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I posted above. Here is the link: https://community.ultimaker.com/topic/43173-problem-with-print-cores-at-the-same-height/?do=findComment&comment=320605 Which of those 3 failures do you have?

Please post your log file. %APPDATA%\cura\<Cura version>\cura.log (Windows), or usually C:\Users\\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\cura\<Cura version>\cura.log $USER/Library/Application Support/cura/<Cura version>/cura.log (OSX) $USER/.local/share/cura/<Cura version>/cura.log (Ubuntu/Linux)

S5 R1 has a code name of 9051 so getting an img file with 9051 or R1 in the path or filename is wise. So hopefully you figured how to get to the first post in this topic (go back to first page of results in this topic). If you google "image recovery procedure S5 ultimaker" I think you can probably find the official directions. here are some img files - not sure if they are still there. DO NOT USE THESE ON NEWER S5 PRINTERS - ONLY R1 VERSION WHICH HAS ROBOT ON SIDE PANEL, NOT THE LARGE "U" S5R1 https://software.ultimaker.com/releases/firmware/9051/stable/6.2.2/um-restore-6.2.2-R1.img http://software.ultimaker.com/releases/firmware/9051/stable/5.7.3/um-restore-5.7.3-R1.img I might have more links - certainly links that work - on my unbricking web page that I mention above. Your hard drive (SSD) is probably corrupt and likely needs to be repartitioned and/or reformatted. The newer recovery images do this automatically. Again, my unbricking web page tells you which versions have this feature. If you do the google search I mention earlier in this post you can find the latest images which will definitely repartition and reformat and then you can switch to an older img if you want.

The "blob" is called priming the nozzle. It can be very helpful. Without it I've had the printer print quite a bit of my first layer before it starts extruding. So the fix may be worse than the blob. You change this by editing the start gcode as already said. It's really not complicated - it's meant to be read by a printer and also by humans. Look for lines of code that have the "E" for extruder and start with a "G0" or "G1" and read what those codes do and it will all make sense. google "reprap gcodes" to learn what the gcodes do in Marlin (there is a marlin column at the page that google will take you to).

The hotter the filament the harder it is to print. The harder it is to keep the part from warping off the print bed, the more it helps to enclose the printer and the more you have to experiment with the fan (some printers are full power at 10% - no different from 100% and only at values lower than 10% does the fan start to slow down). nGen is super easy to print - like PLA. Nothing else is as easy as PLA. nGen can only go up to similar temps as petg - around 70C if I remember right before it becomes a bit soft (like hard clay). ABS is a good filament, similar to PLA tough and it stays strong up to about 99C. It's used I believe in car dashboards which often get well above 50C. It smells horrible when printing and the fumes are probably bad for you. It takes a while to get good at printing it - easily your first 50 prints will be weak. You have to have high temps to get good layer bonding (low fan, enclosed printer) but you probably won't realize how bad your layer bonding is on the first 10 prints. You want to keep the bed well above 99C or the ABS will warp off the glass. I like 110C but it takes so long to get up to that temp and you should enclose the printer. But it's worth it. I hate ABS for it's smell. Nylon. I love nylon. Easier to print than ABS but not a lot easier. Not stinky either. I get the natural nylon and then dye it. It sounds like extra work but Nylon is so easy to dye. I print a lot of parts in Nylon but because it is more flexible. Not because of it's temperature abilities (it can handle 100C fine but will be more flexible - but it will spring back to original shape even when at 100C). It may be too flexible for you but you can get varying stiffness (modulus). As far as suppliers, it looks like you are in France so post to the french speaking part of this forum.

I don't now anything about registering. I haven't registered any of my printers. Do you have filament? You can start off with some cheap PLA from eSun or Amazon. Make sure it is NOT 1.75. You want 2.85 or 3mm (3mm filament is actually 2.85).

