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If a typical printcore lasts for 10 spools of filament (it should last much longer) than the printcore is cheaper. If you have to buy a printcore with each spool of filament then yes printcores cost more. So when I say they are "cheaper" I mean cheaper per part printed. Cheaper per day. Cheaper per year. Cheaper per kg of plastic printed. For every kg of plastic printed, you will spend more money on filament than printcores (hopefully!). BB cores are a problem because PVA is a problem. Just keeping the PVA at normal print temperatures for a few minutes (letting it sit in the core and not print right away) causes the PVA to slowly caramelize. It turns brown and gets more sticky and more hard. More viscous. BB cores have to be cleaned more often. Especially if you aren't using them. Every time you use only the left core but you do active leveling that BB core gets hot for active leveling and is slowly more likely to get clogged. The recommended solution is called "hot and cold pulls". You can do this from the menu on the S3/S5/S7 printers. A better solution would be to only level cores needed for the current print. I'd really like to see a photo of the defective printcore. Showing the thread issue. Yes I was a reseller of 3dsolex printcores but I am shutting down my store and only sell what is left in stock (all the printcores sold fast - I mostly have nozzles for Ultimaker 2 printers). I now have less than one sale per month which is how I like it (less work now that I am retired). 🙂

Usually it's not the sensor but instead is related to the middle fan.

Note that the 14mm is a good position for the rear screw (and initially the front screws) and you shouldn't ever have to touch the rear screw again for basic leveling. For very advanced on-the-fly leveling, I adjust all 3 screws equal amounts quite often. But only if you disable active leveling and only after you have done 100 prints.

I don't know anything about that. could you explain more @Enigma_M4? 14mm from the top of the lower plate to the bottom of the upper plate? Or 14mm from teh top of the lower plate to the top of the upper plate? Or something else? I've never checked that distance.

Are you frustrated because it won't zoom *out* enough to see the whole part or because it won't zoom *in* enough so you can see tiny details? It seems you never actually said which is the problem. My understanding is you want to zoom out farther so you can see the part and also the bed and also the printer and also... I don't know what. That's what I don't understand. Isn't it good enough to be able to see everything? Why do you want to see where there is nothing to see? But maybe you meant you can't zoom in enough? That you can't see small details? If I got this backwards then how did we get this communication so bad that I thought you meant the opposite? I have to say I have asked you for clarification but so far I still don't understand what the problem is. Your videos show that you indeed can only zoom out a certain amount but it looks fine to me.

Oh sorry - I thought this thread was done. I'll check it more often. So for example you could tighten all 3 screws all the way down and then loosen them all the same amount. Maybe 20 turns each? I don't know. By centering I mean half way between as tight as possible and so loose that it comes apart. That's what I mean with half way. You can do that with one of the front screws and then measure the distance in the gap that the springs sit in and make all 3 gaps close to the same. *then* start manual leveling procedure. When it says get it to 1mm, control on the front screen NOT THE THUMB SCREWS. As it says in the instructions. adjust until it's close to 1mm. Then for the front 2 corners as the instructions say you can spin the thumb screws to get it close to 1mm. This series of steps only need be done very very rarely. Like once ever and maybe again if you ever have to take the bed apart. Then you use the calibration card if you have it. Follow the instructions - again DON'T USE THE THUMBSCREW ON THE REAR. As the instructions say. Use the arrows or spin the dial or whatever it says to do and get it so the paper just fits between glass and nozzle. Then you repeat this for the front 2 with the paper but this time you use the thumb screws. Get it so that the tension on the paper is the same for all 3. You don't have to get it perfect. Within 1/2 rotation should be fine. Finally you do the other printcore Again DON'T TOUCH THE THUMB SCREW - if you do you need to do it all over again. Use the controls on the screen to move the bed up and down until you get the same exact paper friction as you did with the left printcore. NOW you can finally run active leveling and it should't be so upset. If it is take a picture of the exact error you see and post again even though you posted earlier. Maybe it's a different error now. Just pay attention to the instructions. Sometimes you use the thumb screws and sometimes you must not. As a general rule you rarely touch the rear thumbscrew.

"CC" is for abrasive filaments. Abrasive filaments tend to have fibers which can clog a 0.4 nozzle although most are fine. The manufacturer usually recommends a minimum nozzle size. For most prints 0.4 is a good compromise. 99% of what I print is not much bigger than a deck of cards and even then I often use 0.6 for faster prints. If you are printing things larger than a shoe then you may want to even go to 0.8mm nozzle. the quality goes down a bit. there's also more stringing with larger nozzles due to leaking. But quality with a 0.8 can still be pretty nice. Actually most prints I do are probably about the size of one finger and those I usually do 0.4mm nozzle.

