gr5

>Cura doesn't show the gap, but when viewed in sliced mode they are clearly visible This is a problem and easily fixed. By default, everytime the slicer passes through a wall it switches form "solid" to "air" and back again. However there are settings in cura... In the "expert" settings under "fix horrible", play with those 4 checkboxes. Unfortunately there are 16 possible combinations but fortunately cura slices very fast. Usually I want the first, second or last checkbox only which will help me fill in "holes" in a model that I didn't want. STL files have a "normal vector" for each polygon which tells the slicer which side is solid and which side is hollow. Cura uses this. Sometimes. I think. Not sure how it all works. I think that's one of the 4 checkboxes. >it kinda keeps stringing away from happening I haven't bought from colorfabb but they have a fantastic reputation - you don't want to get cheap PLA as if it is slightly too large for the tube it will get stuck and other issues which can force you to throw it all away. Since you say you don't mind fixing the strings it might not matter but for many people and many models it is an issue. It's very nice to have a PLA that doesn't string at high temperatures so you can print fast. For example my "white" pla from printbl.com prints with strings no matter what I do but the "grape" pla from printbl.com rarely prints strings even at higher temperatures (usually lower temperatures are less likely to string but you have to also print slower because the pressure in the nozzle is high). So even though I haven't used "colorfabb bluish white" it sounds like a good choice to me. I wouldn't worry too much about stringing though. Not until you own a printer. That is a minor problem. If you do buy a printer, show photos of your problems and you will get lots of help.

Probably the long belts then. Here is a video that explains how to test and tighten the long belts. It's good because it uses pitch to test which is pretty accurate: Having your motors all the way down the slots is probably too tight.

Everyone with an ultimaker has gone through your frustration but you are getting there. Don't give up.

As far as lifting/warping - this is a problem on large prints like this. Easily fixed. Here's my spiel about this: Curling parts 1) First wipe your blue tape with isopropyl alcohol (also called rubbing alcohol). You can buy this at any store that sells bandages such as a supermarket or drugstore. This removes the wax from the blue side of the tape and increases stickyness. Also if the blue tape itself lifts off the bed it helps to get larger pieces of tape available at any store that sells paint and paint brushes. Ask for "blue painters tape". This one thing will help you more than any other thing below. 2) Add a brim. Cura has a brim setting on the adheasion section. Do about 10 passes. This will help keep the corners of your part down. 3) Print first layer slower and hotter. I always set my temperature to 0 in cura and adjust it by hand using either cura print dialog or ulticontroller. For large parts I print the first layer at 240C and then lower the temperature after it is done with the first layer. Also squish that PLA into your bed nice and hard with the bed nice and high. 4) Don't infill the first layer. This might not be practical depending on what you are printing but cura allows you to not fill the bottom or top layer - it's a checkbox. Of all the advice, isopropyl alcohol is probably all you need.

The ultimaker can be frustrating. There are lots of things for you to learn still but you got past at least one key hurdles (extrusion working now). 6 hours is a bit long for that print. PLA is very strong. I would lower your infill to 20%. That will speed things up drastically. Also I'm not sure if you really need .1mm layers. How perfect does it need to look? Let's talk about printing speed for a minute: Right now you have 50mm/sec 210C .1mm layer. The constraints are volume of plastic versus temperature. At 210C I can print about 100mm/sec .2mm layer (or 200mm/sec .1mm layer). At 240C about 150mm/sec .2mm layer. These are pushing it. To be safe you should be able to print at 75% of these values if your feeder is working well now. So you can either up your speed to 100 or 150mm/sec (which will speed things up) or you can increase your layer thickness (preferred!) to .2mm and your speed up to maybe 75mm/sec. If you have an ulticontroller like I do consider settings your speed always to 100mm/sec. Then you can use the ulticontroller to set the "feed rate" percent. If you set percent to 75 then you get 75mm/sec (100mm/sec X 75% =75mm/sec) and so on. You can dial around different speeds and see how it comes out. I recommend printing a test cube say 2cmX2cmX2cm, trying one speed/temp combination and then printing faster and faster until you get underextrusion (holes in the sides). These two changes (switching to .2mm and 80% infill to 15% infill) should speed up your print by at least 4X making it not much more than an hour to print.

It should be fine. It's no louder than an automatic dishwasher. You need it some place very convenient or you won't use it. Almost zero ventilation needed if you print PLA. Some people say PLA smells like popcorn. It has very little smell. The smells/gasses are much less than say from cooking toast or soup. If you print ABS you will need ventilation and might want to print where you can open the windows. Yes but quite small. Ultimaker did tests where they left the hot end on so that it would overheat to the maximum. I don't think anything caught fire. There are 2 or 3 software safeguards to keep the hot end from getting out of control but it still happens occasionally. >Could it help (or be necessary) to install a smoke detector, No. >maybe even a webcam to be safe? Yes! So you can see if your print failed and you can abort it remotely. >I could couple the smoke detector to the mains supply so that the UM will be cut off from power when there's a smoke alarm. Not worth the trouble. I would put it in a study. It should be in a clean room - not a dusty room. Dust can stick to the plastic filament and clog your nozzle and cause lots of headache. It should be in a well lit area because you will often be looking closely at your print as it is printing. Trying to figure out if your bed is too low or too high or some other issue. So kitchen is probably too dirty (especially if you cook with oils). But dining room, living room are okay but not best. Bedroom is okay. Study would be best.

