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That's all there is. You just click on each of the links one at a time and read what it says. If you read all those links you will be more of an expert than most users. Ultimaker doesn't make tiny changes to the manual because a font was changed or an obscure bug was fixed so it doesn't matter much which version of cura you are using. Most people don't use manuals anymore for software. You just read everything on the screen and experiment. It's hard to motivate people to write manuals that only one in 10,000 people read. Do you have a more specific question about Cura 4.8? There are also lots of youtube videos that people make about cura and specific cura features. There are also release notes for each version of Cura if you want to see what changed in each version.

The manual is here. https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/sections/360003548339-Ultimaker-Cura

Is the layer shifting only on the Y axis? The Y axis has the most trouble as it is heaviest. shifting is usually caused by loose set screws on the pulley on the stepper. You need those extremely tight. But could also be caused by too much friction (add some oil?) or just that your acceleration and jerk settings for the Y axis are too high and need to be lowered on the printer settings. On the printer (not in cura).

The filament will work fine. It uses PLA filament with a diameter of 1.75mm which is the same as most 3d printers including the Ender 3.

when cura slices your STL into a gcode file it also inserts gcodes that set the temperature for printing. You don't need to set the temperature on the printer itself. You can set the temp on the printer as well but the printer will move to whatever temp you send it most recently. So if you set the temp to 180C and then the gcode sets it to 200C it will head towards 200C if you then set the temp to 180C it will obediently go to 180C again and then if there is a later gcode to set it to say 205C then the printer will execute that command next. Typically in the gcode file, the temp is only set twice and only before it starts printing. So you can usually change the temp again once it starts printing if you want. Perhaps you are talking about some kind of PREHEAT feature. Those temps are usually lower than actual printing temp as you don't want to cook the PLA for hours at printing temp (in case you never get around to starting the print).

Release notes for 5.2.17 and 5.2.18 https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011957840-Ultimaker-3-firmware-release-notes

Yeah get that out. Remove the bowden at the top of the print head. 1) remove the clip shaped like a horse shoe. 2) push down on the outer ring (the collet) and then lift hard on the bowden while still pressing down on the collet. It helps to use a tool such as needle nose pliers to push down on the collet. Slide the filament all the way through until that gray filament "nub" falls out of the tube (there's a lever on the feeder if you haven't noticed it yet. Turn the lever all the way out so that you can just slide filament in and out of the feeder easily by hand - make sure to close the lever back against the feeder when done). 3) reinsert bowden - making sure it really seems to be all the way in (sometimes it hangs up on something and you can try different angles until you are sure it won't go in any more) 4) reinsert clip

One common cause of "printing stops after 5 to 30 minutes" is the front fan being broken. Make sure it spins as soon as the core gets above about 60C. Another common cause is brittle filament - what happens is the filament cracks and breaks inside the bowden and you get many pieces of filament in there and when the crack gets to one of a few thresholds it gets stuck. Another cause is that you are printing too much filament into too small a space and overextruding the first layer greatly and eventually the feeder grinds up the filament at the feeder so much you get like a bite out of the filament and it stops feeding the filament. #2 and #3 are obvious if you remove the filament and check to see if #2 it is in pieces or #3 there is a big bite out of the filament somewhere. Another cause is high air temperature. Like 30C or 85F room temperature and potentially even hotter inside the printer. Do you have a cover on top of the printer? If you are printing PLA and you have the AM the fan should be on all the time.

@upatamby - here you go! 🙂 9066 = UM3 9511=UM3 extended 9051=S5 Release 1 214475=S5 Release 2 (I think also S3 uses 214475) 5.2.18: https://software.ultimaker.com/releases/firmware/9066/stable/5.2.18.20210820/um-update-5.2.18.20210820.swu 5.2.17 for UM3E: https://software.ultimaker.com/releases/firmware/9511/stable/5.2.17.20210723/um-update-5.2.17.20210723.swu 5.2.17 for UM3: https://software.ultimaker.com/releases/firmware/9066/stable/5.2.17.20210723/um-update-5.2.17.20210723.swu

@nellie did you have a question or comment? Do you have a silhouette alta?

@robinmdh can you please give us the link for the swu file for UM3 version 5.2.17? And maybe also for S5 but I think he only needs it for UM3. 5.2.18 might work if you only have that.

It's hard to help you when we really have almost zero idea of how far you got and where you are stuck. You need to explain what works and what doesn't work. It's like you tell us you can't get to work and we are like... um "do you own a car?" and you don't answer that and instead say "well I don't use a bike!". And we are like "okay I think he might need a map or maybe he is having car trouble? not sure where to start". To reiterate what we already said. If you got those errors you posted earlier then you successfully installed cura already and you are trying to do it a second time but cura is still running. These are really not 3d printing issues, these are basic windows issues (how to stop software from running [hint - task manager is one way], how to locate a program that is already running[taskbar or taskmanager] ). One possible issue is that you are installing cura and launching cura but it never becomes visible? You never said this so this is just a guess (I'm thinking why else would he install cura twice?). Give us a hint of what you are experiencing. Am I on the right track? Or is Cura running just fine and it is some other issue you are having? Help us to help you.

With 3d printing, whether it is your printer or Cura - EVERYTHING is metric. If you see a temperature that says "F" it is probably a typo and they mean "C". Room temp is around 20C, water boils at 100C and printing takes place around 200C (depending on type of plastic). That's all you need to memorize - those 3 numbers are probably enough.