I hate ABS. Smells nasty. There are better materials. If you need the higher temperature then maybe nGen or PETG is good enough. Why do you want ABS? Is it for the higher temperatures? There are alternatives that are stronger and easier to print.

Also realize that printcores are considered a "consumable" by ultimaker. Similar to filament. The cost of printcores is much lower than filament. Ultimaker keeps the price of printcores as low as possible. I think almost zero profit on printcores.

Oh! Okay. A picture of the core would be very helpful. The heater block can be threaded higher or lower on the nozzle. That shouldn't change things. Are both printcore's made by Ultimaker or is one a 3rd party print core? maybe from 3dsolex? 3dsolex print cores have a red circuit board. Ultimaker's have a white circuit board. Your printer should have come with a minimum of 2 AA 0.4 cores and 1 BB 0.4 core. Presumably there is a spare core you haven't been using.

Indeed. Which is why I think you have come to the wrong conclusion about the problem. The quality control is excellent. Final testing of every printer is quite extensive. Many failures are related to violent shipping but not variances in printcore lengths.

The cores are built to tolerances of around 0.1mm and the height measurements tolerate errors of up to .7mm. There is a metal plate in the base of the print head that assures the probe height is accurate. Very consistent. It should only fail "different heights" error if something is indeed seriously wrong. How do you know one print core is "too low"? Did you watch what it is doing? One print core should *always* be lower than the other. When the right core is down it should be 1.5mm lower than the left core. When the right core is up, well that tolerance is not measured but it should be higher than the left core. Please read carefully what I wrote above and then watch carefully the printer do the first two probes. Maybe video the 10 seconds or so when it does the first two "touches" and then post that video here. It all happens quite quickly so videoing it is very helpful.

I think it says not at the same height. I recommend you watch the leveling procedure - just the first two tests which are different. There are a few failure modes which are completely different and easily distinguished by watching: 1) Surface detected too early. As it does the leveling it never even touches the glass. This indicates electrical problem such as nearby interference. Do the leveling sensor test in maintenance and report back on the number it displays (< 8 is a pass). 2) Surface detected too late. The test relies on the capacitance changing. The surface isn't detected until the glass moves down without the nozzle moving up. Visually you see it touching the glass and still moving down more on one core than the other and it's usually obvious. It could be the springs are too tight on the print bed or too loose on the core but this is very rare. 3) Cores are truly different heights. This more common than you might think. They can vary. If you look in the log file you can see what was measured. The cores are supposed to be 1.5mm different height nominally with an error of only 0.7mm allowed. It could be a bit of gunk on the nozzle tip that wasn't hot enough to squish flat during the procedure. This is extremely difficult to measure on the core itself with a micrometer as it's the height from the tip of the core to how it seats inside the print head so to the 45 degree angled area of the core just above the heat break. So if it's issue #3 I'd just try a different core on the right core. Or left core. Sometimes the lifting switch doesn't function so it measures the same nozzle twice which is of course a problem. This is the easiest of all things here to fix. #1 is most often caused by electromagnetic interference by the front fan. First distinguish the issue and then you can get advice on your particular issue.

Another way to look at it: if ultimaker says "you should really update your firmware on your 5 year old printer" is another way of saying "our printer has really sucked for the last 5 years but now, finally, with the new firmware, the printer is a useful machine". I totally disagree. The printer has been great the whole time.

Sorry - instead of saying "network versus DF" I should have said "cloud printing" versuss "LAN printing". LAN printing features are going away as you go to newer versions of firmware and "cloud printing" features are getting better as you go to newer versions. The S5 came out many years ago and within a few months the firmware was in great shape and worked quite well. I haven't had any desire for any of the improvements since then (cloud printing, material station, air handler). The S5 worked great back then and if you stick with the older firmware it still works great. There shouldn't be any need to constantly upgrade the firmware. That's my opinion. More specifically, network printing has evolved - for some in a good way - for other's who have a draconian IT department that doesn't allow cloud printing - in a bad way.

You can have Cura slice from the command line. Does that help? It's not trivial as there are many configuration files (machine config, profile, overrides, material config, per-nozzle config) but many people use this technique to automate slicing. google "cura engine command line" and read both the github and forum articles.

