choco

Hi all, My Ultimaker jammed so I followed the instructions on this site to remove the plugged PLA, as I have done successfully before. But this time it didn't work. So I tried it again ... and again no success. I'm almost convinced that the peek or nozzle itself is the problem, but struggle to believe that melted PLA could have somehow permanently blocked the brass of the nozzle. At the moment I have the hot end heated to 250 degrees and clear of any visible PLA (which should be very soft at this temperature if there is any there). I just tried pushing some PLA by hand directly into the top of the peek. No PLA appeared from the nozzle at all. The plastic just oozed back out the top of the peek. I can't find this problem listed in the troubleshooting guides or in the forum. Does anyone have any ideas? Do I need a new nozzle? Thanks for your responses! Choco.

Thanks Xeno, It looks great. Based on the video tutorials it looks like I should be able to do both the hollowing and the cutting in Meshmixer .. and the fewer workflow steps, the better. I'll check it out. Choco

Hi Xeno, If you can tell me how to cut it in Meshlab, that would be great. I've been through all of the menus in Meshlab and can't find a way to do it. The closest I've found is the "conditional face selection" where I can use a criterion such as (x<0) to select a subset of the faces. But this gives me a jagged edge around the x=0 axis instead of a clean line and the two halves of my mold would not be able to fit together cleanly if I go with that approach. BTW, Owen, thanks for pointing me to the openscad "thing". I have looked at it and I'm trying to improve on it by significantly reducing the amount of material that is required. I tried scripting this in openscad but kept on finding issues with openscad being sensitive to quirks in the .stl files that I used. So at the moment I'm trying a manual workflow outside of opens cad. Thanks, Choco

Hi, I'm trying to make 3d molds on my UM. My intended workflow was Clean 3d stl file using Netfabb Cloud Use Uniform Mesh Resampling in Meshlab to hollow the model as described here https://sites.google.com/site/3dprintfaq/workflows/hollowing-a-model "Cut" the model into two symmetric halves using Netfabb Basic Print on UM using Cura Unfortunately, I'm stuck on point 3, because every time I try this step, Netfabb complains that the two resulting halves "are not closed". I've tried the built in repair tools and it can't fix them. I've tried exporting them as STL files and processing them in Cura in spite of the warnings, but it doesn't work, because the "hollowness" has been lost in the process. I'm really stuck on this. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks! Choco.

Hi again, Writing back with an update on progress since trying the suggestions from the forum... I have re-greased the z axis with the green stuff, upgraded to the latest version of Cura (nice updates Daid) and tried printing at 240 degrees rather than 180 as I usually do. I'm only printing at 50mm/s, so I don't think I'm hitting the configurable 5s limit. I guess I could have inconsistent diameter filament, but don't have any calipers to measure it. I'm printing at .2mm rather than .1 and have selected "Duplicate Outlines" in the Quality settings of Cura. I've chosen this because it's the outlines that form the shape of the mold. The attached photos show that I'm still seeing the z-axis layers. The one on the right is 240 degrees, the one on the left is 180 degrees. This photo shows more detail of the 240 degrees print. The vertical lines you can see are just the shape of the 20% infill being seen through the transparent plastic and don't impact my mold at all. It's the seemingly random horizontal lines that are causing the problem. While the suggested changes haven't solved the problem, they do seem to have mitigated it somewhat. The lines are still clearly visible but are less obvious to the touch and should impact the mold less. So in some ways, it's now mainly a matter of aesthetics. If anyone has any further ideas, I'd love to hear about them. BTW, this forum is great. Thanks, Choco

Thanks gr5 and Daid for taking the time to reply. I really appreciate it. I'll give your suggestions a go and post some updated photos. Cheers, Choco

Hi, I'm printing a chocolate mold, specifically this bunny mold http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17507. I found that by changed the orientation of the print to ensure that the mold itself was defined purely by the perimeter of the shape and I got a HUGE improvement in the quality of the mold. Unfortunately, once every inch or so I have these strange z-axis layers that are out of place and stick into the mold space. They are of varying thicknesses. I've attached some photos. They show the front and back of the same piece with the sedimentary layering clearly visible. Can anyone suggest what might be causing this? Thanks!! Choco.

Thanks for that advice. I tried pushing the PLA through but it ended up being a blob stuck in the hot end. I followed these instructions: http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Jamming and it's all working again now.

Hi, My PLA filament broke mid-print while I wasn't watching the machine. I opened up the feeder and tried to pull out the filament in the Bowden tube but only succeeded in breaking the PLA again ... this time right at the bottom of the "quick fit coupling" that's embedded in the feeder. Now I can't access it with long-nosed pliers and have no idea how to get it out without undoing the entire feeder (which I REALLY don't want to do!) Can anyone advise on how to extract the broken filament? Perhaps by removing the bowden tube from the top of the "quick fit coupling"? ... but how do you do this safely? Thanks in advance, Choco.

I found a solution to my problem ... Netfabb Cloud. Owen mentioned this option in another thread so I tried sending the original Thingiverse Object to the Netfabb Cloud and it came back fixed. Now I can edit and export without any issues. I hope this helps others. Choco

Hi, I'm trying to edit a .stl file I found on Thingiverse in OpenSCAD. I can import and render the file without problems. I made my changes and tried to export the file as .stl only to be told that is was "not a valid 2-manifold" and could not be exported. After some experimentation I stripped the code back to just the import of the .stl followed immediately by exporting the .stl with no editing. Same problem. It also says that the .stl is "Simple: No" when it renders. The .stl file in question is http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17507. Side 1 and Side 2 models both have the same behaviour. I tried sending the file via Netfabb and doing a standard "repair" on it, without it making a difference. Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this? I'm trying to do this a treat for Easter, so I'm running out of time! Thanks, Choco

Kok, Thanks! You were absolutely right about the negative value in the translate function, but it seems it's not the translate function itself that has a problem but rotate_extrude, which seems to have issues with an object in the negative quadrant. Unfortunately, the negative value was necessary the way I'd laid it out. So instead, I re-did the polygon to have it all on the positive side of the x axis and now it works. Thanks also for the example of neater coding. Choco.

Hi all, Now that I'm getting regular success printing designs from Thingiverse I'm trying to create my first "thing". It's a fix for a floor lamp that my kids have knocked over one too many times. I've used calipers to measure the internal and external lamp-part dimensions and am using OpenSCAD for the first time. I've got the 2D profile of it right, but I now need to use rotate_extrude around the z axis to get the actual 3D shape. Thing is, it just draws the 2D profile. It doesn't give me any error message. Would someone mind have a quick glance at my code and tell me where I'm going wrong? Thanks! Choco. module lampfix2d(); { extra_w=2; top_w=2.8; bottom_w=top_w+27.3-26.9;//bottom_external - top_external height=5; translate([-8.06,0,0]) polygon( [ [0,0],[0,height+extra_w],[-top_w-2*extra_w,height+extra_w],[-bottom_w-2*extra_w,0],[-bottom_w-extra_w,0 ],[-top_w-extra_w,height ],[-extra_w,height],[-extra_w,0 ] ] ); } rotate_extrude(convexity=10) lampfix2d();

Hi, I was reviewing the Make: Ultimate Guide to 3D Printers and noted something novel in the Afinia H-Series. I'll quote I was wondering if anyone has tried this with their Ultimaker? I'm constantly dealing with failed prints due to either poor adhesion (because I start the hotend too high) or ripped blue tape and hours of scraping PLA off the bed (because I start it too low) ... hence my interest in this option. Choco.