gr5

I agree that your parts look better and better all the time and adding another layer or two will make it look even better. Your backlash is low enough that it's probably not worth tightening any more at this point. Or you might get a tiny bit of improvement. You *might* still have some underextrusion. I'd like to see a photo of your feeder on the back of the UM and also could you please measure your spring accurately? illuminatri's is 11mm and mine is 11.5mm (when closed). Your bed was a little high on the first layer so you got plenty of extra plastic to fill in any gaps. Then your second layer wasn't as overextruding because there was a little more room, by the time the 3rd layer is started, things are normal/nominal so that when the 3rd layer starts printing over the 2nd layer there is now exactly .2mm gap to print in as it should be. That might explain why the first 2 layers look so good even if you *are* underextruding slightly. I could be wrong though - the remaining layers actually look pretty good. If you had more than 10% underextrusion your part would look worse. Still it might help to either increase flow by 5% (or lie about filament diameter by 1%) or to tighten the spring on your feeder. Personally if I were to print a simple cylinder like this with no opportunity for stringing I speed up to 100mm/sec, .2mm layers 240C. The 240C would let that plastic flow like honey! But when printing "real" things I can't always do that due to stringing when the head hops over "gaps" in a layer so I print cooler and slower. YOU WILL HAVE MORE PROBLEMS. There are other things I don't think you've run into so keep posting your issues. For example "my holes are too small", "the part warps and lifts at the corners", "my nozzle is clogged" and much more. Everything has at least 2 solutions so don't panic.

This print looks pretty good. Those gaps could be caused by not having the "shell" thickness an even multiple of 0.4mm. Or it could be backlash. Or something else. But it *does* look like play (aka backlash). Having two diagonal lines touching in infill followed by a gap is also another symptom of play and I saw that in your other photo. Yes. That was enough for me. Takes 5 minutes what are you waiting for? That's all I had to do. I think I only tightened 2 of my 4 long belts. You should definitely hear at least a low pitch when plucking the long belts and when the head is pushed to a corner. You'll have to loosen one of the pulleys so the tension is spread evenly on the upper half of the belt and the lower half of the belt.

By the way - I often change temperature and speed for different parts of a print to save time. I might print most of the print at 240C and 120mm/sec and then when printing say the ultimaker robots antennas slow it down to 50mm/sec and 190C.

I would go to 10 seconds cooling. It's not going to be an issue until you get to those tiny little things at the top of the print - feet or whatever they are. Towers. Um - so what? Does it matter? Well are you sure the infill is at the same speed? 75mm/sec and not 100mm/sec? I would try slowing it down to 50mm/sec at .2mm *or* raising the temp to 240C. But I noticed some stringing on the final bits of your part when printing those towers/feet or whatever and for those I would go down to maybe 190C (careful as PID temp controller tends to overshoot and if it hits 170C for an instant it will ruin your print so lower to 200C then wait until it gets there, then lower to 190C). So my answer is - probably underextrusion as .2mm/75mm/sec/200C is on the fast side - it's doable but a bit fast. Maybe if you just tighten the extruder spring another few turns (my spring is at 11.5mm when extruder is closed). But simply raise temp to 240 or lower speed to 50mm/sec my fix this. Probably. Maybe. But didn't the bottom layer look good? If the bottom 2 solid layers are meeting edge then I'm not sure if it's backlash. You could increase the infill overlap from the default 15% to 30% if it's a problem. Or check the belts. Bottom or top? You don't have enough layers for the top. .2mm layers with .5mm top means 2.5 passes - what does that mean? I don't know. Make sure the top/bottom thickness is a multiple of your layer height. I recommend at least 3 layers so .6mm for the .2mm part. .7 for the .1mm part is fine. Similarly walls/shell should be multiple of .4. I recommend .8. Although 1.2mm is pretty good too. So bubbbling? On the bottom layer? On the bottom I don't know what the heck that is. Is your first layer .3mm thick? I think what might be happening is the nozzle is a tiny bit too close to the bed and pressure builds up and then a bunch all leaks out all at once - for example in the gap between the blue tape it starts to come out extra and keeps going for a bit. Make the bottom layer .3mm to avoid this - and smooth out your tape better - and level really carefully. Use a piece of paper. It matters if the nozzle is hot or cold (it expands). It matters if there is an almost invisible blob of cold plastic on the tip of the nozzle when you level. You will get good at levelling by your 30th print as it is soooo important. Just making the bottom layer .3mm thick will help quite a bit (now you can level and have error of .1mm and not big deal - but error of .3mm will be a problem). Paper is typically .1mm thick to give you an idea.

