burki

A hint about dusty filament: if you wrap a pipe cleaner around the filament, it will brush off the dust. Since i found that tip somewhere here on the forum, i've had a lot less blockages. (Yes, i could also clean the place more often, but the pipe cleaner seemed easier :-) )

Didier, i don't have a UM2, so i can't help you much, but: the glass can be cleaned with water only, or with a dish washing detergent. At least that's how i clean mine. I don't know about the bed leveling for the UM2, but i found that if the bed is too close to the nozzle, the plastic sticks like hell. so maybe trying to increase the gap betreen nozzle and glass a bit could help you? Do you print PLA or ABS? You should be able to print PVA on a cold glass plate, meaning: no heating of the bed at all. Since my UM1 doesn't have a heated bed, that's how i print my PLA prints. Does that help you a bit?

I just received my delivery. Kind of a lightspeed-shipping! Thank you for that, Sander. It would not have been necessary to generate extra cost for you, although of course i am very happy! Again: what was annoying me was not the delivery delay but the communication around it. Anyhow: this thread can be closed as far as i'm concerned.

Some time later. Another funny little promise about delivery, again, as usual, empty words. Are you folks actively trying to piss off your customers? I really don't understand the motivation behind your actions.

Meddie, hast Du zum Ultimaker noch Filament mitbestellt? Wenn ja, wird das wahrscheinlich die Lieferung erheblich verzögern. Ich warte seit 19. Januar darauf, dass meine Bestellung eventuell irgend wann mal bearbeitet wird...

From what i have read 230-235 is too low for ABS. I suggest you try higher temperatures. Additionally, you may want to enclose your Ultimaker to prevent cool air draughts that seem to be causing massive trouble with ABS.

Well. Sander does not reply, Marrit does not reply. Who's next? I'm missing your amusing little delivery promises... Seriously, folks, i am a customer. You took my money. Are you going to deliver the goods i ordered? Are you at least planning to reply to messages? And if so: any time in the near future? Yes, i am getting very, very disapointed.

So far i have very good results using a second extruder and printing support with PVA. Using the Cura support features is not your friend there, though: If you need surfaces that require as little finishing as possible i suggest you create a second model for the support structure and print that using the "merge objects" feature. If you use cura's support feature, you may need a high value for the support infill. like 50% or so, since otherwise you get a rather wide grid, and depending on temperatures that will leave you with very uneven structures, When you have two models, you get closed top surfaces of the support model. Be advised to leave some space between the objects: if you desing with zero space you will find that the strings of plastic are fused together leaving ugly surface structures after removing the PLA. For a lateral spacing you can easily have several mm spacing, although 1 mm is more than enough. for the vertical spacing i don' t have that much experience yet. you might try 0 mm, or one layer height. I'd be interested to hear how you fare!

Dim3nsioneer,i got my PVA from Mexhibit. They don't say anything about no fan, though. But mind you: I use it for printing support material. I really don' t care if the results look good, they only need to stay in place. Maybe it helps you to know that i normally print PVA at 200°C for .1 and .2 mm layers. i've made some 20 prints with PVA so far. They were all technical components, with sizes beween something like 20*20*20 to maybe 40*40*40 mm. I need to do a lot more tests to figure out really good settings, but since i normally need to manually clean and file my mechanical parts that i print anyway, i never bothered too much with the looks. Hope that helps you a bit?

I have not tried printing PVA with fan off. So far my prints with PVA support material were all printed with pretty much standard setting, including the fan. Needless to say the prints were okay. Will try if anything noticeably changes with the fan off and let you know though.

Simmonsstummer, it' s a bit hard to identify your problem. From the picture, i take it the first layer was printed correctly, is that so? What material are you printing? Could it be that you had an underextrusion problem?

I don't event remove the spool when i don't use it for a few days. I really could not say that humidity is really a problem. At least it doesn't seem to be for me. I didn't pay much attention about retraction, either. I just print it... I don't retract very much, though, just to keep the print time low. I don't have my settings here though, but it's really all more or less "normal". Did you have deep bite maks in the PVA? Is your spring tension in the feeder high enough? Maybe the PVA was tangled on the spool? I'm really sorry to hear you have so much trouble. It really works just fine for me. Maybe you really should try some simple prints, maybe even a simple test cube with PVA only to isolate the source of your troubles?

Drayson, i think all important things have been said in this thread. Looking forward to read about your experiences!

I don't normally have this kind of trouble, yet i don't see how moisture might call it (which does not say it can't). If you had to force it through: can it be it became too hot, so it formed the typical lump and could no longer be pushed into the nozzle? if so, you need to lower the print temperature. Apart from that: Do you use prime tower and ooze shield? You should, by all means, so that the PVA does not rest in the nozzle for too long. I understand that the termic stability of PVA is not as good as with PLA, so every some seconds a bit of the material should be extruded every now and then. I had prints of up to 1 1/2 hours where the PVA caused no troubles at all. I gather you are in Zurich, too? Maybe we could meet so we could compare the PVA, see how it feels, if i can print with yours and you with mine?