Ah - THANK YOU - this is a new bug and now I finally understand it after seeing this post. 13.03.X doesn't have this bug. The easiest fix for you might be to make your "skin" .8mm thick instead of .4mm thick. Or go back to cura 13.03. Here is a quick explanation in a photo of the bug: Infill was set to 50% for both images above. Daid (author of cura) does most of his tests using cubes (but not all!) and this bug is more noticable in a cylinder.

No idea sorry. It may be already too late to mention this but when unscrewing anything in the hot end you must heat it up to at least 100C (boiling) or preferably 180C before doing this and also be very gentle. Some people suggest using only fingers (with gloves of course) and avoiding metal tools which might tempt you to use too much torque.

I have very little experience painting PLA but "automobile primer" works very well as a primer. I assume you can use any type of paint you want on top of the primer.

Just to give you some ideas... Since this is so large I would definitely print .2mm layers. Looking at the first image you posted, I would print these all seperately. The large part closest to the "camera" can be printed at high temperature to allow the plastic to flow fast (like honey versus low temperature the plastic is like toothpaste). I would print it at 240C and 150mm/sec at .2mm layer. Cura can tell you how long that will take to print. The curved roof I would lay flat with support. You might be able to print it as shown - you would need to add a brim. Or you could use cad to add some coin shaped pads in 3 or 5 places along the bottom edge and then remove them afterwards. Again you can print at 150mm/sec at 240C. I know you don't want to waste plastic on support but you can do sparse support. It's worth it. Support makes for a bit of an ugly surface but that surface will be mostly hidden to eyes on the final model. You could create the support with CAD and it will take very little extra PLA. The open ladder shapped parts (remaining parts) will be very difficult. The cross bars are printed in the air and will droop and not look as good. You might be able to print them as is but you would have to print slower and cooler (50-75mm/sec, 190C maybe). Some types of PLA will get you lots of stringing on these parts. Not so hard to clean up though. So the open ladder's I think also need to be printed flat on the bed so that nothing is printed "in the air". You shouldn't use support with these as it's too much support for too little gain and removing the support might break some of the cross pieces. These "ladder's" are by far the hardest thing to print if you can't lay them flat. Too much air.

You can tell it to print faster on the first layer if you want. But then you might not come out as good - it's usually best to print slow on the first layer. The reason it takes a few layers to mess up is the printing speed is faster and faster as you go up layers until it hits nominal speed around layer 3 or 4. The ultimaker robot is a good model for this test. You can find it in the cura folders: ...\Cura_13.06.4\Cura\resources\example\UltimakerRobot_support.stl Did you try the 22 pound test? How much more pull? Another test is to look at the filament after it has gone through the feeder. The filament should have a clear pattern on it (difficult to see with black filament). Like this: http://i.imgur.com/2MeDA.jpg You probably just need to tighten the screw some more until the spring is compressed to 11.5mm.

>why do the bottom 30-40 layers print fine ? I think you are on the edge of printing too fast. I think with some tuning you could achieve these speeds. Perhaps once you start to grind the filament, it never recovers? Or maybe it *is* a tangle in the spool (like I had last night). Sometimes if you raise the temp to 240C for a few layers, then lower it back down again it prints good for a while before having problems again.

Default settings in Cura have the first layer much slower which means there is much less plastic going through the nozzle which means much less pressure/force on the filament. 2nd layer needs more force. Again, try the 10 pound test. Tighten the spring one full turn. Send us a picture of your extruder it might be built wrong and.... You have another problem for sure now - backlash. You need to tighten your belts. Like illuminarti said, it's most likely the short belts which are very easy to tighten - just loosen the 4 bolts, push down on motor hard and retighten.

Here is what illuminarti is talking about: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/1872-some-calibration-photographs/?p=14474 You have a problem with backlash (above link) but I think there are other problems. I think you have some serious underextrusion as well in some areas (or maybe the bed wasn't level enough?). Underextrusion in your case can be caused by many things but most likely your extruder isn't quite assembled right. Please post a photo of your extruder. There is a slot in it - the part that goes into that vertical slot is supposed to slide all the way to the bottom of the slot which compresses the spring properly. With it compressed properly the spring should be 11 to 11.5mm long. Another way to test your extruder is that it can pull 22 pounds. So if there is no load (filament not reaching the print head yet) you can pull easily 10 pounds force and the extruder should still pull filament no problem.

