gr5

Until you get 1000 parts that are different then what you asked for and now you have printers sitting waiting for a single part taking up acres of space in your warehouse. That definitely makes sense to me! It was around 2 weeks 13 months ago, and then got much better at some point and then got worse again but right now Sander claims it's very rare for tickets to be older than 4 days.

I don't think it's worth the upgrade. Having said that if both my UMO and UM2 are available I always use the UM2. I suggest you purchase a single UM2 and see if you like it any better. Or maybe wait a few months and get the UM2 extended. The UMO with the heated bed is a fantastic printer.

Swapping cables is the best way to test the motor. However stepper motors are incredibly tough and even if it was boiling water on the surface it can probably survive even that. I believe the max operating temp is either 70C or 80C. That's very very hot. I doubt yours got that hot but maybe it did. Messing with the stepper driver current is very dangerous. The most common result by far is to destroy the stepper driver. Those stepper drivers are delicate. The steppers are not. You can google "pololu" if you want to buy more. They are not expensive. The "clockwise" versus "anticlockwise" issue: some stepper drivers are backwards from others. Did you check the photo that shows the 5 types from ultimaker? And make sure you got the correct direction? If you turn the current up too high or too low the stepper motors don't work very well and can make strange noises. But they don't often get damaged.

You don't need to use the clip. Instead loosen the 4 screws quite a few turns - maybe 2 or 3mm of gap. Then shove the bowden in as far as possible and re-tighten. The compression should be enough to hold the bowden-holder up without needing the clip.

I recommend you just ignore it. But to clean it one method is to remove the nozzle and soak it in acetone for an hour and anything that doesn't wipe off after that I would burn off with a flame. But taking the nozzle out of the head is tricky and you can break the temp probe cable if you aren't careful. Sometimes the probe slides out easy (after removing the very skinny screw) but other times it's just stuck the hell in there and almost impossible to remove without drilling it out and destroying it.

ABS often has a problem with upper layers not melting the next layer down enough such that the layers can separate easily. So: Are you talking about "layer bonding" or something different? bonding within the same layer? Anyway the first thing, "layer bonding" or "layer adhesion" is common with "high glass temp" materials such as ABS, Nylon, etc. One fix is to turn off the fan. This works well for ABS. I print at 245C usually with fan off. I guess the quick answer is: "higher nozzle temp, less fan". Another solution is to use a heated chamber. Simply print with 110C bed, and enclose the top and front of the printer to keep the heat inside.

Flipping it over can change the leveling so I'd relevel after changing it's position. Other than that it makes almost no difference. I was hoping it would print overhangs better when printing "on it's back" but it didn't seem to help at all.

I've seen many Ultimaker head designs and it felt like there were 100 different designs and they were so very different. I was blown away by all the things they tried and all the amazing directions the headed off on. This design change is very small compared to half the things they have been trying. I have no idea where they are at this point - if they gave up - if they decided it's fine - if they are waiting for the UM3. I just don't know. I don't think anders/swordriff have to worry for a while but of course eventually something new will come out (um3?) and this heater block will only be for the "old" um2. Maybe. Probably. By then they might be selling some other crucial part for the UM3.

The longer melt zone shouldn't make a difference with .4mm nozzle. I've printed 18mm^3/sec no problems with a .7mm nozzle.

I didn't comment because I don't have a Zortrax. But I have UMO and UM2 and I love them both. But 90% of the time if I only am going to use one printer I use the UM2. I don't know why exactly. It's just my "go to" printer. The UMO works great. I have the heated bed upgrade. It works so much better now with the heated bed. Also it's easier to change nozzles on the UMO. I've just had very good luck with my UM2. I got an early unit (november 2013) and it works great. No problems with retraction or underextrusion even though I know other's have had problems.

By the way, the new part is a glass filled PTFE part and is much better but it still deforms. It just deforms much more slowly. It's better but not as good as I think is needed to keep people from having problems. Especially people who print more than 8 hours per day (many print 20 hours a day!).

