burki

Thank you! I had checked the website of the reseller i got it from, but not of the maufacturer... Oh well. it was not my best day anyway... Thank you for your quick reply!

Hi, i have had some massive problems with my UMO lately, and at last it seemed the main extruder stepper motor had failed me (things printed fine when i re-wired the second extruder and heater and stuff) So, after some grumbling, i bought a BondTech QR. I just hooked it up, but unfortunately, it does not extrude. It retracts instead (that means: there is one side with a bowden fixture. I was hoping the filament was extruded in that direction. But it came out on the other end. Nice and slow, but in the wrong direction.) Can anybody help me solve this issue? And by the way: The bondtech wants different e-steps than my second extruder (which is an ultimaker Original dual extrusion kit part) Is there any way to use both of them? This latter part is not very important, it would simply help passing the time until the second bondtech arrives) Thanks in advance!

Um. Between 2 and 3 hours maybe? Not longer at least. I was having some difficulties getting the guidng rods out of the frame, so that part may have slowed me down. And i was not in a hurry :-)

Hello Ultimaker Team, i received my heated bed kit and just stopped drooling enough to consider it safe to assemble the whole thing. The documentation is flawless, and by the way: the packaging is really nice! One small suggestion though: One of the three countersunk m3X20 srews in my pack was damaged (the thread was somehow bent), so i would like to suggest that maybe for future packs you could add a fourth of those? All other screws are easily replaceable (although i didn't have to), but i could not find a countersunk one in my collection. Other than that: very nice work! thank you! Looking forward to put it to the test!

Der erste Teil wurde von Nightwish korrekt beschrieben (auch wenn ich ein Raft eine etwas drastische Lösung finde): Deine übrigen Probleme kommen vor allem von Temperatur- Geschwindigkeits - und Retraktionseinstellungen, die nicht gut zu Material und Form passen. Der Troubleshooting Guide wird Dir heir weiter helfen, und Du wirst sicher ein wenig experimentieren müssen. Ein Hinweis noch: Selbst beim gleichen Hersteller druckt sich jede Farbe mit etwas anderen idealen Einstellungen.

So... i ordered my kit last week... any of you folks have a hint about delivery times?

Not much point in guessing, i assume. We will see when it's there.

Please be careful not to slip on the wet floor. i've been drooling all over the place for so long ;-) In september i will have finished moving to the new place. Would be lovely to use the then-available time to upgrade th ultimaker :-)

Right, i had not taken into consideration that you are still assembling. Sorry for that. As soon as you have mounted your print head you can easily see if, using the levelling screws, you can or cannot adjust the build plate so that you get equal distances from the bed to the nozzle throughout the area. If your build plate is not flat (i.e. bent, corrugated, twisted), you do in fact have a problem, but i guess you did not mean that? Perfectionist is good, stick with that! And much fun with your printer!

Thinking that over: maybe you could find a FabLab or an ultimaker owner somewhere near you, so you can discuss your models and requirements, and maybe ask them for a print. Most people here on this forum are normally friendly enough so you might stand a good chance :-)

One hint about the resolution / detail thingy: if i remember correctly, both UM2 and Replicator print with a .4mm nozzle. That means, the string of plastic that is laid down is (more or less) 0.4 mm wide. As a result, if you think of a flat square, the printed result will not have sharp edges but a minimum edge radius of .2mm. So, in x-y-direction, the nozzle diameter is the limiting factor. While you could exchange the nozzle (maybe consider an Ultimaker Original for that?) for something smaller, this would result in much longer print times. If i am not mistaken, half the nozzle diameter should result in twice the layer time? But then again, you may want to ask yourself if you really need such extreme detail, especially for a board game where the objects are handled, stored in a box and such, so too fine a detail might wear off over time anyway. If your conclusion is that you need the detail, i think you might want to look for a laser sinter printer rather than a fused filament printer.

Your build plate should not be level (as compared to ocean level) but parallel to the axes your print head travels along. So: If you print constant thicknesses throughout the print area, your leveling is as it should be, no matter at what angle it rests compared to sea level.

I strongly doubt that anybody who has dual extrusion would give it up. But frankly, it's not exactly expensive!

One more hint: don't use glass cleaner or alcohol. Clean your glass plate with a dish washing detergent. And of course avoid finger prints.

About the space frame: yes, a filled construction should be at least as rigid (for the size of parts and forces we are talking here. For larger structures the weight of the structure would have to be taken into consideration, so that for a large construction the space frame would be better, but for our topic here that is irrelevant) About the crossed tongues: yes, one vertical and one horizontal could be twisted. But as soon as you have, say, 2 horizontal one vertical, you should be fine. I am not even sure if any of that is really needed or if you current structure would be rigid enough already, given the fact that you havepanels in all 3 directions ? But you might want to ask someone else about that. I'm really looking forward to get a peek at that baby once the first prototype is tehre!