I'm not sure why you need to use so many spools of plastic. Can't you just print it another 1/2X scale? If you do it will use 1/4 as much filament and print 4X faster. The cooling time is the least of your problems. It's only a problem on very very tiny layers - for example the tip of a point on the top of something and only slows you down for those layers. 5 seconds per layer is plenty slow enough. Printing the roofs on their side like you showed will definitely improve quality but if the roof falls over due to not enough adhesion at the base will cause the print to fail completely. Actually being able to see the layers in the objects is a fun, unique feature that reminds people that the parts were made with a 3D printer. Rather than thinking of these thin lines as ugly, think of them as wonderful. Getting an ultimaker working nicely is a ton of work and may take you 20-40 hours even with help from this forum. You should factor this into your time calculations.

isopropyl alcohol is sold anywhere bandages are sold. Such as a drugstore. Next to the bandages. People use it to clean/disinfect wounds and cuts. As everyone else said: use wider tape. The tape that comes with the UM is much too narrow. I use 2 inch (50mm). Some people use 8 inch (200mm)! That way you only need one piece. The wider tape is held down over more surface area and harder for your print to lift it off the bed.

That is damn damn fast printing volume of plastic. 75mm/sec isn't too fast, but at .2mm layer and 190C I'm amazed you haven't had problems before. A second fan, if it adds even a slight breeze to the nozzle tip could be the main problem. Make sure air is directed away from nozzle tip. Or raise your temp. In fact raise your temp anyway. Or cut your speed in half. You can't have your cake and eat it too. At 240C you should be able to print just fine at that speed and .2mm layer. But at 190C I would keep it under 50mm/sec or under .15mm layer height. I had a similar problem last night because the filament on the spool was tangled. Could that be your problem? I don't always think to look at the spool. Anyway, you are definitely underextruding. Either your feeder is too weak, your print volume of plastic too high, or you nozzle has a clog or isn't hot enough. Lot's of possible causes. You need to eliminate each cause.

I love the "grape" color PLA from printbl, but the "white" is totally different. White is fine but is - I don't know - gunkier when hot. It seems like it sticks to itself too much and has more stringing issues. Whereas the grape barely gets stringy even at high temperatures. Still I printed a tiny (HO scale) Porsche a few days ago with printbl white with .06mm layers and it came out very very nice.

You are near the limit of volume for you nozzle but I've printed faster... Your feeder is probably fine but test it anyway - it should be able to pull about 22 pounds with no load (no pressure in the head). Whenever I print this fast (100mm/sec with .2mm layers) I keep the temp at 240C so it flows like honey. Even so I still get a little bit of underextrusion in the walls (as you did). If the layer height is .1mm then 150mm/sec is no problem at all. It's not the speed, it's the volume. If I want a quality print I keep the volume below 4 cubic mm/sec and keep the temp low (180-200C) which typically means I print at 50mm/sec.

oh - meant to post this also: http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Electronics_build_guide#Tuning_the_stepper_motor_drivers

The way I solve problems is pose wild speculative theories, then eliminate 99% of them that don't make sense. If after doing Illuminarti's test, both axes are similar in resistance, I'm going to go with stepper driver. Other's have said if the current is too high it makes a loud noise. So.... Cut power to your UM, take the fan cover off the bottom circuit board and look at your drivers (x,y,z,stepper). Figure out which one is the Y axis. Look at the tiny little potentiometer on each one. They should all be pointing about the same spot. If the Y stepper is different, turn it to be like the other 3. If they are all the same, swap the X and Y drivers. Be very very gentle and careful. Pry it off carefully around the edges a bit at a time with a small tool such as a screw driver or something that can wedge in the right size so you don't bend the pins. When putting it back on, take your time and double check that you aren't bending a pin (misaligned pin with hole). It's not hard if you take your time but if you just grab and pull you will bend the pins. See if swapping the stepper driver moves the problem to the X axis. If so the problem is with the stepper driver and not anything else. If the problem doesn't move the next most likely thing is the stepper itself. Try swapping the x and y motors (ug - lots of cable threading through sleeves!).

I was going to say the same thing as what Illuminarti said. The feeder should be able to pull about 22 pounds force (with no load at the nozzle end). So you can test that whithout even powering up the ultimaker.

Or you can right click on this link, save the image on your hard drive and open it in a viewer that lets you zoom all the way in: http://ultimaker.ipbhost.com/uploads/gallery/album_7/gallery_423_7_280474.jpg

If you click on the picture, then after you have a larger picture you right click and say "show image" then click on it a third time to zoom all the way in.... Then you can see lots of details on Sander's designs. I looove the creativity! :cool:

To post a picture, click "gallery" on the top left corner of this page. Upload your pictures to that, then create a new reply to this topic and click "my media" and choose the pictures in the gallery.