gr5

I'm guessing your z screw has a glitch there such that you are underextruding for a few layers and then it recovers and prints normally after that - the bed moves too far maybe. I would check that the Z stage isn't hitting anything - grab it with both hands on either side of the back of the stage and lift it up (with power off) and push it back down again. Try to feel if something happens somewhere at that height. Also try printing a simple 1cm x 1cm X 30cm tall block. Hollow. See if you get the same line on that part also which should only take 10 minutes to print.

cloakfiend and blizz - There's a few really good reasons to do autoslicing. The benefits outweigh the problems. For example the slowness that cloakfiend is complaining about would likely appear even if he could turn off slicing. Without cloakfiend's and other people's complaints, the authors wouldn't have know about countless bugs. For example issues regarding virus scanners, detection of flash card and all kinds of bugs that appeared to be related to "slicing slowing me down!" but wasn't. The amount of code to do what cloafiend wants is trivial and in fact there have been versions of Cura out there that allowed this (disable autoslice). But fortunately most versions *do* have autoslice and the complaints about this have led to bugs that would never have been discovered other wise. Autoslicing versus manual slicing SHOULD MAKE NO TIME DIFFERENCE TO YOUR WORKFLOW. IF IT DOES THEN THERE IS A BUG AND IT NEEDS TO BE FIXED. I suggest starting with a video showing the problem and post the file causing the problem somewhere. Preferably as small a file as possible yet still large enough to cause the problem for you.

I have a few printers - my oldest can do seemingly infinite (literally kilometers) of retractions with no problem. My newer printers can't. I solved the issue by increasing the parameter in Cura 15.04: "minimal extrusion before retractiong" from .02 to .45. I picked .45 because my retraction distance is 4.5mm so with .45 you can't have the same piece of filament go through the feeder more than 10 times (4.5/.45) whereas with .02 it can be 225 times! Having the same piece of filament go through 225 times is just too much. I was worried I would get tons of stringing but it wasn't a problem - only about 20% of the retractions were discarded (on layers that were particularly bad) and the quality seemed the same.

Sorry I have tag notifications turned off. The new forum is half the volume of the old forum but that is still incredibly busy. In fact most questions that get unanswered could probably be blamed on too much activity. I stopped using print one at a time because it would often make a mess at the start of the second (or third...) print during the priming phase. I only ever tried it on UMO - never UM2. I had to print 25 bracelets at a time so I just wrote my own custom gcode. The part that does retraction is buggy - G10/G11 gets confused; some operation resets it - not sure if homing does this or maybe the G92 E0 command messes it up... but something messes up G10/G11. It would be nice if you could experiment with the gcode and figure out what exactly the bug is in marlin so that we can have Cura work around the bug. some of these bugs may have been fixed in more recent *firmware* so you might want to try loading the latest firmware for your machine.

Reading text and looking at pictures 5 MORE TIMES now I think you mean the line that sander meant? That looks like typical underextrusion from when the filament is tangled but wouldn't always be at the same height. It's probably something related to the model - maybe you should post the STL. when the printer switches from clockwise to coutner clockwise due to changes in STL file sometimes you get weird shifts due to backlash or play. That is usually fixed by adding oil or tightening belts or loosening belts or loosening end caps. If you are indeed talking about that thing then your cura shot seems to be hiding it - better to look at it in cura from a different angle.

Coni you need to be more clear. I read your text 3 times and looked at the photos and I think Sander is talking about something different - but not sure - there are 20 things in the photo you could be talking about so it's tough. However I think you are talking about the brim. You are supposed to peel that off after the print is done. Maybe add an arrow pointing to this "step" in all 3 pictures? And the lack of the step because the cura photo has a completely different angle and the brim is the only thing I can think of that is in both photos. Without the brim your part won't stick to the glass as well and may lift off the glass about 5mm into the print and will ruin the print. I usually use a sharp knife to remove it carefully (don't cut yourself).

Are you sure you want to home at the bottom? If so then I'm not sure how this works - you have to set up a home offset maybe? There was a menu for that. this machine looks like a UMO and if so then you need to home at the top. It's moving the wrong direction and using the wrong limit switch. I would test to see if your Z is moving backwards - with Z=0.3 I could see it was printing about half way up - if you move to z=10 it should move the bed down. Does it? I'm hoping it moves the bed up. If so then you can simply swap Z direction (several ways to do that) and swap the end stops. I noticed in the menu you scrolled through there was something about homing offsets - maybe you need to adjust those? I've never seen that before but that sounds very promising. Your Z is very very very slow. Very slow. Frustratingly slow. That's why you should home at the top, not the bottom. Or try to run the Z about 10X faster. How many steps/mm is your z axis? Marlin on an arduino should be able to handle something like 60 thousand steps per second without problem so if your steps are say 200 steps/mm on the Z you should safely be able to do 100mm/sec which would allow you to home in 2 seconds at the bottom instead of 30 seconds. I recommend you get pronterface/printrun (it's free) and mess around with Z travel direction, z movement, z motion settings, z endstop detection and z homing. Download it here: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/

The official way recommended for "new users" would be on the machine. That's how I do it also. But different people like different work flow.

Try hovering the mouse over the yellow (if you don't have a mouse try installing Cura on a computer with a mouse). I think you will get an explanation of why it turned yellow. I'm curious to know what the text says.