About the play of two steel parts mounted together: the way you are planning to clamp them, which is the same as it's done with the ultimaker parts, is not the problem. One screw or two mostly means you can apply more pressure. but if your fittings would fit each other nicely, you would not need the pressure to avoid play. that would mean that your tongues going into the holes should fit exactly. a fairly easy way to achieve that is long holes, crosswise: a vertical hole and tongue countering horizontal movement, and a horizontal pair countering vertical movement, while the horizontal pair can move horizontally, i.e. the hole is longer than the tongue, but both have equal height. Given the fact that the holes are rounded and the tongues will be rectangular: you could design the tongues oversized and file them to a perfect fit (manually) Or you could fill the gaps, for example with epoxy. that can be separated by heating to 250°+, if i remember correctly. Just don't use cyanoacrylate if you want the parts to be separable. But i guess you knew that :-)

I think your problem nr.2 is not that much of a problem. Supposed you actually had play in the bearings. Your build plate has a weight > 0. so, there is always a force acting downward, thich can be idealized as originating from the center of the build plate. the countering force is of equal amount in the opposite direction, but it is (idealized) in the center of your lead screw. As you can see the two forces are opposed and parallel. So we have a momentum. That in turn forches the whole setup to rotate, if there is any play. resulting in the lower part of your bearing to be pushed towards the back, and the top towards the fromt of the machine. As long as your bearings and rods are straight, this rotation (angle) will alwas be the same. An effect you already counter by levelling your bed. The reason i try to talk you into a better shape (even though i do agree, your steel arms will most likely be more than enough) is that i think using cheaper and easier-to-handle material could also work, if you change the shape a bit. after all, it's not the weight of the whole setup that requires the strength of the material, it's the buckling length, which you can either handle by very stiff material or by a smarter geometry, i.e. a space frame where you don' t get too extreme triangles. Of course, none of these would be necessary if you supported your print bed by 3 lead screws instead :-)

just one note: there is a large difference between an L-Shape and a triangular shape. Consider the way forces are led through the material. you have a vertical force being led horizontally to the shafts. if it was truly horizontal, the force would be infinite. so, the greater the angle (if horizontal is zero), the smaller the resulting force. so, it's the height of the horizontal arm that matters, and most of all it's height at the bend. that means if you have an L-Shape with the short arm pointing down, and draw a triangle on that, the diagonal shows you where the force goes (give or take some). meaning: if instead you used the complete available space to make a triangle (connecting the ends of the arms of the L), you can take a lot more force than without the diagonal. Not sure if what i write here is anyhow understandable? :-)

I' d like to come back to the L- or triangular arms. From what i learned when i studied, practically every single millimeter you add at the bottom would help greatly. so, provided you keep the short end of the L upwards which does not offer much more than guidance, and you added say 10 millimeter at the bottom, then this would indeed sacrifive those 10 mm, but it shoult be a massive gain in stiffness of the arms. Since you are designing your own printer, Jonny, and are still in the painting process ;-) you might redesign the 4 large vertical body parts to give back that height? Thus you coult keep the lenght of the vertical arm of the L, but move it down by, say, 20 mm. use these 20 mm for a triangle. then, redesign your printer frame so your guiding rods sit 20 mm lower. thus you would have the same build volume. Unless i am missing something important here? And talking about stiffness, weight and cost: some space frame setup, 3d printed in aluminium or titanium should, in theory, be the thing to want, don' t you think? I visited a company doing metal prints about a year ago. from what i learned that is far less expensive than one might think. plus, printed metal cannot be beat in terms of coolness :-)

Looking at your various z stages, i cannot help but wonder: any arm that is more or less L-shaped seems in my opinion a lot less stiff than atriangular shaped arm. I assume the reasons for this are clear and i assume all of you are aware of that. So: why do you design L-shaped arms if i may ask?

Hallo Netsrac, ich drucke (mit dem UM 1) auf einem unbeheizten Glasbett. Meiner Erfahrung nach ist vor Allem das Levelling sehr wichtig, damit die unterste Schicht sauber passt. Ich habe das Gefühl, dass Glasreiniger gar nicht so eine gute Idee ist. Ich reinige meine Glasplatten mit Spülmittel. Das scheint mir besser zu funktionieren, aber eine "gesicherte Erkenntnis" ist das nicht. Dann hilft bei grossen Objekten und solchen mit spitzen Ecken auch, einen Rand mit darum zu drucken.

Frankly, my filament lies around somewhere in the vicinity of my printer. So far i have never had any problems.

I have so far used Sketchup a lot. It's biggest plus is the very steep learning curve. It takes almost no time to create your first designs. Reading this thread i will take a look at DesignSpark Mechanical, and a closer Look at openScad though. While it is true that Sketchup can drive you up the wall, especially when it comes to non-closed objects and internal geometry, i have managed to create quite a lot of different things with it, some of them fairly complex, although all of them were mechanical things, so the basic blockyness of anything you create with it was not a problem for me. I would not discourage anyone from giving it a try, especially for a newbie who would like some quick results. I do agree though that over time you will want to switch to something better. Yet, for a free version, i think it is better than it's reputation, at least as gathered from this forum :-)

Sergei, if i need the nozzle heated i use either the bed levelling wizard or the dual extrusion calibration. Both heat up the nozzle(s). You could also start a print, and click "pause" before it starts actually printing anything, yet it will heat the nozzle.

First, on your screenshot for the .6mm shell it seems the support is not printed at all? Second: in my experience, the shell thickness should be a multiple of the nozzle diameter. So if you work with the standard UM nozzle, it should be .4, .8, 1.2 ... mm. And yes, the support can not normally be removed from a print without the use of a knife, file or sanding paper (unless you use dual extrusion and a soluble support material, in which case i would like to recommend the dual extrusion section here in the forum)