gr5

Oh - and don't leave this powered up for more than 20 seconds at a time - don't want to overheat anything with that fan disconnected!

Does the fan come on when you power on? Either way, put your ultimaker on it's side or back and remove the bottom cover. I'm guessing the bad part is the one in the top left corner here - it's the part cooled the most by the fan: Also known as IC1. The schematic is here: http://reprap.org/wiki/Ultimaker%27s_v1.5.4_PCB Eagle software for opening it is here: http://www.cadsoftusa.com/download-eagle/ Although the 1.5.7 schematic is actually more useful. Anyway probe those 3 pins on IC1. One should be at ground, one at 19V and the 3rd should be at 12V. I would check that first.

This is very very common and easy to fix. Once you figure it out. Illuminarti mentions the top 2 things: pulley loose or belt touching frame (you can tell if it touches frame as it twists each time it changes direction). There are 6 set screws to tighten on the 6 pulleys for the Y axis. Not 4. Six. Make sure you get them all. The two most likely are the 2 hardest to get to (on the short belt). Tighten the heck out of them. Also the pulleys come with black set screws but with your kit you should have gotten shiny screws that work better. I still use my black ones but next time I have to tighten them I plan to change them out.

Could you tell us exactly what acceleration you went to? I think the default might be 9000.

Looking again at the photos - the changes in color are always at the same heights. And the heights are more than 3mm apart (spacing of lead screw threads). This makes me think the leadscrew has some non-linearities. I would consder taking it out and cleaning it. Maybe use WD40 and a rag and clean all the cracks with a tooth brush. Then dry it and re-apply grease and put it back together.

The quality issues you are having with these cubes is near the limit of what the UM can do. I think your particular filament is showing up errors more than most filaments so they are more visible. For example white filament tends to hide these kinds of errors. However it is definitely possible to improve the quality more than what you are seeing now. I think Z issues are a good place to start, but not just the screw - are there other things that might affect this? Something that the bed bounces against? Maybe if you add a weight to the bed to keep it from vibrating? Try printing at half normal speed just to see if this helps quality - also try dropping your XY acceleration value in half - this is controlled easily with the ulticontroller - if you don't have one let me know and I'll explain how to do it. When you change acceleration, the values go back to default when you power cycle the Ultimaker. So if you prefer different acceleration values you need to "save" them.

It's true that this is the design, but for me, my Z nut is locked in tight and will not move. This has worked very well for me as my Z screw itself is straight and doesn't wobble. You should do this test: loosen the Z screw from the coupler so that it can be removed. now slide the bed up and down (the Z screw will also go up and down). Check for binding when the bed is low and when the bed is high. Rotate the Z screw until the bed is near the bottom. Raise and lower the bed/zscrew together. Does the bottom of the Z screw slip into the coupler easily? Or is it aligned badly. Also consider removing your z screw completely and putting it on a flat clean surface and rolling it to see if it is straight. If everything seems perfect then I recommend you *don't* loosen the Z screw. The design is to have a loose Z screw but I find a tight Z screw works even better if everything else is aligned well.

1) How do you know the PSU is fine? 2) The PSU can get into a mode where it shuts down and the *only* way to turn it back on is to unplug it for a while (until led goes off and a little longer) and then plug it back in. 3) Do you have a volt meter? I can tell you where to probe. 4) The Ardunio board separates relatively easy from the rest of the electronics. Consider removing it (carefully) and connecting it *only* to the USB cable which powers it up nicely. Then you can see if communications works with the Arduino. Arduino's are very cheap and easy to get. 5) What country are you in? Your email just says "eu" - does that mean europe? It would be helpful if you noted your country in your profile settings. 6) I can't believe you got the nickname "Ultimaker". Wow. Way to go. Everyone is going to think you are an employee now, lol. Maybe you should change it. edit: Us moderators decided to make him change his nickname.

:wub: :wub:

I hadn't noticed that! The way I guessed which one went to the rear fan (on my UM2) was that the cable seemed slightly longer than the other 2.

You keep talking about "fill" as in "120% fill". Do you mean "flow"? Because Fill doesn't do anything on a part like this that is hollow. That's quite fast. If you are going to print thick .2mm layers and at 190C then you need to slow it down some - try 30mm/sec to see if it helps. That's a lot of cold, thick plastic through a small nozzle. I can achieve that volume at that temperature (barely) with only a little underextrusion but not with just any PLA. Some PLA's are too thick at that temperature. What is your nozzle hole diameter? The Ultimaker normally has .4mm. What kind of printer are you using? Here is a photo showing the relationship between printing speed, temperature and underextrusion: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/?p=13194 What? Is this PLA or ABS?

Very strange. Something else is partially broken with your extruder. I mean it sounds like it works but it should never grind no matter what. At least not with normal PLA. The stepper shouldn't be strong enough. This happened a lot on the UM Original, but not the UM2. Are you using 3mm filament? It should be about 2.85mm diameter. Is it round? Is it from Ultimaker or did you buy it from somewhere else? At some point maybe you should remove the back cover of the filament extruder and photograph the inside. Something seems to be mildly wrong. Maybe the other pulley in there is stuck? Actually there *are* other possibilities. If there is no filament coming out and the extruder keeps trying over and over to extrude it kind of clicks back. But if you do this dozens of times on the same spot of filament I suppose it could slip a little each time. Also maybe you need to tighten the extruder a tiny bit - turn it so the white square moves down the smallest possible amount but in fact moved down.

