gr5

The leveling procedure only gets you *close*. You should adjust leveling more accurately on every print. If the lines aren't touching you need to move the bed closer to the nozzle. Turn all 3 knobs while it's printing the same amount - usually 1/4 turn at a time. The leveling procedure gets you within about .1mm or .2mm of the right height. The first layer is .3mm thick so this is a pretty big error. If you are .1mm too high you are putting .3mm thick trace in an area .4mm tall and so you get gaps. Also your parts won't stick as well.

If 45 degree overhangs look terrible try more fan. Is the fan at 100% by the time you get to the overhang? Fan is super critical for overhangs. Regarding walls not touching infill - it's usually underextrusion. While printing - go into the tune menu and do a few layers at 10C hotter, than another 10C hotter until you get to 240C. do several layers at each temp. Then also try slowing down by 50%. If none of that works try increasing flow by 10%, then 20%, then 30%, then 50%. Stop trying these things if infill touches walls. Do all of these tests on the same print, take notes as you do it. Consider marking the part with a pen or taking a photo with each setting. Cell phone cameras are usually very good at getting quite close. Also consider using a light color filament if you will be taking photos - black is indeed very difficult to photograph.

Wow! Your block must be hotter than mine. I usually do 95C.

After you do the autotune and then after you set the PID values you have to do a M500 to save the values permanently. Otherwise you lose the PID values when you power cycle. Regarding "third fan". On "newer" UM2 printers (roughly 2015 and newer) the rear fan doesn't come on until the nozzle gets above about 40C. On older printers the fan is on as soon as you power up.

Check prices at fbrc8 and gr5.org/store. I test each one of mine. I sell 25W, 35W or 40W.

It's probably slipping in the feeder. The feeder is pretty powerful - about 5kg of force normally. So for it to slip implies very heavy friction in the bowden or pressure in the head. I recommend installing the IRobertI feeder only if it helps you feel the pressure and feed by hand so you have an idea of the forces and the friction. But this is not the fastest way to fix it. It could be your problem is that the filament is 3mm filament instead of 2.85mm. 3mm filament will get stuck in the tube. More likely you are just printing too cold and too fast. By default the bottom layer is much thicker - .3mm - so you have to print it hotter and/or slower. For bottom layer here is max print speeds for each temp. Just try increasing the temp in the TUNE menu to 240C and cutting the speed in half. Just for the bottom layer. Max recommended speeds for a given temp when layer height is .3mm: 14mm/sec at 200C 20mm/sec at 210C 27mm/sec at 225C 33mm/sec at 240C

No heat? At first I was going to say it's probably touching the fan shroud but if you get no heat then the heater wire came loose or got damaged. Hopefully the wire just fell out underneath the printer. You could for example measure the resistance of the heater from underneath also - it should be about 23 ohms for a 25W heater although in practice they are often lower wattage. Anyway if it measures infinite ohms then it's probably destroyed (sorry). In USA I sell heaters at a reasonable price at my store here or you can get them at fbrc8.com: gr5.org/store

First of all never print anything without checking in cura layer view first. I assume your model is skipping over some layers (happens a lot with sketchup models). This should be visible in layer view. When you get real good at it you can zip through every layer in well under a minute. However is it possible your part wasn't sticking to the surface and getting dragged around? I'm going to assume not. Sketchup isn't very good at making 3d real things. It's great for making photos and videos and drawings but not physical things. Solidworks and other modern CAD programs work better. having said that I have made many models using sketchup and printed them. The best trick is to look at your model in cura xray view. anything red or brown is a problem. blue or white is fine. It indicates you have internal walls or holes. You have to fix all the red. sometimes you can hack your way through using "fix horrible" checkboxes on the cura expert settings window.

Wow - a lot of information. It's unclear to me if it was doing this from the start or if something changed. If it used to print better then the most likely things are the nozzle and the teflon part. Did you try changing the teflon part yet? The curling filament as it comes out of the nozzle is normal if a 100mm strand is heavy enough to get it to fall straight. If you have a hanging 100mm strand and extrude a little more and it curls up then your nozzle needs cleaning - preferably with a piece of metal smaller than .4mm like a syringe or acupuncture needle or maybe the steel wire from a wire brush such as those used to comb dogs or clean bar-b-que grills. If you really want to print faster there's some great advice here - you can get 4x improvements: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/18451-how-can-i-speed-up-my-prints-a-little

You won't fry anything. If you have bad PID values the temperature will either take a long time to heat up or it will oscillate like crazy - like if you set it to 250C it may oscillate between 230C and 270C every minute. Nothing serious. I would just leave them alone and heat up your nozzle and see how much it overshoots and does it settle in within a few minutes or does it oscillate forever. You may be fine with existing PID values. You can autocalibrate your PID values. If you decide to do this read the 2 links above about autotuning. To execute gcodes it's easy but you need pronterface. Download and run it here - you will need a USB cable connected to your printer from your computer to use pronterface: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/ No installation necessary - just download the files and double click it to run it.

Let us know if verbatim glass temp is significantly different than regular PLA (probably not but... maybe!).

Do you have a IR temperature gun? If so heat a mug of water to boiling and put some "regular" PLA into it and verbatim PLA. Please them both in for 10 seconds, remove and bend. They should be soft. Let the water cool 10C at a time - try to find the magic spot (the glass temperature) where they stay solid. For regular PLA it's around 52C. If verbatim PLA is a "high temp" PLA this temp may be for example 70C. For regular PLA you want the bed at 60C - 8C hotter than this glass temp. Set the bed temp for verbatim 8C higher than it's glass temp. However I suspect you just have the leveling off a bit - you can just turn the 3 screws an equal amount to get the nozzle closer to the bed a bit - maybe 1/4 turn each. Here's how to get parts to stick like hell (pasted from my notes): 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.

