gr5

Also note that it's the *inside* of the nozzle that we care about. You can't see that. You can just try to do a LOT of cold pulls.

Using a BB 0.8 is indeed a good idea but you shouldn't have to do this. Also if you have a BB 0.8 you will end up using a lot more (expensive) PVA. And if you work for a large company you probably don't care and this could be a good solution. Or you could try a brand new BB 0.4. The problem you describe could be cause by so many things! For example something in the feeder side of things or something in the print core end of things. I never trust people who say their filament is dry. Do you have a humidity sensor? You want I think 10% to dry it and 20-30% to keep it dry. Those numbers are almost made up - they are from not-so-good memory and things I've read from taulman and ultimaker. But I think they are probably correct numbers. If you have a box with dessicant in it - how much dessicant? You really need a LOT of dessicant. LIke 100 of those packs that come with the filament. I use about 1 cup of color changing dessicant and I can see the color change when it's time to recharge the dessicant. You could be right - it's completely dry filament. But please give more details as this is really the most common issue. CONSTRICTED CORE Okay - other issues - the BB core gets a layer of caramelized PVA in it after a while. You have to do about 10 or 20 cold pulls (and do sme hot pulls also). You can characterize things by using the MOVE command and seeing how long it takes for a kink in the filament (use your fingers to create one) get all the way down to the print bed. Count that in seconds. I want to say 10 seconds is probably pretty damn good but I never write the numbers down and have never done the test with PVA (only other materials). This won't tell you much this time but will tell you a lot next time you have a problem. PRINT HEAD FAN What you describe is exactly what happens when you have a bad print head fan - not the 2 side fans - but the fan in the door of the printer. Check to make sure it's spinning or you can feel airflow (suction) going into the head. NOZZLE TOO HOT PVA gets caramelized very easy at normal printing temps. If you mess with the settings in cura (if you raise the nozzle temp for pva) you are also likely to get this exact symptom. You could try lowering the temp by 5C (in the TUNE menu live while printing). This may instead make it fail earlier if the issue is "constricted core" above. And if you messed with the temp before today - put it back to defaults.

So I passed your question along last week but no answers yet. I expected a reply by now. Instead, I strongly suggest you use the support link here: https://support.ultimaker.com/hc/en-us/requests/new And please post back here what you learn.

Note that if you have upgraded your printer - this might not work anymore. It seems that newer versions of UM3 and S5 firmware don't have the /ulti_installer/ folder anymore. More details in this thread: https://community.ultimaker.com/topic/38381-please-help-change-printer-type-um3e-to-um-3/

So I had been looking on my S5 but when I checked my UM3, I had a very old version of the firmware and it still had that folder (/ulti_installer/). I guess your olimex board has newer firmware (makes sense). I zipped it up for you (there's only a handful of files in there) but then realized the locations in the eeprom may have moved from one version of the firmware to the next so I was afraid to give it to you: It could brick your printer. Probably not. But then I learned more. So you can dump out the eeprom with this command - there's not much in there: root@ultimakersystem-ccbdd3005b4c:/# hexdump /sys/bus/i2c/devices/1-0050/eeprom -C 00000000 55 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff cc bd d3 00 5b 4c cb ff |U...........[L..| 00000010 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................| * 00000100 00 00 23 5b ff ff ff ff 30 65 7f b1 b6 48 4e 41 |..#[....0e...HNA| 00000110 ac 52 72 1b a6 f3 ab c9 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |.Rr.............| 00000120 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................| * 00000800 root@ultimakersystem-ccbdd3005b4c:/# That "/sys/bus...eeprom" points to a file like device which linux can read and write to similar to most files but it's not really a file. I don't know if you can use a hex editor but anyway. Do the above and take a picture with your phone or something first. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Note that starting at address 100 (256 decimal) you see "00 00 23 5b" That's hex for 9066 (use a calculator or web page to translate). 9066 is for UM3. Make sure that agrees with your hex dump!! It's possible this information (aka the BOM number) moved on your newer firmware. But I really doubt it as I looked at my S5 and it's in the same place (different bom number). Note also your MAC address is both in the prompt name (those lines that start with "root@ulti...") and also at hex location 8 where it starts "cc bd d3 00" etc. STEP 2 Did you make a backup of your hexdump? By taking a picture? If not you are living very dangerously. Do step 1 if you didn't yet. I zipped up the utility here: gr5.org/ulti_install.tar.gz download that and then copy it to your printer with scp (similar to ssh). For example: scp ulti_install.tar.gz root:192.168.1.XXX/. Replace the 192.168.1.XXX with the ip address of your particular printer. scp works on mac or linux but on windows I think there is a way to do it with putty maybe? Maybe not - google it. now unzip it - loginto the linux machine and do "cd /" to get to the same folder where you copied it to then do: tar xvfz ulti_installer.tar.gz That will create a subfolder (you can actually do this anywhere you want - you didn't have to scp it to the root (/) folder. Go into the ulti_installer subfolder and try the python3 command now. STEP 3 DO NOT REBOOT - DO NOT POWER OFF - Your machine may be bricked right now Do another hexdump as above. Make sure everything is identical except the "bom part number" should now be "23 5b" instead of whatever it is for the UM3 extended. All the other numbers should hopefully be unchanged. It's possible the MAC address will change. I suppose that's probably okay. It might be that this utility grabs the mac address from the ethernet board and puts it in the eeprom. I'm not sure - the code is very simple - only maybe 30 lines of code - but I didn't look too carefully. Only power cycle when you are confident that the eeprom data looks good. Otherwise you may have to by an olimex serial F cable to get into root (ssh might not work). Hopefully someone at Ultimaker has a better solution tomorrow and I can delete this post!

