 4) rounded corners - having square corners puts all the lifting force on a tiny spot. Rounding the corner spreads the force out more. This is optional if you use brim. 5) Brim - this is the most important of all. Turn on the brim feature in cura and do 10 passes of brim. This is awesome. 6) Squish - make sure the bottom layer is squishing onto the glass with no gaps in the brim. The first trace going down should be flat like a pancake, not rounded like string. don't run the leveling procedure if it is off, just turn the 3 screws the same amount while it is printing the skirt or brim. Counter clockwise from below gets the bed closer to the nozzle. Don't panic, take a breath, think about which way to move the glass, think about how the screw works, then twist. This may take 30 seconds but it's worth it to not rush it. You can always restart the print. If you do all this you will then ask me "how the hell do I get my part off the glass?". Well first let it cool completely. Or even put it in the freezer. Then use a sharp putty knife under a corner and it should pop off.

I thought I already answered the marvin question. That's normal. Just print 2 marvins at the same time. YOU WILL BE AMAZED!

Well your nozzle is to the left so that's expected. The center point is irrelevant. Ignore that. Just figure out where these points are: g1 x0 y0 g1 x255 y224 And see if you can then cut power and push them a little farther than that (or just cut power to servos - there is a gcode for that. If Cura isn't putting the part in the center of the printable area (according to servos - not according to where the glass is) then that's a very serious bug - but I really doubt that's an issue. But you can always move a part in cura (as well as scale it, rotate it, and more).

Wow! I've never seen that before! Well the um2+ series have different clips that hold the glass because the old clips where causing too many fingers to bleed. Now I guess the new ones aren't tight enough?! I would put a thin sheet of rubber in there somehow to keep it from moving around. I've had the head hit parts with pretty incredible force before - the equivalent that if you did it with hour fist it would knock the printer a few inches across the table. Maybe 10 pounds for 1/10th second? So yeah - I would increase the gripping power of those clips. Maybe get some glue stick under them onto the glass?

If you want a really nice spacer that replaces the spring I'm partial to this one: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/um2-spring-replacement Regarding your ptfe part - that's the old teflon material. UM (and 3dsolex) have a newer material - it's more transluscent (you can see through it a bit more - like a frosted glass). UM may be offloading tens of thousands of the "older" style - I dont' know. But they shipped me 2 of the newer ones a few weeks ago.

You have 2 completely unrelated issues. Bottom picture: The top of Marvin is too small and doesn't have time to cool. No amount of fan will help - the only fix is to print something else nearby to give marvin 3 seconds to cool between layers so the nozzle isn't always touching molten PLA and keeping it hot. Usually I will just print 2 marvin's side by side. Alternatively you could print a tower. Make sure you are in "print all at once" mode otherwise it will print one marvin and then print the next and both will have bad top. Top picture: Try to keep the flow always at 100%. 90mm/sec at 210C and .2mm layers is too fast - you will get underextrusion (as shown in photo). Here are my recommended top speeds for .2mm layers (twice as fast for .1mm layers): 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.

Acceleration? I don't know what that does. The marlin firmware has an acceleration parameter for XY axes. It defaults to 3000 mm/sec for typical UM2 printer but can go up to 9000 mm/sec. You can override this in gcode but cura never messes with this. If this is an s3d parameter it should be more than a boolean - it should have a range of options. Typically I high acceleration can give you some subtle vertical lines on your print caused by "ringing". Usually 1000mm/sec gets rid of most ringing. But I suspect this S3D parameter is something completely different.

