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The first link mentiones 3.0 +/- .05mm which is too large for the Ulitmaker. If you hit 3.05mm I'm pretty sure it will get stuck in the bowden. I've heard from enough people on this forum who had to throw away a whole roll because of this - so I would avoid it.

I think it's that. Printing a bit hotter might help. But really a heated bed helps much more. And enclosing the machine (or at least the sides).

Could you update what machine you use on your settings please? I dont' want to have to always go search for it. Usually belt wear is when it rubs against something and usually that is the wall. Sliding the pulley .1mm closer to the motor might help or adding washers. Or the long belts might not be lined up with the rods such that the belts rub against the pulley rims. This also tends to make a ticking sound. It's easy to fix - just loosen the pulleys and push the head around and tighten the pulley that the head is closest to (push it back and forth along the rod until it's happiest).

radio waves (electromagnetic waves) have both an electrical field component and a magentic field component. If you block either component you will reduce the waves somewhat. A mu metal such as iron or non-stainless steel (one that magents stick to) will block most of the magnetic component but aluminum doesn't affect magnetic waves. Aluminum won't block electric fields very well either unless you ground it. So I wouldn't expect that to help without grounding the aluminum. Interesting. Mine starts spinning closer to 30%. If you hold the fan still with your finger does the temperature behave itself any better? Or worse?

There are at least 3 factors that make parts slightly different size than the positioning of the nozzle. These have to do with elasticity of liquid PLA and also shrinkage issues. Also over and under extrusion - especially on the first layer. It would really nice to see your part. Anyway, the experts here all do the same thing when they need precision: They print a part, then measure it just like you did. Then they ADJUST THE STL to compensate. So if a wall is off by .5mm they move it by .5mm. Then print it again WITH ALL THE SAME SETTINGS. Especially temperature and print speed. This seems like extra work. But you will find that particular sized shapes will shrink different amounts. For example a circle will tend to pull inwards more if it is a vertical hole. But less on exterior surfaces. When you change color of PLA the adjustments all change. With experience you will eventually be able to compensate the correct amount on the first try each time. You may think CURA should do all the compensation for you but it's difficult as simply changing your fan setting or nozzle temperature or bed temperature will change the needed adjustments. Also changing color of PLA.

Sounds like a first layer only issue. That's usually related to leveling. There are a bunch of bugs related to leveling such that if you don't have the absolute latest firmware (from July 2014) then you should level without using the leveling procedure and instead just turn the screws. If the bed is .1mm low and your first layer is .1mm thick then you will need about 200% flow to do the first layer. Also 205C is a bit cold for this PLA. I could see how this might cause some underextrusion. I print with this color at 220C often and it works fine for me. I recommend you do first layer at .3mm (which is the default in cura but maybe you changed it?) as this is more tolerant to bed leveling errors.

Getting the board fixed through support could take a few weeks. So that's one route. I recommend you just replace the transistor yourself. It's near the fan connector. It's Q4. This part is one of the more common failures on UM Original. Mine has never been damaged though. They tend to fail in one of two ways: fan always on, or fan always off. If you aren't comfortable soldering, ask around. I'm sure you have a friend or neighbor who can do this in their sleep.

260C is dangerous for PLA - if you leave it at the temperature very a few minutes you can caramelize it into gunk that clogs the nozzle. I recommend staying at 240C or lower for PLA. I'm not sure if it's really caramelization - but it seems like it. To reduce stringing, make sure retraction is truly on. There are about 6 settings and a few of them can disable retraction here and there depending on the situation. So look at it in layer view. In layer view reatractions are indicated symbolically by a vertical blue line. Faster travel speeds helps break the string - 150mm/sec is the absolute slowest. 300mm/sec should be fine. Lower printing temperatures helps keep the plastic from leaking out. At 190C it's like toothpaste. At 240C it's like honey. More tests and results here: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/ But lower temps also means you might have to print slower to avoid underextrusion.

It's assymetric because the nozzle is to the left of the head and the right side doesn't get as much fan. You can still print a perfect robot though. lower print speed to 35mm/sec, lower bed temp to 60C (or even 50C but no lower than 45C as around 30C to 40C it stops sticking) and maybe possibly lower nozzle temp. 210C should be fine but maybe that particular PLA needs it a little cooler. Maybe 200C or even 190C. If you lower it too much you will get underextrusion. Every PLA color is a bit different in viscosity versus temp. Make sure min and max fan speeds are at 100%. Make sure fan comes on full by 1mm or so off table.

The endstops are those switches that click when you push the head to either of the 4 ends. Do they seem to be working okay?

BE VERY CAREFUL. Do not remove the old probe without removing the thin screw first. You have to take the head apart - remove 4 thumb screws. Then remove the small fan, then take out the white isolator. Next unscrew the nozzle by rotating the nut with the holes but ONLY DO THIS AT 100C to 180C or at least do it very very gently. The plastic can get in the threads and if you turn too hard you will easily break this brass nut. It is almost as thin as paper. Then you need to remove the tiny long screw (hex 1.5mm I think?). That thin screw holds in the temperature probe. You might be able to remove the screw first!

Oh wait - is it the vertical lines you want to disappear? I think you need to be more clear what you want. The vertical lines are not typical. I'm wondering how many polygons you have for that circle and how fast you were printing. Cura can only plan 10 to 20 line segment moves in advance and it needs to be ready to come to a complete stop so if there are too many polygons it slows down and can cause some overextruding like in your picture. Also temperature affects the vertical lines - I can send you a photo if you want. Or you might be on the edge of underextruding (printing too cold or too fast).