Not all the courses are printer specific (there's a one hour intro to FFF 3d printing class). If you spent a lot of extra money for these classes, then you should probably indeed ask for your money back. These courses are not free (well it looks like you can do a 30 day trial for free maybe). But yes, I would expect to get less updates and less support as the years go by (I don't work for Ultimaker so I could be wrong).

@3DPrintto - I'm pretty sure the answer is going to involve a uSD card (between 4MB and 32MB is best) and the unbricking procedure (talk to your reseller to get instructions and location of the ISO file). You might also have to buy an "olimex-serial-F" cable (although there are many other manufacturers of USB-to-serial cables that should also work just fine). So you *might* want to work on those steps while you wait for the above 2 Ultimaker workers to come back to work tomorrow. Or maybe there is a way to install/copy in this python file using apt-get, or scp.

Wow. Good question. So I looked around and I also couldn't find either this folder nor this python file anywhere on my printer (it may be there - I only looked around the "griffin" folders). I think instead this is found on the installer operating system. @CarloK or @robinmdh should hopefully know the answer.

Are you asking for a printer recommendation? This is an ultimaker forum so most people will probably recommend an Ultimaker printer. What dimensions do you need to print up to? Is 200 X 200 X 200mm (8 by 8 by 8 inches) print volume good enough for you? How many plastic molds do you need to make per month? Per day?

Yes this is a great use for a 3d printer. Make a mold out of PLA for silicon mold to put ice cream into. I've done pla molds for silicon and gotten great results. Lots of great youtube videos about this.

@burtoogle and @Aldo have a lot of experience building Cura so they should be able to help. Or maybe an Ultimaker employee like @nallath.

I've never seen that. That really sucks. No ideas, sorry. I guess you could grab the log file and it might have more info. Put a USB flash drive into the printer and in the maintenance menu you can dump the logs onto it and then examine them for the date and time when you got the error. It should be easy to find in the logs knowing the date and time.

Most likely the PVA isn't dry enough. It only takes a few days in normal room air conditions (50-60% humidity) to make the PVA "worse". It's easy to fix. Look how much PVA is used - it's shown in the bottom right corner near the "Slice" and "Save" button (example it looks like less than a meter for your print). Then unspool at least that much PVA and place it directly on the heated bed with the spool on top (so you don't have to cut the filament). Then cover with a towel or other good insulator that will let moisture through. Then heat to 60C (careful as if you go to hot you will melt/deform the PVA) and let it sit like that for a few hours. Afterwards you are ready to print. If you don't unspool it can take a few days on the heated bed to dry the whole spool out. Much faster to just unspool a few meters. Then when done printing don't leave the PVA on the printer. Immediately put it in a sealed 2 gallon zip lock with a cup of dessicant. Use color changing dessicant and you will see that it needs recharging (heating in microwave is easiest) every few months. Nylon is just as bad. It's a wonderful material but Nylon and PVA need to be kept very very dry. You don't have to do any of this with PLA (I don't even keep dessicant with my PLA).

I was hoping for a Cura screenshot. That would tell me 30 things at once: for example if you are talking about support, infill, or skin (skin is top and bottom surfaces exposed to air). And your screenshot would show me an example of the problem you are talking about. And what your model looks like. I don't understand your numbers which seem to skip randomly. Normally Cura always does a zig zag pattern for the skin (example top or bottom surface of a cube). So you don't have to do anything.

Upper layers cool and pull inwards. The best way to stop warping is to increase adhesion to the bed (you should use all the common methods you can: rounded corners, brim, squish (often most important), heat bed above softening point, glue). But another way is to heat the air close to the softening point. Of course if you do this then you need more fan. I define the softening point (different from glass temp, different from HDT, different from melting point) as where the material goes from clay-like to solid-like. Above the softening temp you can bend the filament and cool it and it stays in the new position. Below the softening temp if you bend it, it's more likely to break. It's hard to describe exactly but you know it when you play with filament at these temps. For PLA the temperature is usually 52C.

log file location On my windows10 computer it is here: C:\Users\gr5\AppData\Roaming\cura\4.8 On linux is here: /home/gr5/.local/share/cura/master %APPDATA%\cura\<Cura version>\cura.log (Windows), or usually C:\Users\\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\cura\<Cura version>\cura.log $USER/Library/Application Support/cura/<Cura version>/cura.log (OSX) $USER/.local/share/cura/<Cura version>/cura.log (Ubuntu/Linux)

I don't understand. Could you explain with a picture? A screen shot of Cura maybe?