@MariMakes or @Dustin might be able to help you. If it were me I would stick with 6.5.2, lol! Do you print over network? If so consider staying at version 6.X. If you use Digital Factory (and not direct network printing) then 8.X may be best for you. Also curious if you have the material station or air manager as this may affect things (updating problems). Sometimes people have to disconnect both of these during the upgrade process but I don't think that's your issue here as your symptom seems different.

You need a source of models - like thingiverse has over a million models to print. Or you can make your own with CAD. Is this what you are asking about? Then you have to slice the model for the printer. That step you would use a slicer and for that you could use Cura (free). You can download cura onto pc/mac/linux computer and if you don't have a 3d printer yet then just choose anything non-ultimaker (because ultimaker printers mostly are expected to be visible on your network but non-ultimaker printers wouldn't be). There are videos to help you choose cad, use cad, use cura, and use printers.

Pretty much anyone who sells 1.75mm filament sells 3mm such as eSun for cheap filaments and colorFabb in Netherlands for premium filaments (their nGen is pretty amazing stuff if you want higher temp filament that prints just like PLA). However they may call it "2.9" "2.85" or "3mm". It's all the same thing but when there is only one size for 1.75, it's harder to fine the 3mm. Resellers are all over europe. Even Amazon has their own brand (I think it might be eSun?). 3dsolex may have shipped all his 1.75 stock. I don't know but I see the ptfe part for 1.75 here - there is a n option for 1.75 once you load the page: https://3dsolex.com/product/ptfe-coupler-um2/ So as you can see on the above link there is a way to switch between 2.85 and 1.75 filament. That ability used to exist on many other pages including bowden, nano kit, olsson kit. Not anymore. I strongly suspect you are out of luck. He probably sold all his stock and decided not to buy anymore. However I do see some aliexpress sales that have 1.75 version of the olsson block - this one is so cheap - cheaper than a cup of coffee at starbucks: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832475115574.htm Free shipping. I don't know if the block has a 2mm hole or a 3mm hole. Same with the nozzles. but *something* must have the smaller diameter. Don't worry about the bowden. Although if you really want to look - you can contact ptfe tubing sellers on alibaba. You need a 2X4 bowden for the inner bowden (4mm OD, 2mm ID) - that's what 3dsolex had. Not hard to find. The hard part is then you need a bowden that is 6mm OD and > 4mm ID.

Oh! I see that now. That's why you can't use a different support material. Are you using that new interlocking feature? I'm running cura 5.0.0 which doesn't have the feature yet so I'm guessing you have it enabled but I can't see it because I have the older cura. Without the interlocking feature it looks to me like the tpu will easily separate from the petg.

It's because the "bad" area is on an overhang and not well supported. It kind of pulls upwards when printed because the filament, while liquid, is like shrinking snot - like a liquid rubber band - and pulling inward makes the corner curl upwards just before solidifying and then the next layer the nozzle is pushing down and reheating it. If it was supported better it wouldn't curl up. You could change to normal support and that would help but the print will probably take longer. I'm confused why you have the 4 thinner parts printing at the same time as the larger parts - isn't it nearly impossible to separate all those parts? why not print the thin parts separately - maybe even a different print? I tried turning the larger 2 parts as shown to see if it would save time but it doesn't (usually lower profile is faster and uses less filament but not this time). I think you may like the "look" of the part better if you print it as shown although you might not like the top layers as you will get the pyramid-stair-step look near the top. You can reduce that a bit with variable layer height. Have you considered using a breakaway support or dissolvable support? according to ultimaker's support pages, petg is compatible with PVA and also breakaway. You have an expensive S3 printer, you might want to take advantage of this and not have to spend lots of time removing supports.

Please post the project file. That will include all your settings including the model, profile, machine profile, filament profile, position of part, and more. In cura do "file" "save project as" and post that file.

S3D slicer will let you do that because it has a crude ability to change settings at a given height. Because Cura is much more sophisticated and lets you change settings by using an STL region (for example reduce infill inside this spherical shape) it can't change layer height because STL files don't necessarily completely start and stop on one layer.

By the way, instructions for changing that for the UM3/S3/S5 will all be the same. So don't worry if you have a UM3 but the instructions are for an S5. It won't matter.

This probably isn't the best video because you probably don't have to take it apart this much! But this shows you how to take apart everything in the print head: There's a good chance that what you need to do is much simpler.