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That would make total sense - turn that off. I can't find that in Cura - are you just guessing?

There's definitely something strange going on. 14.09 definitely has more movements at layer change than it used to.

Spiralize is a software hack where (among other things like don't print top) it slices normally and then *after* it adds more and more Z. So if you turn off spiralize you probably *also* get those little blue movements combined with a Z movement just before. But usually cura keeps the Z seam in one spot so you don't get the blue movements whether spiralize is on or not.

Looking back on your original photo it looks like you have "pillowing". I have recently learned more about pillowing (it never happens to me). It can be often fixed by simply increasing fan but sometimes that is not enough. It is caused because the thread is breaking too easily. It is almost always fixed by trying a different filament. Or doing thicker layers (.2mm) because the thread is now thicker and stronger. Or you can do 25% infill (huge difference from 24% infill!!!) which is a different infill pattern that supports the top layer. Or you can print slower (thread is not pulled so fast and hard). Summary: 1) 100% fan 2) different filament 3) thicker layers 4) print slower (half the previous speed - can slow down when you get to the "bad" layer). 5) 25% infill

The nozzle has a nut above it (with about 6 round holes). This allows you to adjust the nozzle up or down which is helpful for dual nozzle printing (which is not available). It is better if the nozzle is further down such that the isolator is also further down such that the spring above the isolator isn't pushing so hard. That's what Sander is talking about. The harder that spring is pushing, the sooner the isolator will deform again.

Woofy in my post #5 above the first line was directed to you and the rest was directed to super grover. Sorry for the confusion.

:-P Both I think. If things are better then try just one. You don't need a strong fan but it needs to be aimed to the motor. The nozzle should be okay - it will automatically adjust within a minute to the new wind. So turn the fan on before you start printing to let the nozzle adjust.

Maybe a small amount. Stepper motors are very strange and use the same amount of current whether they are working hard or just resting but the voltage can change. This means it *might* get hotter when working harder but they are quite hot even when resting!

Try to keep quantity of triangles < 1 million. You will know if you have too many triangles because Cura won't be able to slice it - it will run out of memory (Cura only can use 2GB memory even if you have much more). Thinner slices will use more memory so .1mm slicing uses much more memory than .2mm slicing. I don't know what good values are for sag and step. You don't want too many steps per mm because Marlin has to be always ready to stop printing and it only looks ahead up to about 20 line segments so it doesn't know if there is a sharp corner coming up so it has to always be ready to stop within 20 line segments. If 20 line segments is only 3mm then it will print slow. I'm going to guess "sag" is distance from curve to line and I would say .1mm seems fine. And step I would say maybe .5mm would be fine. But I'm not sure exactly what these mean in Catia.

Next time maybe remove the tube at both ends (remove clips, push down on collar to remove) and don't forget which end is which! The end on the feeder has been drilled out a little wider. Of course you threw that part away! Then push out the bad piece with good filament and if it is melted/welded try dipping in hot water first for 30-60 seconds.

Okay - I think it is time to lower the stepper motor current after all. From cura right-click on the "Save" or "Floppy disk" or "Memory Card" icon and choose "save gcode...". Save on your computer somewhere and open this with text editor (on Windows use Notepad by dragging it onto notepad). Add the line of code as shown in red. By default the current for the extruder axis "E" is 1250 milliamps. Try 1000 or 1100 milliamps. You shouldn't need to go below 1000 milliamps (1 amp). 1000ma might be too small and your motor might skip a lot. It is safe for the motor - it will not hurt the printer. But your print might have missing plastic (small holes). If so try printing a little hotter, 230C (you should try this anyway) and a little slower: ;FLAVOR:UltiGCode ;TIME:1357 ;MATERIAL:3109 ;MATERIAL2:0 ;Layer count: 74 ;LAYER:0 M107 G0 F9000 X104.050 Y101.947 Z0.300 M907 E1000 ; set current to 1000ma - THIS LINE WAS ADDED ;TYPE:SKIRT G1 F1200 X105.507 Y100.634 E0.23536 G1 X105.707 Y100.469 E0.26647

Yes. Tell Sander you need a new one now as it will take days to receive it. Weeks maybe. But you can print fine towards the middle and back of the printer (but might be too far towards the front maybe). As an experiment - so you understand how suddenly PLA changes around 60C, boil some water and pour the hot water into a mug or glass. Already the water should be cooled to 80C. Now take a piece of filament and stick it in the water for 10 seconds and pull it out and bend it. Blow on the filament for 3 seconds and continue bending until it cools and suddenly it changes back to normal. Your fingers can handle much higher heat than it takes to soften PLA. A small fan should be able to keep the stepper motor a little bit cooler - just enough for the PLA to stay strong. Or you can lower the current to the feeder motor. It's easy to do but I don't recommend it as it is good to have the full power of the feeder. I'm still not convinced you have a "heat" problem. But if putting a fan blowing on the stepper helps (blowing from the front) then that would prove that you *do* have a heat problem and we can work on other solutions. Also set your heated bed to 50C (no hotter) if you are blowing air across it to the feeder stepper. You can do this on the TUNE menu after you start the print. It's still possible that you had a jam in the bowden tube and this caused the grinding. Or it's possible the grinding caused the jam/melt in the bowden tube.

Ah - looks like maybe a tiny jump on layer change. Interesting. Not sure why it would do that. Maybe you should post your STL. Daid? ideas?