"add blocker" then click somewhere should create a cube and surfaces within the volume will not have support. You can now move the cube with the move tool and chang it's shape with the scale tool (I always uncheck the "uniform scaling") To remove the cube you can just drag it somewhere else using the move tool. Or you can right click it and remove it.

There was a serious problem 10 days ago. Could your issue have started then? Basically all UM3 printers everywhere couldn't connect to digital factory at the start of this month. The fix is to update your firmware. Or try the workaround posted in the link below. But safest is to just update your firmware on your printer.

Just to explain better. If there is 0.2mm of pva on the tip of the nozzle when you do active leveling and if it isn't melted enough or if it has been hardened through "baking" and is a brown hard substance, then as soon as that pva on the tip touches the bed and the bed starts moving down - then active leveling will level your nozzle such that it will print too high and the pva will just curl and never stick to the bed.

While curling *can* be an indication that the nozzle is slightly clogged - it isn't really a big concern. I usually ignore that. MUCH more likely the problem is with leveling. Make sure the tip of the nozzle is clean when you run active leveling. Watch the procedure. Make sure the timing is the same when it first ever checks the right and then left core. It should go down extremely slowly, touch the bed, move down just a tiny bit more and pop up. If it pushes the bed down for an entire second or if it doesn't quite touch the bed before it pops up - then it's a leveling issue. However to clean a BB core you should really try a "cold pull". The maintenance menu will guide you on this.

I'm glad you are making progress. Sorry I didn't check for replies until just now. For a UM3 things will be slightly different (by the way maybe send me a photo of how you hooked up the serial cable and I'll add that). UM3 needs different disk image than S5, yes. I'll add smithy's link to the instructions. UM3 doesn't have dangerous voltages (fortunately). UM3 does use the same Olimex board (but with a number switched in the eeprom - instructions near the end of the unbricking page). UM3 partitions may be differently sized although I doubt it. Anyway check to see partition sizes before creating new ones and write down the old values. You can always make the partitions bigger (well the user partition will have to shrink but it's much bigger than necessary anyway).

Yes it's possible. You chose one of the hardest materials to print on a bowden printer. It's the left most material on my graph here: http://gr5.org/mat/ I recommend you try something like cheetah which is a little stiffer but good enough to make things like sneakers. Anyway, to print this material you need to do a few things. 1) Set the feeder to the lowest tension (and don't forget to put it back when you switch back to "normal" filaments). 2) Print at 1/4 the speed you were printing before. All 7 or so printing speeds (like infill). Not just the "main speed". 3) Add oil to the filament. People just seem to refuse to do this but it works! It works very well. The friction in the bowden is quite high without adding oil. I add one drop per meter. This filament is so flexible (like string) that you can put the printer to the rear of a table and move the table away from any walls by a bit and unspool until the filament almost touches the floor. Add one drop of any kind of light petroleum oil (baby oil, 3-in-1 oil, sewing machine oil, not cooking oil which will go rancid). Add one drop every hour or so - or better: every meter. You unspool another meter and add one drop at the same time. People think the oil will end up affecting the print - making holes or something but it doesn't. It works very well. 4) Maybe raise the temperature a little bit. Look up recommended print temp range and print probably at the high end. 5) If steam is coming out or you hear sizzling (water boiling) then you also need to dry your filament. Unlike PLA you need to keep TPU very dry. 6) Regarding retraction - you want just enough to relieve the pressure in the bowden without actually pulling out of the feeder. 7) Flow - you can increase flow a bit but do not go over 5% extra (105%). If you still see gaps in the walls - go to the TUNE menu and play with the speed (slow it down some more) or raise the temp. Keep notes about what you did. If you can't get rid of the gaps you failed. You have to get rid of those. They tell you that you have underextrusion. Did you add the oil? No? Well then that's the problem. If you get Cheetah or similar stiffer filament you don't need to do any of this.

You should be able to print this vertically without any support (except maybe near the very bottom) as Zarkhowler suggests. You'll be amazed by the quality improvement on the front of this print if you print it vertically. Well the flat area of this coin(?) appears to be just a little non-flat. Like a coin wrapped somewhat around a cylinder. If you make it truly flat in cad then it should print a little nicer (assuming you still print the coin flat. Overall this is relatively good quality for such a small item. But to get it better I would use a 0.25mm nozzle and print with 0.2mm line widths. Or even go smaller. 3dsolex sells nozzles down to 0.1mm (human hair diameter) which you can print down to around 0.075mm. 4X higher resolution and 16X slower than printing with a 0.4mm nozzle.

If I understand you: every time you power on the printer it goes to the same screen and the only way to escape that screen is to reboot the printer. Do I have that correct? @robinmdh might be able to help you if you are comfortable with ssh. Have you used ssh many times? Do you know the Linux command line pretty well? It sounds like some state variable is in an unexpected state. But really the easiest and fastest way to recovery is probably using uSD card. google "unbricking UM3 site:ultimaker.com".