Go to "file" "preferences" and make sure all the values in "printer head size" are the correct dimensions for your printer. Hover over each value to see the recommended settings. You might want to instead run the wizard first (first 2 steps only) to setup these values to defaults. Now Cura should: 1) Put the parts far enough apart 2) print them in order away from the fan first so that the fan is never near a finished print If you really want to print all at once just set gantry height to 0 or set it to a value smaller than your tallest print and Cura will switch to "all at once" mode. The problems with all at once mode: 1) Speed - It is much slower due to retraction and moving over to the next part. Possibly twice as long - why not just print them one at a time and remove after each? I know if they are small, quick prints it's better to print all at once. 2) Stringing - you might get some stringing between all the parts if you can't tune it just right. 3) surface quality - leaving and coming back to the external skin causes the part to not look as good 4) Disasters - if the print fails you lose all your prints instead of the current one. one-at-a-time mode has one bad thing about it - when is about to start the next print sometimes it extrudes/leaks onto the just finished print.

Works for me! I just did it with a 200mmX200mmX10mm "box" and it was fine with a few issues (cura 13.0.4). I found if support type=none and skirt was set beyond 1 pass and beyond about 1mm then it wouldn't slice as this puts it past 205mm. Or if support type=brim and brim was more than about 5 passes then also it wouldn't slice at all. Again this puts it past 205mm In fact it wasn't obvious that it wasn't slicing and was showing the model from previous slicing settings. Also please check "file" "preferences" menu and make sure x,y set to 205 and z set to 200. This is done automatically if you do the first 2 steps in the wizard and then cancel.

One data point: my electronics fan has been fine. Occasionally it makes the really loud noise on power up but either fixes itself within 10 seconds or I just hit the UM enough for it to slide a few inches on the table and the noise always goes away. I haven't done the "remove sticker and add oil" thing to this fan but have done that to fans in computers in the past so I'm not afraid to try it. The fan on the print head has been excellent. Perfect. Quiet. I haven't heard as many complaints about that one.

I believe the peek part can handle at least 300C so you were probably at least 10C over that. The problem is of course in your temperature measurement. Something wrong with the thermocouple, or the tiny amplifier board on the print head or the wiring somewhere. I would first try the wiring as that breaks often - simply swap to the alternate wiring that goes to the print head and to the UM board. Heat it back up and see if it is heating to the proper temp now (maybe heat to 95C and make sure it doesn't boil water? or maybe you have a good temp probe). I would try to fix this before ordering anything so you can order all needed parts at once. If it is still getting too hot I would very carefully take out the thermocouple and examine it.

Awesome! Just be aware that if the filament goes much over 3mm it is considered "junk" by most ultimaker people because it gets stuck in the bowden tube and won't print. Unfortunately everyone's UM is slightly different and some can handle up to 3.2mm and most up to 3.1mm but ideally you want to be between 2.8 and 3.0mm and you want as little variation as possible (because if it has a bigger cross section then you get some over extrusion and if it is smaller you get underextrusion). So really 2.9mm should be the nominal diameter even if it is advertised or quoted as "3mm".

According to Daid (author of Cura) if you tell Cura you have a heated bed it will tell you that you need to build your own Marlin. The version of Marlin that comes form Cura is more than 6 months old and I believe it has a bug in it that prevents the heated bed from working (it's been a while since I tried to get my heated bed working with the Marlin that came with Cura). Anyway you have to build your own. You can do it the easy way and build it here at this new website which is tailored for ultimakers: http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/ That's what I recommend. Although it's not that hard to build it yourself. Or you could do a combination - use the above website to get the Configuration.h file created (the most time consuming step) and then build it yourself: http://www.extrudable.me/2013/05/03/building-marlin-from-scratch/ WHATEVER YOU DO, make sure you: Save the resulting Congifuration.h file and the resulting hex file in a permanent location that you never ever change and date it and explain why you built it so that when you need to build another Marlin a year from now you can do a diff of Configuration.h to see what you did differently from the "norm". And if your arduino dies and you need to reload marlin you will have the hex file ready to go.

.1 is definitely more difficult and I keep telling people that although it is possible to get better results you often get worse results. Anyway, please post a pic.

Other issues: The two posts on the far left and far right of your CAD model don't seem to quite touch the bed. I think you should check that in your CAD. Also make sure your fan on the print head is working - it's hard to tell but it looks a little bit like the fan isn't cooling the part enough between layers. Is it possible that the fan is sucking air instead of blowing air? Ideally the fan should *not* blow directly on the nozzle, but *should* blow onto the part. I'm sure you will other problems with other parts you print as there is much more to learn so please let us know what goes wrong next.

