gr5

I have heard 100 problems on this forum and this one seems new. At first I thought maybe temperature but you said "different PLA filaments" and *most* PLA colors are not temperature sensitive (a few are). So I don't think it's temperature. Also you said it seems to happen 5mm off the bed every time. This makes me think it is related to the Z height. Maybe your screw threads aren't equal. Or maybe the Z axis gets stuck a little. This kind of thing happens a lot. So maybe the "darker" layers are closer together than normal (over extruded) or maybe they are farther apart (under extruded). Either could cause the layers to be darker. Could you post pictures of other objects? Does this only happen on transparent colors?

To fix it you just PUSH. Follow the red arrows in Chelys photo above! And here:

So on a cube the very top layer is printed at infill speed? That's messed up! Isn't the whole point to print faster on the "hidden" parts?

Really there's 13.04 which was that most recent version with skeinforge, and then there is the current version. Unless there is a bug in the current version (which will likely get fixed in the next version) there is rarely a reason to use anything other than those 2 versions. However those 2 are different enough that 13.04 can be useful for some things. For example 13.04 has other infill patterns such as hexagon infill.

Yes. I didn't get one but the newer um2's come with one. Slip it into the holes on the back of the UM and twist.

Shipment statuses explained here (post #6): http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3170-very-disappointed-about-support-no-way-to-have-answers/?p=23579

print speed. Infill is this cross pattern with mostly open space.

Daid while we are talking about speeding up infill without hurting quality... It would be nice if for those times when someone sets the infill speed at a different rate than the print speed, it would be nice if for the last 1 second worth of travel, or the last 50mm or something like that - it would be nice if it would gradually (or suddenly) switch back to the print speed. So that there isn't this bad quality the moment it changes speeds (typically over extrusion when it starts the skin again).

You mean .4mm nozzles? Which outer edge? For a cube, fine, all three layers stack on top of each other but for most prints they don't. So which of the 3 outer edges do you run the infill to?

In my opinion this is a big deal because those 2 outer layers do not "stack up" on top of each other so do you take the more "inner" layer? Or the higher layer as your contact for infill? I think kisslicer might already do this and it has a nice gui just like Cura and it is free.

That sucks. Maybe you have a steel bristle brush where you can cut off one bristle? Another solution is to heat the head to 180C, remove filament, loosen the 4 screws about 4 turns each, then remove the blue clip, push down on the outer ring that the blue clip held up and lift the bowden tube out while pushing down on the ring. Now with head at 180C cut a short piece of PLA and insert it. Then change head to 90C. Walk away and come back after the head has been at 90C for a full 3 minutes and pull firmly the PLA out. This should hopefully pull out some or all of your plug. Reheat to 180C and see if you have good flow. If not, repeat several times. Or, take the head completely apart (not really that hard after you got this far!) Including removing the thermocouple and heater (very carefully!) and do this while at 180C so the pla doesn't lock any threads. Then take the nozzle and put it in a hot gas flame.

The third fan (not to be confused by third eye?) comes on the instant you switch on the UM2. Even before the lights. So that is useful debugging info. Usually you simply lift up the woven cover above the print head and that exposes the connectors. The side two fans are in serial on the same circuit (you can see a short wire connecting the connectors. The rear fan has it's own separate power.

This does nothing for PLA but works for ABS. Are you printing with ABS? If PLA, then THF can be used as a solvent. If you buy THF make sure you get it "with inhibitor". Be careful with Acetone and THF as I believe these are quite toxic and quite flammable.

So which versions of Marlin now calculate the D factor (slope of the error) before it hits the +/-10C window? I assume the versions of Cura that come with UM1 don't have this fix, correct? Also UM2 has the fix, correct? Also the latest ErikZalm version has this fix, correct?

Then you need the next advice - how to get the damn parts off. First make sure it cools down to at least 50C as hotter than that and you risk deforming the part. I usually use a putty knife or knife with a razor blade. Once I get a corner up I always switch to a putty knife if I didn't start with that. If you use the glue stick it dissolves nicely in water so sometimes I take the whole sheet of glass out and put it in the sink. You could just put the glue stick under the corners that tend to lift. Also freshly cleaned glass sticks better than glass that has oil from your fingers on it.

Robert gives great advice but also know that you will not cause damage. The UM is designed to withstand this kind of force and the steppers definitely don't care at all if they skip steps (which is partly what is happening).

Regarding those rings: It's tough to go from zero extrusion (retraction even) to 70mm/sec printing instantly. It takes a 100millseconds or more to get up to speed. So for larger things like the tree itself you don't notice as much the bad spot before quality improves. For the tiny ring it's obvious. The simple solution would have been to slow down the printer to 40% feedrate when you got near the top of the tree. The quality of the trees would have been improved greatly at 30mm/sec but it also would have taken more than twice as long so it's a tradeoff.

Actually that creates little vertical spikes. "non-printing" is harder than one would think.

Again, can't comment on readers. They are probably all fine. You will get a free SD card with your printer so you don't need to order one.

If you are printing a circle with 10 segments, jerk allows the printer to not slow down much at each vertex so it can print the circle fast. If you are printing a square it slows down more at the corners (vertexes). This is controlled by "jerk" which is a Marlin specific term and not the same as what a physicist would call "jerk".

Not sure what part you are talking about. UM Original? or UM2? Can you take a picture of the part? Does this help? https://github.com/Ultimaker/UltimakerOriginal

I believe the problem with the ribbon cables is usually "cross talk" where signals from one cable pass to the other as radio waves. So a meter won't show the problem. Try keeping the cables at least 10mm apart. Or just wait for Sander's new cable.

Ian has great advice - all those things help the part *stick* better. But there is another technique that instead reduces pulling forces. Another technique is to do all that but instead RAISE the bed temp a little and keep the fan off (although 70C is usually plenty). This second technique keeps the bottom 10mm of PLA *above* the glass temperature so that it is soft and mushy and the pulling/shrinking stesses deform it a little but not enough to pull it off the bed. This second technique usually requires the fan to be *off*. However only use this second technique for large parts - parts that take more than 15 seconds to print a layer. If the top layers of the part print less than 15 second you need to turn the fan back on at that point. A third technique creates a heated chamber. This isn't usually necessary.

I like Daid's theory - slipping on the extruder. You could print at 1/5 the speed and see if that helps. My theory is Z axis movement. It sticks a little or something and when you command it to go down .1mm it actually goes down .07mm and so you get 30% over extrusion and the layer sticks out. Then you command another .1mm and it corrects and goes down .13mm and you get 30% under extrusion. Something like that.