gr5

This is a double posting - please refer to the other posting here. I'm closing this topic so just go here instead: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/6591-first-print-um-robot-some-issues/

The unconnected cable is for a second extruder which I assume you don't have as it's not for sale yet.

I used sketchup for many years before I got my printer. It was for dozens of projects but the ones that I spent the most time with were architecture related (helped some people with design of observatory, several additions to my house, trying out paint color schemes). But sketchup is for visual models, not printable models. I am amazingly fast in sketchup however I've been using DSM lately. In the past I spent most time on texture colors and patterns. Not needed for 3d printable models. Here is an example of when I was trying out different kinds of tile patterns for a bathroom remodel in some rental property I own (sketchup):

Sounds like underextrusion. Also fixed by printing slower. Make sure your filament isn't tangling and it helps a ton to put the filament on the floor (when the filament enters the feeder at a sharp angle it causes 3 problems related to underextrusion). If you are printing .1mm layers at 20-35mm/sec you don't need to put it on the floor but it's still a good idea to avoid grinding up that black feeder on the back of your printer and having particles end up in the nozzle.

Yes! Please update what country you live in - it's in profile settings. The UM Robot is a tricky print but you barely need glue - probably no glue needed if brim feature is on (recommended). Probably you just need to level again - you want the first layer to be pushed into the glass slightly. For overhangs you need to print cool so make sure all 3 fans are working. The side 2 fans should come on before the first overhang. If you want a good quality robot I recommend 220C and 35mm/sec. If you want a stunningly perfect robot you have to print 2 side by side, shell thickness .8mm, speed 20mm/sec temp 200C. Make sure retraction is on. Oh - and to get the antennas perfect it helps to print 2 robots at the same time (tools --> 'print all at once'). Or barring that turn on "cool head lift" in expert settings but printing 2 robots if you want a stunningly perfect robot. It's hard to print at 200C and colder without also slowing down because the plastic gets thicker like molasses. You will find that you can have functional low quality parts that are just fine for most things at 100mm/sec printing or very nice looking parts at 35mm/sec. It's a tradeoff.

What a pain - you will have to remove lots more stuff to get under the board there.

The warp on your foot of your UM completely agrees with expected leveling errors you are experiencing. One way to think about it - your right front foot and left rear foot are "high" so you the gantry will be warped the same way (right front, left rear high) so you can warp the glass by a similar amount - raise right front and left rear corners of the glass. Ideally you should be able to put the whole thing in some kind of vise that pushes down on those 2 corners until it sits flat on the table again. But in practice I'm not sure it's possible. I guess you would want to loosen and retighten all the chassis screws while doing that. :( I think you are better off with the glass-warping technique.

So does the Z axis not move at all? If you choose "lower platform" in the menu or "raise platform" does it move? Does it make any sound? If so, it could be the limit switch is stuck - this is common. The limit switch is underneath the platform - lift the bed up firmly on towards the back (with power off). Look underneath the bed and there should be a long skinny screw sticking down. Look where that goes - it goes into a hole in the boom of the UM. Push on the switch there and make sure it goes down and up and clicks each time.

But you are in Amsterdam, lol. Can't you just walk over to UM headquarters and swap out the board? Okay - I get it - you probably have to take a train or something. Still...

Sounds like failure mode 2 or 3. Probably 3. It may seem faster but it's probably just that it has more and longer straight paths so it can go faster. Was it extruding a small amount? Maybe 1/10 of usual? Or nothing at all? It sure sounds like a nozzle clog or grinding filament fixed by printing slower and/or hotter. I guess I'd like to know your layer height/ print speed (40mm/sec) and nozzle temp to see if you are close to the limit.