I lost track of it. The developers of the new cura Engine I believe were discussing it so I think they are aware and it might be fixed in the latest version (15.6 or newer) I really don't know - but I certainly saw lots of discussion about this - I think it was in the spring.

Skipping backwards is normal - the feeder here has less current (less power) on purpose and if you fight it too hard it skips back instead of grinding the filament to dust. This is a good thing. HOWEVER... You probably have the filament stuck on some lip somewhere inside the head. Try going to "move material" and wait for the nozzle to heat up and then move the material up a bit (watch it in the bowden) and then back down. Repeat a few times. If it doesn't get past the issue maybe pull the filament out and trim it to a point instead of cutting it flat at the end. Alternatively you might have a nozzle clog but I doubt it.

I'm not sure that 1.75mm filament is any better. Anders Olsson thinks it is but I think more people have to do more tests. Liam what country are you in? Are you interested in buying a conversion kit? I'm putting one on my store soon - they will be under 100 euros.

Yes, this is an older technology but works great. No heat needed (although 40C helps the filament flow into the cracks a bit but turn off heat after first layer is done). Although if your part isn't sticking well try cleaning the tape with isopropyl alcohol. And if the tape lifts off the glass use wider tape. Unchecking combing can reduce scars/marks on visible layers (bottom layer, top layer). This increases stringing across empty spaces but reduces scars/marks embeded in solid areas. Your settings look okay - what's the warning? I see your thickness is a multiple of layer height so you should be good. Did you hover mouse over this to get a warning popup message? That could be - actually you might be too *far* from the bed. At any rate stop messing with leveling procedure and at this point adjust by turning the 3 screws while it is on the bottom layer. Try turning the 3 screws identical amounts as the bed is probably "level" just not at the right height. Alternatively push up or down on the bed while it prints to see which way you need to move it.

There's a TON of discussion about this on the forums somewhere. It's a relatively recent bug but it appeared before the latest rewrite of Cura. I'm not sure how far back you have to go to get before this bug but I think about a year. Try Cura 14.6.* or older (14=2014, 6 would be for example june). Cura has been working quite well for quite a while so these older versions are quite mature and safe and stable.

Oops - yes, good point tinkergnome.

Which version of Cura? - I haven't used the bleeding-edge-new one hardly at all - letting people like you work out the bugs. For either the latest complete rewrite (14.06 or newer) or the older version (14.04 or older) the answer is probably the same - you probably selected a machine in "reprap" mode but "ultigcode" mode is preferred. Also I recommend sticking with 14.04 for a few more months.

Yes. But it's probably your "leveling". If the extruder is skipping back a lot then you are too close. If the traces are rounded like a string instead of flatenned like a pancake then you are probably atoo far. Just turn the 3 leveling knobs the same amount until the problem is corrected. No need to re-run the whole leveling procedure. Do this during the start of your next print.

Your friend seems smart. I like his theory. Fans are complicated and different manufacturers fans can have very different characteristics. The average flow of 340ma is just average. The peak flow could be much higher. Also I wonder if the flyback diode is working on your um2 board. Did you blow the diode on the LED circuit also? Or did you never get the alternate circuit working? It seems unlikely that the flyback diode of both circuits would be bad but if you have only ever blown the bc817's in one position then I would definitely suspect the flyback. It may be difficult to test the flyback except when the bc817 is removed so that is a good time to test it.

Yes you can use e3dv6 parts that are meant for 3mm on the UMO. I sell e3dv6 equivalent parts here: http://gr5.org/store/ but you have to remove the fan shroud or print a smaller one as soon as possible: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/yafs-yet-another-fan-shroud-for-umo

The bed can handle high temperatures (>120C no problem) but the wattage doesn't provide enough power to keep it above 100C with air temp at 20c. So to get it hotter than 100C you need to start enclosing things and get the air up to 50C. I found 50C to be a good safe printing temperature for the steppers. I don't recommend letting air get above 50C unless you make major changes (move steppers outside the box or add fans to cool steppers).

Maybe you mean .25mm layers? 2.5mm is - well - crazy thick.

Fan on full at layer 2 is too soon - this combined with .08mm layer height of layer 2 means you don't get good adhesion. When the fan comes on the nozzle cools down quite a bit and the filament isn't melting the layer below enough to get a good bond. Have the fan come on more gradually - try full fan by 1mm so you get at least 10 layers - or do layer 10. That way it will be 10% fan, then 20% fan, and so on and give the PID controller time to get the head back up to normal printing temperature. As far as removing brim I use a combination of a razor (e.g. a box cutter) and sometimes I can remove it with my fingernail. I do a thicker bottom layer (0.3mm) so possibly that is easier to remove? But usually I have to get some of it with a razor knife tool. Be careful not to cut yourself.

Yes, exactly. And changes steps/mm in the ulticontroller. Do you have an ulticontroller on your printer? If you double the steps to 16 microstepping then double the number in the steps/mm parameter. If you skip that step everything will be half as tall! Make sure you save all the parameters to eeprom also or you will lose the steps/mm setting when you power cycle the printer.

The video you uploaded to youtube is private. Please try again and then let us know by posting anything to this topic.

Cura has a "lay flat" option. Maybe you can just do that. It's in the rotate menu at the bottom.