Here's one someone posted recently. It was said twice before, but the blue/pink cable is supposed to always have power. Oh and that brown/red one is for the second extruder. It doesn't do anything:

Several people already posted pictures in the last week or so. I think it would be better if you sent *us* a picture. The thing I was offering was a picture of the underside of the UM but your problem is much more likely just above the print head. There are no screws that you need to remove. It's VERY VERY EASY AND SIMPLE. There is a "cable" going into the top of the print head. That "cable" is actually many cables covered by something like a "sock". Lift the sock. There is no attachment. You just lift. There are 3 red/black cable pairs in there. All 3 go down to the fans. All 3 have white connectors. All of them should be connected. If not, just connect them up - you can't break anything by plugging or unplugging these fans.

Well - that is one solution - it's a complicated and difficult one but can work very well on occasion. On the other hand sometimes it's very hard to get the two haves to fit properly. You get a seam. Every print has very different requirements. Some are mechanical in nature and don't have to look good. Support is fine for this. Some are works of art meant to sit on a table. The bottom can usually look horrible but the rest has to look as good as possible. Some are toys. Some people are printing architectural models for work. Some are printing prototypes. So it depends on your requirements. It would be better if you uploaded a model onto youmagine.com.

UM1 or UM2? Either way it sure looks like you are printing too fast and cold. Either raise the temp by 15C or slow it down by 30%. 60mm at 210C and .2mm layer height (what is your layer height) is quite doable with most filaments but I'm going to guess that this black filament needs a little higher temperature. So try 225C. Or 40mm/sec. I suspect you'll see a huge improvement. Also your extruder might not be as powerful as it should be. On the UM Original it should be able to pull 22 pounds. Consider testing it by unlocking, pulling back a foot of filament, relocking and turning the gear with one hand while putting 10-20 pounds of weight on the filament pulling downwards with the other hand. The spring should be compressed (when the mechanism is closed) to about 11 to 11.5mm. Maybe give that screw a few turns tighter. Also remove the pla and shine a flashlight onto your hobbed bolt. Is there any plastic in there or something causing problems? Is it lined up with the slot properly? Maybe post a picture and also a picture of your extruder when it is clamped closed. How about the black wheel that the filament presses against. Does it turn easily? Did it get worn down and does it now have a flat spot in it? Also you could have a partial nozzle clog but I doubt it.

Regarding #13, consider building the support in the CAD model instead of relying on Cura.

A lot of people ask for this. The flip answer is to say for just $6000 you can get a printer that has ethernet. The kinder answer is that there are some products that are just out now that do this and very inexpensive. Personally I don't mind and I have it bad - I always have to save to SD on my 2nd floor computer (which has the SD card reader) and I always print on the 1st floor so I'm going up and down the stairs for this. Good exercise.

Yes. This is true. My printer has trained me to always grab that blob and pull it off to the side as it does the skirt. This is the same issue with the UM Original in my experience.

This hasn't happened to me. There is a screw in the top of the feeder. Turn it so that the little white square is near the top (almost as loose as possible). When the white square is down lower the other gear seems to get jammed and it doesn't feed as well.

Yes! Fix this now! You probably don't need any tools. It should turn on immediately when you power your machine - even before the lights come on! Roll back/slide up the black plastic mesh above the print head. This will expose some wires and connectors. The 3 red/black cables go to the fans. The pink/blue one goes to the rear fan. It's either unplugged (likely!) or one of the black/red/blue or pink wires might be loose (give them a gentle tug?). Let me know if you need to know where the other end of the pink/blue cable goes. I have a picture somewhere.

I think it does. Cura detects bridging and usually seems to do the shortest span - I'm not sure if that's always true but it was for my part. The part above was printed with excel, not Cura. Re-read that post. I was thinking the same thing. This might help the shape a bit also. Kind of like pre-stressed beams.

Lots of stringing so... I'd be tempted to print it at 190C and 20mm/sec but... that would probably take a month to print, lol. So I don't really know what I'd do with this one. I think I would start by putting in a larger nozzle! Then print 190C and 40mm/sec. I'm going to try this print on my UM Original with a larger nozzle. I think I will do some stringing tests with the larger nozzle before I print this.

yes. But you can replace just one part and it will be fine with 24V. This was discussed just today in google groups. There are some very smart ultimaker owners over there: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/ultimaker

So the UM prints long lines faster than short because it takes a while to get up to speed (there are acceleration settings). So it seems like if you printed something shaped like a popsicle stick it would print much slower vertically. I don't know if this affects very many parts though. Also when you print something like a scan of something in real life - there tends to be lots of very short line segments with very sharp corners from one line segment to the next. If 0 degrees is no change in direction then angles of 30 degrees are not uncommon so the printer has to slow way way down due to the "jerk" setting (which has a special definition in Marlin by the way). So smoothing these objects can drastically speed up the printing. The printer tends to vibrate and shake like crazy if they aren't smoothed - it comes out fine but it's noisy. A simple way to smooth is to just reduce the qty of polygons: http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/226-polygon-count-reduction-with-meshlab.html But a better algorithm would actually do some smoothing of the noise. meshlab probably can do that also but I haven't played with it much.