Did you find a gouge? If so decrease speed, or layer height, or increase temperature. Here is a graph that shows absolute printing speed limits based on layer height, speed, and temperature - the dark blue line - I like to stay at half this speed or slower: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4127-um2-extrusion-rates-revisited/

definition of "infill": When a layer is printed the gcode usually has a shell printed for that layer which prints out one or more "islands". The shell can be one pass or many passes. It also prints the infill between the shell paths. The infill is sparse on most layers but on top/bottom layers it is filled in 100% I still call it "infill". When your print got to the top infill you greatly increased the flow rate because you are doing long straight lines so the printer can finally get up to "full" speed. Full speed in this case is only 40mm/sec - not particularly fast. It wasn't 100% clear to me if the printer stopped printing entirely (went silent - all axes stopped) or if the X,Y,Z axes kept moving but the E axis (extruder) stopped. Or if E was still moving/spinning but the filament stopped coming out. So I'm trying to figure out which of 3 failure modes it was. I still dont' know. The "check cura layer view" is to check to see if the gcode even has the commands to print the top. Maybe the printer was *told* by cura to not print the top. There are many reasons this could happen but I don't want to get into them until I know which of the 3 failure modes occurred. Also this first failure mode could be caused by you pulling out the sd card before it was fully written to. In the second failure mode - E axis not moving - this is strange but can happen if the printer thinks the print head is below minimum temp. You can check what temp it thinks it is at in the TUNE menu while the failure is occurring. Third failure mode indicates ground filament or slipping sleeve on extruder or clogged nozzle. This is very common but I would have thought you would have noticed when you printed it again (no filament coming out at *start* of next print). Unless maybe you changed filament between prints? If you don't remember what happened or weren't there you can reslice just the top of the part so you don't have to wait so long to see the failure and pay more attention this time.

By the way - my advice in post #4 (print two at once) will improve the overhangs slightly. Also you don't mention bed temperature. I recommend as cool as possible bed temperature for that overhang - I think 45C to 50C. If you go too low the part will come off.

The simplest thing to fix is bottom picture, green arrow. You need to move the bed closer to the nozzle. Do not run level procedure. Instead simply turn all 3 screws 1/4 turn (counter clockwise viewed from bottom). If that's not enough try another 1/4 turn. The green arrow points to infill that should be squished a small amount more so it is closer together. This will also "fix" this skirt line in 3rd picture also first picture red arrow. Bottom picture red arrow - you can't fix that. This model is too difficult. You are printing over air. The best way to fix this is dual nozzle with a support material like HIPS. This is not yet supported on UM2. You need UM Original for that. If this part didn't have rounded bottom it would be fine. You can get the top perfect (nothing to remove) if you print two objects at once. This was my original advice in my original post here. Please read post #4 again above!

There's nothing to add to Johnny's excellent reply other than here is the schematic if you need it: ULTIMAKER1 The circuit diagram, and board layout are here: http://reprap.org/wiki/Ultimaker%27s_v1.5.7_PCB There is a zip file at the top. It contains the "brd" file which is the layout. Also the "sch" file which is the schematic. Both files can be opened by eagle software which is free: http://www.cadsoftusa.com/download-eagle/

Well that is a third way to do it. Zews can choose his own method. I agree that the default material setting is bad so it's best to just fix it - takes a few seconds. Still both of his issues addressed so far (leveling, underextrusion) may be unrelated to his current printing temperatures.

Once it starts printing, if you enter the tune menu it's too late. You have to enter it while it is waiting for the bed or nozzle to warm up. Usually after the homing procedure but before it primes the extruder. If you enter during that time period it will not start printing until you exit tune menu. However once it does the nozzle prime, entering tune menu will not pause the print.

Still no video from the event?