Congratulations! That version of the firmware should be fine. The last 5 years or so there were no changes even though the version number kept going up. If you do decide to update the firmware then get the tinkerGnome version as it has many more features. I have 3 um2go's (and a UM3, UM2, and S5) and the "go"s are my most used printers. Make sure you get 2.85/2.9/3mm filament and not 1.75mm filament. Try to get as small an SD card as possible so 4GB to 32GB. Higher than 32GB may or may not be recognized. Before updating the firmware, go into the menus and write down the usage statistics (meters of filament printed, hours printed).

Sounds like a purely mechanical issue then. I totally get about the rod slipping and missing the Y limit. That implies the resistance is in that rod/bearing junction. You can pop that rod out of both sliding blocks and tilt it (and the head) and check for resistance in that bearing. It should be very low. I'm not sure but I expect that giving the print head a 20% tilt is plenty for the rod to start sliding. Have you tried oiling that rod (and all 6 rods in the gantry)? It probably needs cleaning. Unlike the bearings in the sliding blocks, the 2 bearings inside the print head have ball bearings inside. In theory they don't need any oil. In practice a tiny bit of oil is helpful. One drop is plenty. You might want to replace the bearing. Or try cleaning the rod and/or the bearings. If you remove the bearing you can try cleaning it with lots of wd-40 or other solvent then dry it then add a drop of oil to the rod and check friction. Sometimes bearings seem fine with no load but under load there is a problem. Sometimes a bearing ball cracks in half. More likely something sticky got in the bearings (e.g. dried cola, hair spray, pva). If uncleanable, you can get replacement bearings or rods from your reseller. It looks like you are in the USA so fbrc8.com is your friend. They only list a few replacement parts but they have absolutely every part as they also assembled your printer (they assemble all Ultimaker printers sold in USA). You can email them about parts not listed on their store at support@fbrc8.com. UltiMaker has great videos on how to take the head apart (if necessary).

Is this an issue when the printer is moving the print head? Or when you are pushing the head with your hand?

I know many of the employees. I chat with a few of them almost daily. It's a small company. I know enough. They are trying to do the right thing.

That's just not true. Don't be so suspicious. Ultimaker has nice people. For example HP will over charge you for ink once you buy the printer. Slimy move, hiding the true cost of the printer in the ink. Ultimaker does the opposite and sells you print cores for almost "at cost". Because it's a "consumable" ultimaker made them so cheap they barely make a profit. Same with the teflon parts that need replacing in the UM2. Trust that people try to do the right thing. Most people are good people and not trying to con you. So the truth is that the programmers feel like they can add many new features more easily when using the cloud. Most of those features are free. Ultimaker tries to make money off the hardware, not the software but there is indeed a premium cloud service that gets you less features. Yes, less features. Plugins are limited in that mode. Some people have an outdated model of security where they have a walled garden LAN. This outdated model doesn't work well with cloud services. Modern IT departments know this is a bad model and you have to assume the "enemy" is already in your LAN. Unless you have a "no electronic devices" policy for your walled off LAN (e.g. no cell phones, no USB sticks, no electronics, no music players, no microwaves, no watches, etc). What *does* frustrate me is the world's reliance on The Internet. The Internet will go down some day and people will realize you need to be able to run your business without it - they will need a backup way to run their business. I'm not sure what the solution to that is as The Internet is quite useful and convenient. Um printers have a backup way to use them if there is no Internet.

Did the above changes fix this issue? Whether it fixed the issue or not, if we want to help other people, please post you project file. In cura do "file" "save project as" and post that file here. I'll try to duplicate your issue. I suspect the problem is in your printer profile - many manufacturers of printers have given the Cura team crappy printer profiles. You can't expect the Cura team to purchase every printer out there and make sure it has an okay printer profile. However the problem could be related to your model and/or settings as well and if this is a bug in Cura it would be good to get it fixed. If this is a bug in the printer profile, hopefully some good person (like yourself?) will suggest a change to the profile so the Cura team can incorporate it in the next release.