Thank you for clarifying. I have the feeling that at least a big part of this tugging effect should be eliminated by the fact that you are measuring the actual force on the push side of the extruder. A lot of the remaining forces might maybe be if not eliminated then at least reduced by a better spool holder. Thinking about ball bearings. Maybe even a second feeder mechanims, mut that would most likely go too far, and pervert the original idea of having an easy, low-cost and simple to integrate way of improving matters. i am very much interested in reading about your findings!

My PVA came in a silvery zip lock bag, and the spool was vacuum-sealed and airtight. the material is softer than PLA, but firmer than the soft PLA i have lying around (and never managed to print properly). I print PVA at 200°. i went up to 210°, but the material started steaming , so i went down to 200 again. the PVA when printed never looks near as good as the actual object printed in PLA, and i sometimes get small air bubbles in it. But so far this has not been a problem, since i don't need it to look good, just to be there :-) But it's good to hear you're making progress!

DON'T hit it with a hammer! That's not a very smart thing to do with a motor. Use the "cogwheel on table, motot in hand" approach.

Hallo Leipziger, eine kleine Ergänzug: Das Fett gehört nur auf die Z-Spindel, auf keinen Fall auf die X-Y-Achsen! Dort, wie Dimensioneer schreibt, etwas Öl drauf: WD40, Nähmaschinenöl, oder irgend etwas vergleichbares.

Ein Teil dieser Probleme kommt daher, dass am Filament Staub und Schmutz hängen können. Wenn die Düse erst mal verstopt ist, hilft nur noch reinigen (Übrigens: Zahnstocher machen keine Kratzer). Um das Problem weitgehend zu verhindern, hilft ein einfacher Trick: Wickelt unterhalb des Extruders einen Pfeifenreiniger um das Filament, so dass Staub und Schmutz abgestreift werden bevor sie überhaupt in den Bowdenzug kommen.

Hello MakingZone, sorry i hadn't found the time to take some pics, but will do those next days. Talking about the surface quality: If you let Cura create the support structure via the second extruder, you will get a fairly good quality, varying depending on the amount of material you use for the support: i assume using 100% you would get sweet surfaces, but you't waste quite some material and time. So, if the surface quality is very important, you should create the support structure outside cura, for example by designing a support object and merge this with the original object. Thus you would get closed surfaces in the support where you need them. Remember those two objects' designs must have the same origin in order to be merged, just like normal 2-coloured objects. I will try to provide some pics for comparison as soon as i find the time.

Hello Aviphysics, i assume the grey bit on the bottom of the drawing is the load cell? If so, the design looks feasible for me. Have you taken a look at flexiForce-Sensors? -> http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=33&product_id=3101_0 They might allow for an even smaller setup. I don't understand what you eman by "disruptions from despooling". could you explain that?

If the PLA does not stick at all, i would assume you needmore pressure, or more extrusion, or more temperature in the hotend. If your troubles persist with the ehated bed, try moving the print bed closer to the nozzle when levelling (like, 1/20 mm or so) If you go down to almost no gap and the PLA still does not stick to the glass, try printing hotter and see what that does. In theory, i would assume that hotter (i.e. softer) filament should be less prone to be dragged along by the nozzle. After all, if you extrude enough, the pressure of the material extruded should be high enough so the "sausage" gets long enough to stay in place rather than be dragged along? I print PLA at 215-220°C. Have you tried to change the PLA, by the way? Use material from different vendors, or even different colours? I noticed that the PLA i have (or had...) from Ultimaker worked very nice with orange working best, then white, then silverygrey, while some cheap stuff from a different source caused more troubles.

Drayson could you check the following: When the print is lifted off the glass, does the glue go with it? I use a much thinner glue/water solution. And i don't use alcohol to clean the glass, just dish washing liquid. You may want to check you first layer very thoroughly: do you get over-or underextrusion, or is your first layer just right? What layer thickness are you using for your first layer? I normally go for .3mm first layers, and level by bed so that i get marginal over extrusion, visible from the fact that the sides of the printed lines are a bit fatter from the material being pressed to the side. This works well for me. Of course heating up the glass should help, too.

I share aviphysics' view: My original idea was trying to have one isolated way of determining the current pressure. Measuring Volts or Amperes the motor is consuming adds potential errors. A Load cell, or a flexiforce sensor, are fairly inexpensive, so i think that approach is fairly direct. It would even continue working when you change the extruder, or the gearing, or whatnot.

Ich würde mir gern einen kompletten Klon drucken. Dann kann ich den zur Arbeit schicken, und mich in der Zeit um meinen Ultimaker kümmern :-)