I suspect your gantry rods are out a bit. The rear X rod is probably not level with the front X rod. Is the box of your machine warped? Do the 4 "feet" sit level on a flat surface or does it rock? More important are the top 4 corners level. Shipping companies like DHL seem to employ elephants who sit on the boxes during shipment. What do to about it... Well first of all: Ignore all the criticism or suggestions of another leveling technique. Your technique is fine. There are many good ways and no matter how hard you try you will always have a problem because something is slightly off on your hardware. How thick is the layer you printed? What is your bottom layer thickness? If you are seeing this kind of error with a .1mm layer then you can fix this a bit and it's as good as most ultimakers. But if this bottom layer is .3mm thick and you see this kind of error you need to get it fixed. My only quick solution to your problem: First realize that if you want to lower the back right corner (which you need to do) you need to raise the front left corner a bit. So what I'm saying is you can distribute the error more evenly. So I would raise the front left corner 1/4 turn and lower the front right corner 1/4 turn and don't touch the rear screw. Then repeat the test until the overly thin section currently in the rear right corner matches the front left corner - you want equal thinness there. Also you want the rear left corner to be overly thick by the same amount as the front right corner. If this compromise "best fit" leveling is not good enough you need to twist the UM2 frame or the glass. Probably the glass is easier. You could try inserting a .1mm shim (a small piece of paper) under the rear left and front right corners of the glass. That will warp the glass to match the gantry above. You might need 2 pieces of paper. I'm really curious to know if this paper warping solution works! Let us know because if it does there is a second person on the forums who has the same problem as you.

There are many ways to set the temperature. The two best ways are: 1) Once you hit PRINT and choose a model go into the TUNE menu and you can view and adjust the nozzle and bed temperatures. You must exit TUNE for the print to start but then you can optionally go back in there if you want to do more adjusting. 2) If your MATERIAL is chosen as PLA normally you can modify this setting and change 4 settings for PLA including temperature and then you can save this back to the PLA slot. There are at least 3 other ways to change temp (one listed above) but I don't recommend those for beginner. Learn these 2 methods first.

This is a difficult object to print. Could you cut the coin in half and print each half flat? Then glue the 2 halves together. If you will be printing lots of small objects like this you might want to get a smaller nozzle (.25mm) instead of .4mm to get better XY resolution.

Yes! https://www.youmagine.com/designs/drink-clip Go straight to the picture that shows the text "paul rose J". Basically print with two contrasting colored filaments (like black and white). Model the badge in one STL with flat bottom (not areas for letters just big flat bottom) and the letters in the other STL. Print the letters .1mm thick and then switch filament and print the badge with first layer .3mm thick with flat bottom. This will cover the letters and fill in the gaps nicely.

I had that problem on my UM original for a while when the belts were rubbing against the wood side on one spot but never on the UM2. It didn't look like the belt was rubbing but it would twist slightly every time it changed direction - that was the give-away.

Actually looking more carefully at image #2 above I think it's underextrusion and not bumps. What speed are you printing at? I would try much slower speed if you want super high quality. I usually print 75-100mm/sec but when I print that fast my parts don't look as good as this. When I want super quality I print slow - 20-35mm/sec. Alternatively you may be printing too slow. What temp is your bed and nozzle? (you can read these off in the tune menu once you start printing).

After uploading to gallery make a new post and click "my media" and add some images to your post. I chose 2. If you post too many questions or too many pictures you won't get all the answers. The first photo in your post above shows a bottom layer underextruded. This is very easy to fix. The problem is levelling. You need to get a more accurate level to get a better looking bottom (where it touches the glass). I recommend you just turn the screws counter clockwise (from below) 1/4 turn and try again. You have the slightly older version of Cura which comes with a Marlin with several leveling bugs. So you can either get the newer cura or you can just avoid the levelling procedure now that you are very close. The final adjustment is best done by screws alone now. If you have default settings then the bottom layer is .3mm but if you made it .1mm that will make your levelling accuracy requirement 3X more accurate. So make sure bottom layer is .3mm also. If you level too close then there won't be enough space for all the filament and the extruder will get more and more backed up until it slips and you get zero extrusion for a few seconds. This looks even worse. Your second photo above (see? I get to choose the photos because you didn't, he he )... That one is much trickier. I'm wondering if maybe you have infill showing through? I guess I'd like to see all your settings. Save your settings to a "profile" file and please post that file here. But basically you want your shell settings *always* to be a multiple of the nozzle width and you need at least 2 passes to not have bumps so set it to .8mm. If it was .4mm then just print as is. If it was already .8 or 1.2mm then try printing 1/2 the speed you printed this. Printing slower always improves quality. Get back to us all here and feel free to ask more questions about other stuff.