Okay I still like my original theory. You are losing steps on the Z somehow. For some reason either the speed, the jerk, or the acceleration on the Z axis is too high. Or friction - maybe you need to oil the Z screw and rods. But I think you are losing steps on the Z axis at some point.

I've seen people use vacuum after mixing the silicone but skip the part about vacuum after pouring the silicone and they still seem to get pretty good results. I don't have a vacuum chamber so I get some bubbles but not a problem for my applications.

Did you figure out how to downgrade? Here is 5.2.11 - is that good enough? The first link is for USB install. The second is for unbricking method install (first method is 100X easier).

I just looked at the gcode. The Z should not move during the whole pause and resume operation according to the gcode. So if you are seeing any z movement then there is a hardware issue. Or firmware issue. It's possible that when the firmware sees the M0 gcode it also changes the Z on purpose. I don't know. But it's not Cura's fault as cura is not doing anything with Z value. Is it possible the printer cuts power to the steppers? This is a common feature - sometimes the steppers cut out after a minute or so to save power. But if that happens with the Z then gravity can take over and cause problems. I would test with a tiny part. Something that prints in 2 to 5 minutes. Maybe a 10mm cube (you can take any part and scale it down in cura until it's a 5 minute part). Then I would add the pause at layer on the second layer and experiment. Maybe video what is going on exactly so you can review it.

Anyway back to your issue. So you installed cura. What did you try next? Maybe you need to watch some youtube videos on how to use cura?

Anytime you get that type of error in windows, it means exactly what it says. The file could not be written. Sometimes you just don't have access but usually it means the file is in use. As ahoeben says you are probably running cura. Or something else. What I often do is try to delete the file it is trying to overwrite and if I can't then I start closing programs that might be using those files. Eventually when I am able to delete the file I know that I can hit the "retry" button that you showed us and the installation can proceed. What I am talking about has nothing to do with Cura specifically - this happens with ALL SOFTWARE that you may decide to install. So you could have googled this type of error and gotten the same advice.

Sounds like a hardware issue where the Z movement is going too fast for the stepper to keep up? Do you know how to play with different Z speeds and determine what is the max speed (test both up and down) before the printer can't move fast enough? Once you know that speed tell the printer to use half that speed as maximum Z speed. Z speed isn't all that critical for printing quickly since the Z only moves a tiny amount between layers normally. @GregValiant what do you think?

Okay so you need to use a slicer. You want to export from tinkercad as an STL file. Did you do that step? Then you need to install Cura which converts a CAD model (STL file) into a gcode file. You have to choose a few things like how thick the layers should print. I recommend 0.2mm for first attempt. If Cura isn't producing a gcode file then show us a screenshot of where things go wrong or even better maybe show a short 10 second video screen capture of you trying to load the STL into cura and trying to slice it.

Linear advance works great for printers where acceleration is slow and the feeder is on the print head. The UM2 is a bowden system. The values you would need for linear advance are so huge that the stepper motor would fail. It just can't accelerate enough to do the linear advance algorithm. It's like asking a car to do 0 to 100mph in 1 millisecond. The stepper just can't do it. Partly because the XY acceleration is so damn high on the UM2 (I think it defaults to 5 meters/sec (meters! not mm). The accerlation is so high on X and Y because the head is so light. Because there is no feeder there. Having the fast acceleration means the print head doesn't slow down much on corners. Which also means you don't really need linear advance as much (although it would help - if the feeder could handle the acclerations). So it's a tradeoff. One that results (for most people) in higher quality prints on the UM2 than many other printers and also faster printing than many other printers.

First of all I wouldn't use a calibration cube to calibrate steps/mm. The cube can expand and contract based on cura settings. Instead use a ruler and move the print head as far as it can go and measure that and correct it. If it moves say 1% too much or too little then adjust steps/mm by 1%. Once you come up with new values for some or all of x,y,z,e axes you can update the printer (no need to involve cura). Connect the printer to your computer with a USB cable but first install pronterface: http://koti.kapsi.fi/~kliment/printrun/ Look up the gcodes in the area of M500. When you first connect pronterface to the printer it should automatically send a gcode that gets (among other things) the steps/mm for all 4 axes. Then use your gcode to update it and I think it's M500 to save those settings permanently. Power cycle your printer and verify it has the new steps/mm values. Regarding the calibration cube, if you can't fix it by changing cura settings then just fix it in CAD. You may fix it for the position of the cube at a particular spot but if you move the 30mm calibration cube to the right by 10mm you will probably get different sizes because your pulleys probably are 0.3mm out of center (the hole drilled in the center - if not perfect you get increasing and decreasong steps/mm as you move across the printer). Or one of 100 other possible issues. Like cooling (if fan is assymetrical you get assymetrical results on the part), underextrusion, order of print (outer walls first? Last?) coasting feature, linear advance, and 100 other settings.

S5, Um3 both have the same Olimex board. Regarding ABS sticking. Read this post or watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t58-WTxDy-k https://community.ultimaker.com/topic/39949-problem-with-bending-and-adhesion/?do=findComment&comment=304704

@MobyDisk - I heard from someone that they updated firmware and now if they change cores while the power is off it won't boot when they power on. But if they put the previous core back in then it boots fine. Not sure if they have properly diagnosed this (repeated the experiment a few times). Anyway I thought of you. Is it possible that this is a correctly identified bug and what was causing your issues?