And in machine settings there should be a tab for "start gcode" and "end gcode". You want the first one. If you have printed fewer than 100 prints you might want to leave things at default. You can read about the gcodes if you google "reprap gcodes" that takes you to a good reference. Regarding ultimaker2 versus marlin flavors - I prefer the ultimaker2 flavor when printing through SD card. You get a few nice features. But if you have octoprint working that is even better.

I've never had an AA 0.4 core that clogged or needed cleaning. The most common problem that *seems* like a clogged core is the front fan - over many months of cleaning, tiny threads of filament get in the fan and eventually clog the fan. It's easy to keep printing and not notice and the symptom is that the filament gets stuck in the area of the core under the heatsink. PVA does indeed caramelize and I have had semi-clogs but never an actual clog. I find that I can usually just heat up the PVA and do the MOVE command to get all the brown and black bits out the nozzle. Because I rarely use PVA, the little bit of PVA heats up everytime the printer does active leveling (it would be nice if the firmware only did the left core and only heated the left core if that's all that is needed for a print!). So because of this, the PVA gets quite a bit caramelized in my core but even so I've never had a full on clog on my UM3 nor my S5.

I was thinking of coasting but coasting doesn't retract so I didn't mention it. It should have the dark blue line (no retraction). It also doesn't extrude. So instead I mentioned about the colors to see if it's really retracting (I think it wasn't retracting).

I think the heat is fine. I've never heard someone say - don't touch that concrete - you'll burn your fingers! But the weight might be a problem if your pours are more than a foot or so thick. I think you really need to do a test piece. Polyurethane foam sounds like a fantastic idea.

Next time please include a photo but it sounds like you weren't squishing the bottom layer enough. This is done usually through hardware changes (turning a screw to move the bed closer to the nozzle). Unless you have auto leveling.

PLA Plain PLA will last for many years in the sun, wind and rain. Probably a few decades, out in the sun untreated. A simple coat of clear or opaque paint can protect from UV rays but if there is a cover then you don't even need that. Resin is different and I think would need some type of paint coating (clear or opaque). My biggest concern is heat but if there is a covering from the sun in the middle of the day then you would have to be someplace crazy hot like the UAE before heat is a concern. Or located in the middle of a parking lot. PLA is fine up to 130F/52C. casting Casting metal with PLA is done with sand. You can do "investment casting" where you melt the PLA out of the cast. This requires an oven to put the entire cast in. Or you can do multi part casting and preserve the original PLA positive where the portion holding the sand is disassembled into two or more parts, the pla is removed and then the cast is reassembled before pouring in the molten metal. If you don't remove the PLA it will be a mess. The PLA would burn creating gasses and smoke bubbles. You can't make a mold with PLA and then pour in something hotter than say 60C (150F). You would even have potential trouble with two part epoxies which may get above 52C as part of the hardening. You certainly couldn't pour liquid metal directly into a PLA mold. Designing mold shapes is complex (vents, internal air pockets) and you should watch some youtube videos to learn some of the rules and you should also practice making some smaller ones so you learn from some mistakes. resin printers These have a much higher resolution than FFF printers and people are drawn to that and this makes them great for jewelry (for example) but for something larger than 2 feet high it seems a bit silly since FFF can easily have millimeter and much smaller details. Whereas resin printers you would need a magnifying glass to appreciate the details. If people are observing from more than 4 feet away then FFF resolution is fantastic. resin itself, before hardened, is a sticky, gooey, toxic mess. You need gallons of (I think IPA?) to clean it up along with disposable gloves, many rolls of paper towels, etc. I'm biased to FFF so I'm not the best advisor but I'd avoid resin printers for a project this large. But they are fantastic for smaller art.

Do you have combing enabled? Combing enabled will do fewer retractions. Combing disabled will do more. When you go to PREVIEW mode set the mode so it shows moves in blue. Dark blue is non-retracting moves. Light blue is retraction moves. Are you seeing light blue moves?