Nice guide! I just pinned this topic.

The big white metal cover, yes. You don't need it. It's just to look pretty. That's probably fine but I realize now that you probably use "quick print" mode. Go to "expert" and "switch to full settings..." and start with 50mm/sec for a "medium" speed. And then you can leave speed at 100%.

White indicator at TOP is lowest tension. I've never touched mine. Ultimaker changed to a weaker spring a while ago and everyone disagrees on if grinding is caused by too strong or too weak spring pressure or not related. It's certainly something to try.

To post pictures click "gallery" at the top left of this page, then click "upload". Then make a new post and click "my media" next to smile icon.

The nozzle diameter is the most important thing for resolution. UM2 and UMO are .4mm diameter. Copperhead is .3mm sounds like. But you can change nozzles on the UMO. Some people (myself included) got an extra nozzle (expensive - like $40 maybe) and had it drilled out but I went with larger, .7mm, lol. .4mm is pretty sweet. .3mm or .25mm is good for making really tiny things with higher resolution. A .2mm nozzle has 1/4 the area of a .4mm nozzle and the speed through that hole is slower as there is more friction (more pressure in the nozzle). Like squeezing honey through a tiny hole you need lots of pressure. So a .2mm nozzle probalby prints with 1/8 the volume per second. .3 versus .4 I would expect to be (.4/.3)^3 or 2.4X slower for the same size part. Anyway - you can always change your nozzle after you buy a UMO or UM2. UMO nozzles are very cheap (about $5 to $10 on ebay) and can be purchased in many sizes.

Just printed some quadcopter parts with 14.09. No problems.

Yes, tell us nozzle temp and print speed and layer height. What is the air temperature in sao paolo? If over 25C that might be part of the problem. Especially after 30 to 60 minutes of printing. The feeder motor gets warm enough to soften the PLA in the feeder. That is *one* possible problem. One solution might be to remove the back left cover (only 2 screws - very easy) and put a table fan blowing on that corner of the printer to keep the extruder motor 10C cooler. Is this a part with lots of retractions? Usually there is a retraction when on a given layer the print head moves from one "island" to another. For example printing the branches of a tree - lots of islands. Printing a head - very few retractions.

You have heated bed and you want to try blue tape? glass is better! I agree you probably aren't squishing the first layer enough. Don't use the leveling procedure. Instead watch the brim go down and if it should be 3x wider than it is tall. If it's not that fat then twist the nearest leveling screw a 1/4 turn to get the glass closer to the nozzle until it's squished a little as it puts down that bottom layer. There's lots of ways to do glue. For PLA on glass my favorite by far is PVA wood glue. I use "Elmer's wood glue" and mix it with mostly water (90% water, 10% wood glue). Mix it in a glass jar with a lid. Shake it well. Then use a paint brush and paint it on the glass. Heat the glass to at least 50C and wait for it to dry until invisible. This works very well. And use Brim! At least 6 passes. 12 passes of brim if the part is very large (> 150mm across). The temperature is not important for the glass - there is a sudden transition around 40C so I recommend 50C to be well above the transition. Below the transition the part won't stick well. Above the transition it sticks very very well. 70C is too hot as you get some caving-in near the bottom of the part but it's not too serious. So 60C is good, 50C is good. Next you will be asking how the heck to get the parts off the glass! Use a very sharp putty knife.

Did you use a raft, Woofy? I don't recommend painter's tape. That's for when you dont' have any heat. It's easy to get the part to stick to the tape but getting the tape to stick to the glass is more difficult. I've been fine printing ABS on glass with hairspray. Which glue did you use? The glue stick? Or acetone with ABS dissolved in it? Or wood glue mixed with water?

The feeder motor is impressively strong. Mine pulls 5kg. That should be enough for a cold pull. Then if you change colors later you don't have to wait for the color to change. It changes instantly. http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4222-pulling-force-of-um-extruder/?p=34887

Yes! But go to a glass store, not a hardware store. NYC has lots of windows. Also I don't think it really needs to be tempered although UM glass is tempered. Make sure you have them grind the edges so it isn't sharp. I'm guessing $10. I have no idea how to prevent this from happening in the future. It happens to a few people occasionaly - especially with XT filament (which I think might be PET?) but I haven't heard about it with ABS yet. What did you put on the glass? ABS glue? Hairspray? Some hairsprays stick a bit less than others. One thing that might help is to print at 110C and let the glass cool completely before prying off the part.

Raft is an older technology. It still is used by a few people but you don't really need it anymore. Instead we have learned to get parts to "stick like hell". For your non-heated bed printer, I recommend blue tape and here's the key: clean the blue tape with isopropyl alcohol. This removes the waxy surface that keeps the tape from sticking to itself before you unroll it. There are other tricks - you need to print the first layer slower and hotter and squish it a bit into the tape so you might need to level slightly lower. Also a brim makes a huge difference and is much easier and cleaner to remove than a raft. In summary: - clean with rubbing alcohol (only once when you put down new tape) - if tape is lifting off bed use wider tape - First layer 240C (optional - this is for very large difficult prints) - First layer 40mm/sec max speed .3mm thick - use brim Once you do that you will be annoyed how hard it is to get the parts off so you can *not* do some of these tricks with smaller prints. For example skip the 240C or brim. Isopropyl (aka rubbing) alcohol can be found anywhere bandages are sold: