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Another way to print much faster is with thicker layers. The defaults is .2mm but .3mm is fine also. I recommend using a nozzle with a larger diameter. The Ultimaker uses .4mm hole. Illuminarti who posted up above uses .65mm nozzle and where .4mm thick layers is okay quality. The larger the nozzle hole, the easier it is to manufacture (easier to drill out the nozzle) and the faster you can print. At some point you will be printing so fast you can't get the heater block to melt the plastic fast enough. Illuminarti will likely sell you a .65mm nozzle that fits the UM original if you ask him privately.

Are you asking about Ultimakers specifically? Or any printer with Marlin? Because if you are then you can tweak the movement settings - specifically XY Acceleration and XY Jerk. If you increase these paramters your printer will print faster at sharp corners. But Ultimaker uses stepper motors (not servo) so there is NO FEEDBACK if a step is missed. Once you start missing steps the part comes out pretty bad (each layer horizontally shifted in a bad way). So you have to play with these settings until you start losing steps and then back off a bit. It helps to put lots of oil on the rods and keep the belts loose (tight but not very tight). Loose belts are easier. It also helps to increase the current to the steppers (there is a tiny potentiometer on the stepper drivers to control this) but you can damage the steppers if they get too much current so this is only if you are very comfortable with lots of careful testing and reading of the specifications for how hot the motors can get and how much current they can handle.

I think this is a cura issue, not a UM2 issue. 1) The square (squarish) vase. There are 4 STL files. Which one did you use? Normally I would recommend one of the first 2 and tell you to uncheck the "solid infill top". Is this what you did? Be aware that if you do this there will be ZERO retraction because Cura doesn't retract *inside* prints. So you if you want retraction to work, instead use "thickwall" or "3mm wall". 2) You shouldn't have this issue with this other "stratum" vase. In Cura, after it slices, look at the vase in layer view. Layer view shows a blue line for non-extruding moves but for retraction it additionally shows a short vertical line segment. Look for those to see if Cura is in fact doing retraction. It probably *is* doing retraction but if not, show us a screen shot of Cura where you think it should be retracting yet it isn't. 3) Even with retraction occurring, you can still get strining. Try printing MUCH slower. Try 1/3 the speed you are printing now. Also try as low a temp as you can go. Maybe 190C. Or maybe that is too cold for your filament. Both slowing down and cooler temperatures -- these both reduce stringing -- see first photo here: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/

Pronterface can do this also. It's free and pretty awesome. But Cura doesn't do it.

Look at the model in "xray" mode (button on top right corner). If you see *any* red then there is something wrong with your model. You can often but not always fix the issues with one of the 11 possible combination of the "check horrible" boxes. You can see the problem in layer view also. Please show us a screenshot of the layer view if you still have a problem.

1) The glass is more important than the heat for smooth bottoms on your prints. And good sticking (parts don't pop off easily) if you simply first coat with very thin layer of either gluestick or woodglue/water mixture. This is discussed right now heavily over on this other topic: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3016-while-waiting-for-the-heated-bed-printing-on-glass/ 2) If you want a heated bed so you can print ABS, then what you describe is probably the best way to go. However I recommend you wait until UM offers a UM1 heated bed upgrade. It's almost certainly going to happen in 2014. I have a heated bed myself but I rarely use it as I've learned other techniques (e.g. brim, alcohol cleaned blue tape, etc).

I think using PVA for support is patented so I don't think anyone from UM will recommend it until the patent runs out. But just because it's tricky doesn't mean you can't get great results. ABS is tricky also but that's the ONLY material hobbyists were using for several years until PLA became popular. Just follow instructions carefully and you'll probably be fine. Let us know.

The way the two ends of the bowden are held down are apparently different but I don't quite understand it myself. But on the print head you definitely need the clip but not on the extruder (although it helps with accurate retraction). I am told that there are tiny metal knives inside the part on the print head that help hold the bowden in. When removing the bowden from the print head you have to hold down the outer ring (which means the blue clip must be removed). Sometimes, even though you hold down the outer ring I suspect the tiny knives don't retract enough so when you remove the bowden you get two possible issues: 1) you scrape a thin layer off the outside of the bowden making it weaker and smaller and harder to grip next time. 2) sometimes the scrapings land inside the print head and the next time you print you get clogs. Hopefully they almost always miss the print head and blow away but someone on these forums reported this issue recently. If #1 is your problem then you should probably print up one of the many bowden tube holder designs mentioned up above. Reread all the great answers up above. I particularly like the one with the huge plastic tightener bolt shown way up above as no one seems to have trouble with those even though Sander is skeptical.

I didn't exactly see underextrusion in your video. On the side walls it should look like the second photo (the black and white one): http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/ But to answer your question: I can print 150mm/sec at 230C without even a hint of underextrusion (as shown in photo with purple cube) but if I go down to 210C I *will* start to see some and can even cause the filament to grind ruining the print. At 40mm/sec I can go down to 190C fine. So if you are truly seeing underextrusion (and I wasn't able to see any in any of your video) then you should test your extruder to make sure it can pull 22 pounds on the filament by hanging a weight on the filament and not feeding it thorugh the tube. If that is working then test: 1) filament diameter - if it gets over 3mm it can get stuck in the bowden 2) hot end temp - you already did this in your video 3) nozzle obstruction. look at the tip with a magnifying glass. Consider removing the nozzle and cleaning it out with a hot wire taken from a metal brush. Put both the metal wire and the nozzle in a gas flame before pushing the wire in the end and pulling out the other side. Make sure you can see light thorugh the hole.

Fascinating. I envy you and your molten metals! FYI many people print ABS without a heated bed. There are 2 issues - shrinking, and shrinking. The first issue is that it's harder to get things to stick to the bed (due to shrinking). Some people have solved this with "ABS GLUE" (google it) and printing on glass. Also adding a brim helps and printing as hollow as possible helps (infill pulls at the sides lifting the corners off the build plate). The second issue is shrinking - if you print something like an inverted cone - something with overhangs - even very mild overhangs, the shrinking effect which pulls in on the sides of the part as you print - now it rotates the edge and mostly lifts the edges of the part until the print head hits these edges and either damages the part or knocks it off the print bed. Even a mere 45 degree outward angle is a major major problem with ABS. Pretty much unprintable without heated chamber. But if you are printing things with vertical sides (like typical mechanical parts) (rounded corners on top are not a problem - it's outward leaning sides). And if you are printing smaller objects (under 2 inches across) then you might be fine with ABS. With ABS glue and 1/4" (thick!) glass plate you might even be able to use the full 8 inches of bed space.

Nice. Now try that secret I sent to you privately and the antennas will look even better.

Wow! Nice video. Lots of information packed into 3 minutes 46 seconds. For the most part you have things working pretty well. And you are trying the correct things (slower speeds, lower temps) to reduce stringing. And your stringing is everywhere but the strings are quite thin - I've seen worse but I've also been able to get it to zero if I try hard enough. I suspect the strings you *do* have will come off very easily and cleanly. I think you are close enough that if you just try a different manufacturer's filament you might be able to get it to zero stringing. Also fan is important for that pyramid. Each post doesn't have much time to cool with almost constant contact to a hot nozzle so it's extra hard to stop stringing. Was your fan on during the pyramid support printing? When retraction occurs, look at the top of the arc of the bowden tube. Make sure the filament goes from touching the top of the tube, to the bottom of the tube at full retraction. If not increase your retraction by .5mm. My retraction is at 4.5mm and that is about perfect. If you retract too much you get air in the print head which alternately causes first over and then under-extrusion. One thing that I definitely saw was a problem was your first layer. You have a shot where you printed only the first layer of several complicated shapes and in the video there are some holes which you might think is "under-extrusion" but in fact is just bad leveling. You need to press the first layer down into the tape a little better. So raise your bed by about .1mm and try that first layer again (.1mm is about the thickness of a piece of paper). Here is a photo of how the first layer should look (look at the skirts):

DAID! I hope you are listening somewhere! That's what we need for support options! Can't cura just bounce you over to that utility or something?

But.... Doesn't Ultimaker use colorfabb for their filament? I don't really know. But the reels that the filament comes on looks similar.

Not really. The only thing better about the one I linked to is that all the other ones I used broke within a month. Whereas the one with the wire tie will last forever.

You can use PLA for support and cut it off or file it off or sand it off. You just won't get as pretty a surface. If you are making some part that is buried in a machine you probably don't care how pretty it is. I usually try to redesign parts so no support is needed. The UM can print *almost* horizontal but not quite. Well it *can* if you are printing a bridge between two supports. Anwyay, for example if printing a human head with issues under the nose and chin just rotate the print back by 15 degrees and sink it into the print bed so there is a flat spot at the back of the neck where most people don't look. I tried rotating the entire printer back but that makes no difference as far as I can tell. Each higher layer needs to be touching the previous layer and tilting the printer back doesn't help - you have to tilt the print itself before slicing. Sometimes I add support in the CAD. And sometimes I use the built in support features in Cura (scary!). But those are intended to be printed in the same pla as the print itself.

The 3rd rear fan? I haven't gotten my UM2 yet but I'm pretty sure it should *always* be on. I don't really know though - maybe there is another thermocouple or something that tells it when to turn on or off. I think if that fan never turns on you have a small danger of getting a plug/jam where the PLA melts/softens when it is higher up in the print head and then cools and causes a jam. It may suck but I doubt anything will get damaged but I really don't know. Also maybe the 3rd fan only comes on when temps get over some temperature - maybe 250C is the point where the 3rd fan is needed (for ABS plastic for example).

Lol. Through the USB of course. It turns out the raspberry pi is MUCH more reliable than using a computer. Look - for some people, printing through USB works great! It's dependent on the hardware. I mean if you use windows - good luck - one time I was printing and windows decided to upgrade my software! wtf? I lost a print because of that. The raspberry pi doesn't have millions of lines of code any of which can crash your print. But more likely some low voltage USB signal or something like that can cause trouble. So for me, my computer seems to not work well through the USB. And for many others. But then they switch to a laptop or add a USB buffer and suddenly they can print 30 hours prints no problem. It's just a lot to explain to new customers. So it's best to only officially support SD for now. If you look at the circuit diagram for an Arduino, there is a serial connection to this fance chip which takes a few digital signals and creates all kinds of digital signals, analog inputs, outputs and the USB stuff and only supports the old style COM port connections (I could be wrong about this but that was my impression looking at the Uno schematic - I assume mega2560 is the same). It's a very laborious process for the Arduino. And so therefore slow. I doubt there are any modern 2D printers out there that still use the COM communication process. USB has come a long way since RS232 serial ports. But Arduino is still using that 1980s technology. The COM protocol is just a fallback for USB to be compatible with the older RS232 technology.

:eek: :sad:

You can print upside down just fine. "leveling" here is defined as, after homing, setting the distance to the nozzle and the bed and also making sure the distance is the same everywhere on the bed. For example these backpack ultimakers print just as good as ones on a table:

Oh - and with power off feel free to spin the Z screw by hand to move the platform up or down as needed to get it out of the way (down most likely!).

I was going to say the same thing. Just cut the power completely (pull the plug on the back of the UM). And move the head by hand. Often, even with power on, the power to the servos that more the head are off. Typically after a minute or two of no usage the servos are turned off. Another poster (mark hale in posting above) said the problem was in the print head so I would start there. You can also unscrew the 4 screws if you want but you might not have to. As far as the bottom - yes - it's simple - just remove all the screws under there - on the larger panel. The smaller panel only houses the display. The larger cover is where the cables connect into. See if there is one that is loose. But don't plug it into anything if there are 2 places it can go - ask back on this list with a photo if something is wrong. I have a photo of the bottom of the UM somewhere... Here it is:

Some people love openSCAD. lol! Mouseaholics hate it of course as there is no mouse needed. Once you've used openSCAD you realize that everything has advantages and disadvantages. The two that seem to come up the most as far as I can tell as very good CAD packages are Solidworks and Blender. For two totally different uses. I haven't used either. If you are designing sculpted animals you probably want Blender. If you are designing mechanical parts, probably Solidworks. If you are an architect you should watch this Blender video: This video is amazing. All in blender and then 3d printed architecture: More from viralta: http://www.viralata.fr/en/blender-pour-les-architectes/galerie-video/ http://www.viralata.fr/en/blender-pour-les-architectes/blender-pour-la-conception/

lol. Use gloves please!