Regarding "default temps" those are different from printer to printer and Cura defaults change also so no one knows what "default ABS temp" is. It depends on your model number I suppose. I normally recommend 245C for ABS but for you I recommend you stick with 260C. Here's why: There is a part in the ultimaker called the "isolator" that fails easily and when it fails it causes increased friction in the filament path and that can cause underextrusion when printing higher volumes. Many things cause friction in the path - the highest friction is the nozzle itself as cramming 5 cubic mm of filament through a .4mm nozzle is a lot of pressure and a lot of force - more than a human can keep up for more than a minute. It would be hard sweaty, heavy breathing work. The problem with the isolator is that it is made of PTFE (teflon) which has a glass temp around 240C and starts to deform around 250 or 260C but VERY slowly. It takes dozens of hours of printing to deform it at 260C. But at 245C it can be fine for a year. Ultimaker upgraded this part approximately last March so if you got your printer before then you should definitely try to get a new isolator. And if you are still under warranty you might request a free one. You can remove it and test it by sliding filament through it and if there is high friction drill it out to at least 3mm, preferably 3.1mm. Or at least enough that the filament slides through easily (even when curved due to winding on the spool). Your problem might not be the isolator but when you said "260C" that was the first thing I thought of "oh shit, his isolator is deformed and now he is getting underextrusion". If you *do* drill out your isolator stick with 245C for ABS after that. But if you go to 245C now without drilling out the isolator you may get much worse underextrusion because ABS is more like toothpaste at 245C and more like honey at 260C so more likely to get underextrusion at lower temps. The isolator is the little white part you can see just above the nozzle. google these forums for information about how to take your head apart or see photos of "bad" isolators (they tend to have a burned spot where they touch the hot heater block). Also people are starting to sell "washers" that protect the isolator. I think you might be able to get one from swordriff (search members and send him a message) on this forum. I'm sure he'd be delighted if you contact him. Truly. He is very excited about his (well and other people's inventions but he's giving them royalties/partnership) inventions and hopes to make it his business. I'm excited about the stuff he's selling also.

At 70mm/sec, .15 layer height, 260C nozzle you shouldn't be getting underextrusion. But you are. This means your printer is not "as good as new" but still mostly working. I guess I would recommend you slow things down a bit - maybe 40mm/sec. Or .1mm layers. Also I recommend you put the filament on the floor - this makes a huge difference:

Yeah - well I don't think the other articles are as amazing as the 3 I mentioned. The "material settings" article for example could use updating with the new features where you can write settings to SD card, edit them (e.g. give materials new names other than 'CUSTOM') and then read them back in.

I assume you are "merging" in Cura. You can only merge 2 things together. So you need to create 2 stl files, one with *all* the logos in one file all lined up in the correct orientations for the 5 walls of the box. And a separate stl with voids where the logs will end up. Most (all?) cad programs let you put the logo on a different cad layer than the box and then when you go to export you can select just one layer at a time.

lrob please update what type of printer you have in your settings. It's okay if it's not an Ultimaker product as we discuss Cura here also.

Another excellent guide Robert! For those of you new to Robert's guides - here are the 3 that I know about (did I miss any?): troubleshoot: http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/23-a-visual-ultimaker-troubleshooting-guide improve quality: http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/30-getting-better-prints design tips: http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/38-designing-for-3d-printing

Is that makerbot filament? I think I have the exact same color and it's makerbot brand ABS.

You are just teasing us! Or are you serious? There's a few more important settings than just 2. Temperature maybe? Bed temp? fan? layer height? Seriously - pictures are VERY helpful but you also need to point out what it is in the picture you don't like. This part looks great - the only problem I see is in the 3rd picture where you have heavy underextrusion for a few layers. You were probably getting a tangle on the spool for those layers. 70mm/sec is fine if you are at layer height .1mm but at .2mm that is 70*.2*.4nozzle or 5.6mm^3/sec which is pushing things near the limit. You need to print ABS a little hotter than usual to print that fast. Of course at .1mm layer that's fine. Why do you make me waste my time giving you 2 answers - why not tell me the layer height? If you want the best possible quality and you aren't in a rush I recommend .1mm layer, 25mm/sec print speed. 25mm/sec print speed improves the quality drastically. If you are in a rush to get your print then .2mm layer 35mm/sec will look much better than .1mm layer 70mm/sec.

Or use the *real* pronterface which has many more options: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/

I place mine on a seat which absorbs most of the shocks and cradles it in place. I also remove the filament as the filament and the spool holder makes it unbalanced and more likely to fall over. Especially if a full spool.

To post picture, first click "gallery" on the top left of this page, then UPLOAD then after uploading picture(s) start a new post and click "my media" next to the smile icon.

Harma from Ultimaker "promised" it would be out 2015 first quarter. So they still have 2 months. I often have to keep secrets but I can tell you this: they have not shipped me a dual extrusion setup (sometimes Ulitmaker sends me things like this early to test). So I suspect it won't be available until the very end of the quarter. In a month you can ask me if I have a dual extrusion upgrade kit and if I am silent... draw your own conclusions.

I can't imagine how this could be true. This is very strange. I think you need a new PCB (printed circuit board) if you really want to fix this.

What bed temp are you using? I print ABS at 110C bed temp and very little fan. Usually no fan but you need a little fan for overhangs and bridging. Whatever the minimum fan is (30% perhaps).