gr5

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.

They are on ebay here in USA but I would try UM first and if they don't help you, contact "Illuminarti" - send him a personal message. Post #5 above.

Is this visualization going to show a 3d picture of a part and then show a graph that shows "time to print" versus angle? Or do I completely not understand?

Never. The first bridge line was *always* perfect. But then the second line sometimes destroys the first line. I would look at your nozzle tip under a powerful magnifier (or just reading glasses). You may have somewhat damaged your tip. edit: they cost < 5 euros including shipping so don't get too upset if you did.

To clean the filament as it feeds, take tissue paper. Wrap/wind the wrinkled/crumpled tissue paper around the filament near the base of the feeder. Use some blue tape to tape around the tissue to hold it tight. Now run another piece of blue tape from your "cleaner" to part of your ultimaker to keep the cleaner from getting eaten by the feeder. After a week inspect it to see how much it filtered out.

I don't think it's the Z screw - the spacing is about 40/5 or 8mm. This is quite a puzzle! I'm thinking something is happening on the filament maybe at regular intervals. This is a long shot but easy to test: Please print one of those bricks one more time but after it finishes the base pause the printer (with ulticontroller you can pause and then continue - if you don't have ulticontroller just act quickly). Measure out an exact amount of filament (1 meter is good) from where it enters the feeder. Mark the filament with a pen. Then let the printer print 8mm and then stop the printer (just turn it off). Measure how far the filament moved. Then figure out how much filament you used to print 8mm of your "brick". Is it exactly one turn on the spool? Let's assume you used 30cm of filament. Measure the width of the filament with calipers in 10 or 20 different places along 30cm of filament.

Oh! Smart. That could be it also - the symptom is slightly different but almost impossible to see the difference (in both cases it only goes one way). But if you command one move at a time front,back,front,back and the DIR pin is backwards then it will move 4 times in same direction. But if limit switch stuck it will alternate moving and not moving. But only in one direction. Anyway - check the wiring where it may be touching your pulley in the back and front corners of the machine. The pulley may have worn through the wiring and occasionally shorting out the limit switch. As far as the arduinio is concerned it is socketed. No soldering necessary. Just pry it out very carefully and slowly alternating one side, then the other. Use a metal screwdriver or other metal blade that fits when rotated flat but doesn't fit when rotated the other way. Be very careful not to bend any pins and if you *do* straighten them immediately (before you forget) with needle nose pliers. This is very easy to do -- just take your time and be calm. Will only take a minute once you have the right tool(s). The arduino can run powered ONLY with the USB if you desire to connect it up. You can install the firmware without installing it into your UM which might be wise. It might be best to power up your UM with an arduino aware that it is in a UM so that it doesn't set any voltages to anything. So that it doesn't pulse digital signals that shouldn't be pulsed.