If you are only printing cylinders, then yes, .2mm is probably better. And you can make the lines disappearwith many different techniques. The best would be vapor solute. Is that what you want? The tiny lines to disappear even when you shine light off it perfectly like in the photo?

If you print a "wall" cura will print "both sides" of the wall. One pass in one direction, a second pass in the other direction. Always. The only way to get only one pass would be to write your own gcode. You can do it with excel spreadsheets and some text editing commands (substitute/replace). I recommend this over trying to get Cura to do this very specialized function. I recommend also you get repetier host and send your ultimaker some gcodes manually to get a feel for how AMAZINGLY SIMPLE this printer is to control. G0 and G1 do the same thing on Ultimakers - they "go". pronterface is here: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/ It's free and very easy to use. It connects to your printer through USB. You can send one command at a time like G0 X5 and it will move only X axis to position 5mm. More details in anon's post above. Or google "marlin gcodes".

how to check it? Oh - you can't really - you just replace it - it's only a few cents. But I doubt it's the darlington. I'd check the 5v supply going to the print head first (with fan running at 50%) to see if the voltage looks really spikey and ugly on the oscilloscope (lots of noise). Or replace all the relevant wiring with shielded wires. The shielding will block a large amount of the radio waves. This would be the 3 wires to the test head, the 2 wires to the probe and the 2 wires to the fan.

For um original it's Q4. Kind of in the middle of the schematic on the left. It looks like a transistor on the schematic. It's labeled clearly on the circuit board and it's positioned near the fan connector. It is a 3 lead device. Where to get circuit diagram: 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/ ULTIMAKER 2 SCHEMATIC - click "raw": https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2/blob/master/1091_Main_board_v2.1.1_%28x1%29/Main%20Board%20V2.1.1.pdf

If you want really beautiful prints you have to have the extruder never stop and never slow down and never speed up. That's really hard to do. You want all non extruding moves at as fast as possible (250 or 300mm/sec). You want acceleration high. You want jerk high. Also you might want to round all your corners so they are smooth and the head never comes to a stop. Printing really slow helps because you can get up to full speed on the extruder that much faster.

Something is not level. I recommend you get pronterface: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/ It's free and easy to use. Set Z to .1 or whatever you think your paper thickness is (typical printer paper is about .1mm) then move the XY head around to many parts of the print bed - Try 9 points maybe in a grid. Or 16 points. Test it all over and adjust with screws and test again. Maybe your gantry rods are bent. Maybe your glass is under too much pressure and bends while in the bed. But I suspect you just have the leveling off by a bit. I also recommend the bottom layer of your raft be .3mm so that leveling to an accuracy of about 1mm is fine. You can set Z to .1 by homing the Z and then do gcode: g0 Z0.1 You can then turn off all steppers and push the head around by hand but careful you don't bump the Z or you have to re-home it.

Yes, I thought of something similar but never mentioned it. Each layer or occasionally throughout the gcode file there should be information about how far into the print cura thinks you are (time-wise). Then Marlin can do it's calculation based on that. Because some layers are large and slow, and some layers are small and fast. Cura can include this information throughout the gcode (it doesn't have to be per layer - it could instead be every 60 seconds worth of gcode). Even fancier - Cura could include qty of retractions for the remainder of the gcode and how long it thought they would take and Marlin could see how long they *really* take and adjust accordingly. Similar with other settings. For example Cura could include the assumed acceleration and how much faster it would be if acceleration is 50% faster and Marlin, knowing actual acceleration, could interpolate based on those 2 values. Same with Jerk setting. Same with feedrate adjuster (Cura could say if feedrate is at 150% how much faster it thinks the part would print - note that it's not linear because a lot of the movement time is restricted by jerk and acceleration settings).

You should concentrate on getting the temperature reading to work. Do you know what kind of thermistor you got with the kit? The software you need is here - but you have to choose a thermistor: http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/ Once you get the hex file you can use cura to install it. Also you need to install a 4.7K resistor. Did you do that step? This post shows a photo of where the resistor goes and how to hookup a typical (but the heat side of things are all different) heated bed: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/6318-heated-bed-temperature/ By the way, the UM typically puts out 19V, not 12V and most people use a separate power supply for the bed, but you don't necessarily have to and one thing at a time.

ultimaker2 assembly manual - click "raw" to download the pdf: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2/blob/master/um2%20assembly%20manual%20V1.1%20_english.pdf

You can completely remove the bed without taking off any dibond. You will have to remove the delrin caps underneath the vertical rods on the bottom to get the vertical rods out. But you should remove the heated bed cable first.

When she says "high" I think she is talking about Y axis. If you want to print very thin lines you can do this by lowering the "shell" thickness. I have been printing a lot of text recently and I did a lot of experiments and you can tell cura to use a shell of .3mm or .2mm and it will print much thinner. You might also need to increase the flow a little bit. You will need very good first layer leveling and I recommend the finest adjustment to be done only by turning leveling screws and not to touch the bed leveling procedure.

He said it was fine at 100% fan.

This question was asked many times when the auto-update feature was added. Many people loved the feature and many people hated it. It turned out that all the people who hated it did so because of various bugs that locked up their computer while it was computing. I suspect you found a new bug. The program should never become unresponsive. Especially while slicing. Maybe you can provide more details and see if other's can duplicate it? It may be a mac thing or something very specific to your computer such as antivirus program, or SD card issue.