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Zernu??? Where did you go? I did some bridging tests and posted photos and settings: Post # 17 (for now - unless/until someone(me?) deletes a post above it): http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/?p=25304 Temperature was by far the most important factor. I thought .1mm layers would be much worse than .2mm but it was fine! Just as good! This bridging could be better probably if Cura was more careful about not touching the previous bridge lines before they cool.

Bridge test. Only temperature seemed to make much difference. With the exception of the 230C print, all the drooping filament was caused when the hot end damaged an existing bridge string. In other words each string was laid down PERFECTLY. But then a few seconds later the hot end would mess up a previous string. Sliced in Cura 13.10. No special settings. Temperature seemed to be the critical factor. Cura slices the first layer along the length of the string and then prints normally after that: skin/walls first, then diagonal infill. Walls were at .8mm (two passes). stl is 50mm bridge here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12925 As usual, this image is bigger than your monitor. To zoom first click the image, then right click and choose "view image" then click a third time for the FULL zoom. Pan around the image with scrollbars.

This is *very* common. You are slipping or losing steps in X (but not Y). There are several causes. It's probably slipping on a pulley but lets assume losing steps for a minute. Check to make sure if you push the head around in X and Y that it feels about the same. Consider putting one drop of sewing machine oil on each of the rods. Or use a thin oil. More likely a pulley is slipping. Tighten all the set screws. Consider marking each shaft and each pulley to see which one is the slipping one. Most likely it is the short belt which is a bit of a pain as you have to remove the X motor to get to that one. There are 6 pulleys for the X axis alone. SIX! Not 4. Make sure you tighten the set screws on all 6. Your UM probably came with a bag of extra set screws (the silver colored ones). The black ones that come with the pulleys aren't as good (although I'm still using the black ones). Also while it is printing look at the short belt to the X stepper. If it is twisting back and forth in different directions then that means it is touching the wood in the back. This is very easy to fix if you are using the plastic spacers - just add a washer under each of the spacers to move the motor slightly away from the wood.

These filaments are more likely to clog than normal PLA so they are telling you the minimum nozzle size is .4mm. Most people suggest going even larger - say .65mm. This is because there are particles of wood mixed in. The most common filaments by far are 1.75mm and 3mm (although 3mm is actually 2.85mm normally as 3mm would probably get stuck in the bowden feeder tube). Any PLA that is sold in one of those sizes is usually sold in the other size as well.

Ah!! That must be it! Turn off infill.

I've seen this. It seems like a bug to me. To do seperate skirt for each object you can right click on the object in cura and select "split object into parts". Hopefully that will do what it is supposed to do - make sure you view in xray view first as if there is anything red it will split that part up into more parts which would be bad. Then if you set gantry height to 0 in machine settings it will put a skirt around each object. You can see what will happen in advance in layer view (instead of having to print something before you find out it won't work).

Oh - pronterface is a free download. You can use the cura print window also - that works just as well.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Ultimaker%27s_v1.5.7_PCB In the photo of the board on the bottom of the UM, there are these 5 "stepper driver" boards that can be removed without any soldering. They are socketed. The top right one is the Z driver (notice it is closest to the connector to the Z motor). A quick check is to swap the cables for Y and Z. Use pronterface to move the motors 1mm at a time. If the problem is with the stepper motor or the cable the problem will stay with the same stepper (it won't move). If the problem moves to the other stepper than it's something on this circuit board so next you swap the stepper drivers aka pololu's. These are manufactured and sold both by Ultimaker or through the rep rap community. If it's not the pololu (that's the most likely thing after cabling) then it's probably the arduino (even easier and cheaper to locate and purchase!).

Is retraction visible in layer view? It is shown as a *vertical* short blue line. If so you could experiment and set the minimum travel to .7mm (which is farther than this moved) and see if the line (retraction) goes away.

Well you could try alternating the colors for a little while. That would mean much more welding though :(

Picture please foehnsturm.

Bastards!

I haven't tried glass yet but people report that it is MUCH less sticky than blue tape or cardboard or Kapton tape. At MakerFaire NYC they used glue stick *and* had to heat the bed to 50C. When they didn't do both parts popped off. But it's complicated. Each part is different. You can get away with neither for certain parts (small parts). It sounds like wood glue and water is better than glue stick. It would be nice if UM had a scientist who would spend a month experimenting with sticking and then another month experimenting with fan speeds, then another month experimenting with bridging, then another week experimenting with maximum flow speeds. All of these with various PLA. Maybe some day. In the mean time we have to rely on people like Illuminarti who do pretty good job with these kinds of experiments (but don't spend the month the issues deserve).

Orientation? Object? There are no objects that I know of. You can simply control the low level aspects of the machine. For example you can send gcodes. Or move one of the axes. Below is a screenshot of Pronterface. As you can see on the right side, I tried sending M503 but nothing happened because I hadn't connected to the printer. So I clicked "connect" and then tried again and it worked. Also notice that when I connected it displayed some information. In fact it looks like the moment I connected, pronterface sent a M503 also. So I got all the settings twice. edit: As usual to see an image in it's full size you have to first left click on it, then right click and choose "view image" and then usually left click it again except this time my image just barely fits in the screen so you can skip the final zoom click.

If you bought your own I think you have to format it on a computer first. But I don't know the procedure.

Is this the SD card that came with the Ulticontroller or did you buy your own?

Owen I only see the UM Original on makershed.

Okay. You got me interested in this. I want to print that bridge thing (lower picture). Can you supply a link? Is it on youmagine or thingiverse? I love experiments.

Oh! I'm pretty sure Sander will be there. He has a beard. Make sure to say hi to him!

At least 3 people had their stepper motors with the wiring backwards over the last 6 months. One just in the forums today I think.

I don't know if your object is too tall or too many line segments. I recommend as an experiment to reduce the number of polygons. Here's a quick way with meshlab which is free: http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/226-polygon-count-reduction-with-meshlab.html If the problem is the height I suspect you can mess with this in the "machine settings" max height setting. But more likely you need to reduce polygons. I think Daid said around 100k polygons things start to get bad in Cura (runs out of it's 2GB memory limit).

Do tell! Spread the rumor! Give us a link! Or was it just in these forums? Or in google groups?

Oh. I don't know what that is. It looks like it *might* be a problem. Sorry I don't have a UM2. Yet. The Bowden tube is the long, clear tube that runs from the feeder to the head. I don't know how far down into the head it goes. But maybe it goes all the way into your picture?? I don't know. Could you take a picture of the top of the print head also? I want to see if you are missing the little blue clip. Bowden tube is a mechanical term. Other examples are the tubes that contain bicycle brake cables, bicycle gear shift cables, automobile speedometer cables.

Wow. Please post photo! That's what I did. My heated bed power supply is from a computer and I just use the digital pin that turns it on and off to turn it on and off. Instead of switching the high current of the power itself. My power supply hasn't died yet. PID stabilization makes no sense with my heated bed. A simple over temp off, under temp on is all that I need. Like a house thermostat.

Then clean the tape first with isopropyl alcohol to deal with the warping, lifting of the corners.