Your other problem is that your Z axis isn't moving a consistent amount. Sometimes the Z axis moves more than .2mm but the printer doesn't know this so it's putting the right amount of filament for a .2mm movement which isn't enough and so you get a slightly underextruded layer. Then sometimes the Z axis moves too little - you have overextrusion and the layer "sticks out" (I think that's how you put it). This problem is more difficult to fix. Do you have a UMO or a UM2? Or some other printer? Please update your profile to specify. Assuming you have a metal bed like on the UM2 or the UMO with heated bed, you want to take that all apart and clean the bearings. The most common problem is with the bearings. Several people have posted problems that were fixed when they cleaned the bearings - WD40 makes a great cleaner but make sure it's all gone before you assemble it back together. Before you do any of this cut the power and move the bed up and down feeling for stuck spots. You have to grab the bed near the back of the printer and lift with enough force to lift the printer off the table. The bearings shouldn't need any oil or grease but if you do add some, add very little as it can gunk up the ball bearings which is what you need to be cleaning. The Z screw should be greased (not oiled).

You have two problems. Lifting corners, irregular walls. The lifting corners problem is the easiest by far to deal with and you asked about higher temps than 60C... 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.

What temperature, speed, and layer height are you printing at? I never get those issues - I think you may be printing too hot but the problem is if you cool down you might also have to print slower - a lot slower. It depends what layer height and speed you are at now.

Well obviously if it's warm enough the filament will be a liquid and won't break off so sharply in the nozzle! Your nozzle is heated, right? Here is what cold pulls are supposed to look like. The pull on the left was at a warmer temperature. It will/should never be a sharp break - instead it should stretch out very thin before breaking.

So if I do a factory reset do I lose all my lifetime statistics?

I have 2 thoughts - one is that you are doing atomic pulls at too cold a temp. It should be around 90C but every temp sensor is different - for some people it should be more like 100C or 105C. The other thought is: "is that ultimaker brand PLA"? There was a bad batch recently - the filament was too brittle. It breaks all the time in the bowden and causes prints to fail because the broken piece get stuck as it enters the head.

Probably underextrusion. I know you slowed to 85% but next time you get underextrusion try slowing to 50% or even 30% for a few layers just to see. Also with ABS you want very little fan. It's not needed anywhere except overhangs and bridging. The older slicers would turn the fan on just for overhangs and turn it off - it might go on and off 10 times on a given layer. I usually just do the minimum fan (around 30%) for the whole print.

Oh - and that black part you show in the very first picture does NOT look underextruded. I'm pretty sure there's no underextrusion. It has some patterns that shouldn't be there and those are probably heat related, or print speed related, or even overextrusion but most likely filament brand related.

There are a few causes for bad layers like that - one is tangled filaments. The most common though is Z issues where the Z plate suddenly drops a mm. There has been a problem with UM printers that are less than about a year old where they Z driver overheats and cuts off for only a second but long enough for the plate to drop. The fix is to lower the Z current to 1000ma. I would try it just to see what happens. Also put your filament on the floor behind the printer - that makes a HUGE difference for me getting rid of these gaps. You should be able to set the Z current using the menu system on your printer but be aware that when you power cycle the printer that setting will get lost (also Simplify3D overrides that value with gcode but Cura doesn't touch it).

tinkergnome - can you give a brief explanation of the different types (locations?) of memory for the arduino and where the settings such as Z calibration are stored and how come they don't get destroyed when you upgrade but sometimes they get messed up?

A non circular circle can be explained easily by miscalibration of steps/mm or backlash. But the infill not touching walls can not be explained by miscalibration. If it's only on the bottom layer it could be underextrusion but not on subsequent layers. The only explanation I know of for that is some kind of backlash. It might not be obvious with power off. There are many causes of play and I'm only familiar to them on the ultimaker. One category of causes are loose belts and loose components but if you hold the motor still and push the head you can detect the stretching belts and loose components yourself so maybe that's not the case. Another category of causes is friction - the friction is high enough that the belt is stretching quite a bit and the head doesn't reach it's desired position. Could this be it? What happens when you slide the head around with power off? the nice thing about the Ultimaker is the X and Y axes should have identical friction by design so you can compare the two - usually the friction is caused by the end caps but I don't know if you even have end caps. Please look at the 4th photo in this thread which explains why I'm so sure you have backlash - the photo with the green and gray lines: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/2872-some-calibration-photographs On another note - did you try calibrating you E and Z axes yet? Did you try pronterface yet? Pronterface is here: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/ Pronterface is a wonderful utility for controlling your printer and performing acts of calibration. It only runs on windows. It's very simple to use - no installation necessary - just copy the files and double click it.

Well if you like gcodes you can do it all through that: M907 Z1000 sets the Z driver to 1000ma max. default I believe was 1300ma for a while (and on my printer) and newer software are at 1100ma default for Z I believe. I thinK default is now: M907 X1300 Y1300 Z1000 E1250

228C to 232C will make no noticable difference. You would need a very accurate scale to measure the difference in weight of the final print. Visually it would be very difficult to tell the difference. Now if you want to 245C that might help a noticable amount. Or if you print it at half speed. Just print the part - and then part way through go to the TUNE menu and set the feedrate or whatever it's called to 50%. Maybe mark the part on the layer when you change it and notice the difference below and above the mark.