A 6X2 bowden probably would be too stiff to flex enough for the UM2. Also I don't think anyone cells such a thing. Even after you get all that you do need to 3d print a tiny little plug to keep the inner bowden from getting eaten by the feeder when it reverses direction. On retracts. Or filament changing. You don't want that inner bowden going out through the feeder. The tiny plug is trivial to design but you probably will have to print and tweak it 2 or 3 times to get it perfect (I had to). Regarding "don't do it". I feel like locating a new supplier is easier than the modifications. Also are you 100% sure you can't get your favorite filament in 2.85/3mm variety? Every other time someone claimed this I found the exact filament they wanted. They just weren't using the "store" website properly. This could be the one time I'm wrong. Maybe call the supplier. Maybe they don't sell it in the store but they have a few scraps (for them say 100 spools) left over.

You would think so but, no. Not in my experience. Somehow the STL files have the same reference point. Even though cura seemingly ignores that when you only have one STL and centers the part, if you have 2 or more parts you can get Cura to position them as they were in CAD. At least it works for some (most?) CAD programs. Again, uncheck "keep models aprt". Anywaym, don't ask us, ask cura (meaning try it).

We are mostly all FDM (aka FFF) people here as UltiMaker doesn't sell any resin printers. The speed of a resin printer is controlled mostly by the thickness of each layer. Whereas the speed of an FFF printer is mostly controlled by the size of the nozzle and the volume/weight of the plastic printed. Other things to keep in mind. Assuming you go FFF, ff it all possible, use PLA. You will get better quality results, you don't have to keep it insanely dry before printing, it can withstand sun and weather, however it does have a drawback: it starts getting soft (like hard clay) around 130F which is usually not a problem outdoors but could be in theory. A bigger worry is that sometimes people use various forms of 2 part epoxy or resin that gets above that temp while hardening - say if you use the PLA for a mold. That's another reason to do a practice part. The full size elephant by Joris was printed in about a week (maybe?) with 5 printers. I think he has done full sized humans as well with a different technique.

I am told that ChatGPT is particularly bad with formulas and math. Just a warning. @rooiejoris made a life sized elephant using Ultimaker 3D printers (about 200X200mm print area but he extended it so that it's unlimited height). He's also an artist. He might have ideas. This project sounds quite doable. It's hard to get concrete (which usually has gravel as you mentioned to cut costs) to fill into small spaces. You could skip the gravel (then it's called mortar?). Either way you want some kind of "gentle" vibrator to put against your scupture and vibrate it to get the air bubbles up to the top. It seems to me it would be best to do this in many layers of maybe about 1 foot each. I recommend you do a 1/4 scale version first. At 1/4 scale it will have 1/16th the surface area and 1/64th the volume. You will learn a lot and you won't be upset when you make mistakes and you won't lose much money either. Also think about 3d printing nozzle size. I think Joris used a 1mm nozzle (that's the opening). Typical printers use a 0.4mm nozzle. If you double the nozzle diameter (and layer height) you can print 4X faster which will save you weeks of time. You can do test prints with different nozzle sizes to see how you feel about the resolution.

Export both models as STL files. In cura go to menu item "preferences", "Configure Cura..." and uncheck "ensure models are kept apart". It might be okay to leave that checked but I suspect not. After the models are both in Cura they should be "on top" of each other. Then select both models (shift click or maybe ctrl click until both are selected) then right click and I think possibly you have to goup them or something - I don't do it often enough to remember. There's an explanation of how to do this in many youtube videos I'm sure). They should be lined up the way they were in CAD if you group them correctly. Then I think you are done. It will treat them like 2 separate models printed with the same filament and extruder (unless you right click one of the models and assign it to something else). On one of the models you can have it get different settings (for example no outer walls and or no top layers aka "skin"). I forget how to do that as well. "per model settings" maybe?

@tinkergnome