Cura is fine - it is supposed to show the right clips outside the build volume. That's because the nozzle is on the left side of the print head so even if you push the head all the way to the right until it hits something, it still won't go much past the left edge of the clips as shown in cura. It happens. It's a temporary problem - just rehome your printer or power cycle it and it will be back to normal. It makes a horrible sound but what usually gives is the stepper motor itself and it can handle it - no damage to the stepper. It sounds horrible but it doesn't damage anything.

well I don't know s3d very well but isn't there a "slice view" or similar so you can see what's going on at that darker line? I'm guessing maybe the infill is visible? Because this is a translucent material. But you would know better than I as you have the slicer and the gcode. Gcode can also be visualized by other software such as repetier host which loads a gcode file and you can highlight each layer or each line segment one at a time and see exactly what is going on visually.

kapton tape is an older technology. Glass is the next generation after kapton tape. Not sure what is after glass - maybe build-tak. Anyway stick with glass - it works really well. If you can't get the part off let it cool completely - even maybe put it in the freezer. Also get a putty knife and sharpen the corner so you can get it under prints.

ad597 reprap board sounds right.

You are printing too cold and/or too fast. Play with speed and temperature in the controller menu while it is printing. Also you want as much fan as possible - see if there is a way to increase fan - add a window fan or desk fan nearby.

The Z seam is usually where the printer pauses briefly and the Z axis moves. Because of this pause you get extra PLA leaking out. You can reduce until the seam is almost invisible through a few techniques (speed/temp). The best thing to do is lower the speed drastically. Try to get your print volume under 2mm^3/sec if you want higher quality. Whatever your speed was for this print, cut it in half. Each time you cut speed in half the seem will get fainter. In fact I recommend you play with this in the TUNE menu, try 10 different speeds and mark the part with a permanent marker each time you change speeds and keep notes. By the time you finish 30 minutes of printing you will be an expert on Z seams. Also consider lowering the temperature. This will help the z seam also but only if you also slow it down.

Olsson block exposed is fine. The cover is for safety to reduce the chance of burns but I touch my nozzle all the time with bare fingers. You just have to be quick. Also you want to keep wind off the nozzle if you can but you have taken care of that mostly. You obviously want to create higher quality prints. The trick is slow and cold. Cold because at 240C PLA pours out like honey and at 190C it comes out like toothpaste and stays where you put it and the nozzle doesn't leak so much. I'm not sure what "cold" is for ABS. Certainly 250C is too hot if you want extra good quality. Probably 230C? maybe? Slow because at 190C it requires more force so you have to slow down. Also going over 20mm/sec (the JERK parameter) reduces quality because you don't want your feeder speeding up and slowing down all the time. So just for fun, for PLA, try 200C and if .1mm layer height or thinner try 30mm/sec. If .2mm go no faster than 20mm/sec at 200C. The problem with your ABS prints I'm pretty sure is that the nozzle is too hot. One can get just as good quality with ABS if you experiment enough. The main things to play with here are speed and temp. Then you can also mess with fan speeds. For PLA you want as much fan as possible. For ABS you will get hugely weak parts if you have too much fan. You want the minimum fan where overhangs are still okay. Even better use a cross flow fan and enclose the printer (google it - foehnstrum has a great one of these).

I'm not an ABS expert - I have only printed maybe 30 abs parts. If there are absolutly zero overhangs (all sides vertical or within 10 degrees of vertical) then print at 245C and zero fan. If I have overhangs I usually set the fan to 30% in the ABS profile which multiplies 0.3 X the gcode fan speed. In other words it never goes higher than 30%. Oh and I'll make sure to print 35mm/sec minimum and 250C minimum (sometimes I increase to 255C after the first layer is done). If you enclose your printer you should be fine at 240C to 250C with 30% fan. My settings are not to be taken as necessarily that great - I just don't have enough experience with ABS - most of my expertise is in reading what other's posted. But I have to say I have had my share of frustration with ABS and learned a few things (clogged nozzle due to printing too slow at 255C, layers not bonding due to fan at 50% and nozzle at 245C, and plenty of successful prints also). Also nozzle temperatures vary by +/- 5C quite commonly from printer to printer mostly due to how well the temp sensor fits. If it is loose it reads low and your nozzle is 5C hotter than nominal. If it is stuck in there well or if it is all the way in it reads hot and your nozzle is 5C cooler than nominal. So my 255C might be the same as your 245C or 265C.