Your settings look quite good. I call what you are seeing "stringing". I have some tests I did that showed it gets better at lower temperatures but it depends on the filament brand and color. I haven't tested stringing issues for "ultimaker gray" yet. Here is a photo that shows the affect of temperature and stringing: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/ You could also try increasing the retraction distance a little - maybe 6mm instead of 4.5mm. But be careful. If you retract too much then air gets in the nozzle and the air bubble rises into the nozzle then it warms up and expands and causes oozing plus later the air comes out and you get missing plastic. I use 4.5mm and it is about perfect but I also use one of these: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:46157 Without the above clip you might need a few mm more of retraction. HOWEVER, the stringing isn't too bad on your part and is pretty easy to clean up after you are done printing. Some day after you have printed 100 parts you won't care about a little stringing. I recommend buying a small metal file to help remove this kind of thing.

Why do you even try to print without looking at the gcode first? Look to see if X or Y goes beyond 205mm. Have you actually checked to see if the hardware stops are hitting earlier than 205mm? Such as for example at 204mm or 199mm? You can do this by homing xy, then moving X out 200mm then move 1mm at a time until it hits the end stop or can't move anymore. You can do this with either Cura or Pronterface (I prefer pronterface for calibrating - it's easier to use, it's free, and has lots of nice features that Cura doesn't have). You can even do it with the Ulticontroller but that's the hardest way to do it.

You mean the belt twists a different direction each time the stepper switches directions? If so this means it is rubbing on the wood. You need to fix this soon before you belt is converted into powder. It also tends to cause parts to "lean" or "tilt" or have other missing steps. The fix is very very simple. Just put washers under the 4 plastic spacers. First lower the Z bed until it is a little lower than the X stepper. Then remove the 4 screws and place the Z stepper on the bed (so you don't have to mess with wires. Then add the washers and put the stepper back on. One washer per spacer should be enough. While the stepper is off make sure the pulley on the motor shaft is as close to the motor as possible without touching the motor. 0.5 mm is about right.

3/4 of purpose of retraction is to just stop *pushing*. This is still achieved with unfused ends of filament in the bowden. You can't *pull* but at least you can stop pushing with retraction.

Since you don't have control over the CAD file, just print it as is and drill out any holes as needed.

You can print to 205 by 205 but only if you have no skirt or brim. But things that large need a skirt or a brim! So catch-22. I guess if you print something that has rounded corners you can do 205 by 205.

Did you include brim? The brim probably puts it over the 205mm software endstops and causes this shifting. It's what I would consider a Cura bug so you have to somehow work around it. 205-195/.4/2=12.5 or a max of 12 brim passes. That is on the edge of failing though! I would do a max of maybe 6 brim passes. Are you sure it's 195mm? When you scale in cura it tells you the max dimensions of your part for x,y,z.

If you need to print a little wider - 206mm for example, and you have the space on your platform between the endstops, you have to adjust this in Marlin I believe. Perhaps there is a gcode to update this - not sure but you can do it in configuration.h or with this Marlin builder: http://marlinbuilder.robotfuzz.com/

http://ultimaker.ipbhost.com/uploads/gallery/album_173/gallery_17620_173_239674.jpg In that picture you posted it looks like you had significant shift in X and Y. This is not what I thought it was. This is because you are printing too close to the software endstops. Marlin has built in software endstops at I beleive 205MM. If you go beyond those values it just goes to 205 but tells itself that it went to where you requested. So for example if you go to 215mm in X, it will instead go to 205mm. Then if you go back to 200mm, it will go back to 190mm and start printing everything off by 10mm. If you need to print so close to the software stops you need to remove skirt/brim/etc.

If you try to print something that is larger than 205mm I believe Cura will autoscale for you (it used to). But it doesn't autoscale the skirt unfortunately but unrelated. Could this be the problem? In cura, click on the part, click on scale icon and check to make sure it is at 1.0X. Count the little squares in Cura in the 3D view under your part. Each square is 1cm. Does it seem correct? Perhaps the cad software outputted the STL model at 1/2X?

I suspect the wizard prints "small" on purpose so that it works on non-ultimaker beds maybe. You don't have to print all the way to the corners to calibrate bed levelling.

If it does just buy some glass and put on top of the aluminum with clips that let the glass expand. Ideally you want pyrex but many people use cheap standard glass (you can probably get 10 cut and edges smoothed for a few dollars each) and mount it with clips so it can expand and they only break occasionally. The advantage of lots of pieces of glass is you can remove one finished part and let it cool while starting the next.

I didn't cut the slots. You will need MUCH stronger springs if you do it this way. Instead I support the plate from below. All I had to do was drill shallow holes (aka blind holes) in the bottom at the correct positions. I just used a hand drill. And I took out the 4 screws and put in them through from the bottom instead. No extra parts needed. If the head crashes into the plate, the wooden arms holding the bed bend enough to keep from damaging the nozzle so that's not an issue. The other advantage of slots is you can remove the plate but if it's a heated bed and you don't have a connector this won't work so who needs slots?