corngolem

If you've got a fine tuned UM please print these torture tests by Makerbot and Make magazine (in PLA from Ultimaking) so I can compare with my results and see what I can expect from my own printer. (if possible in grey/silver because colours affect the perception of shapes) I'm giving you the gcodes instead of the stl so that comparison will be more accurate. Once done take a picture of the prints from above (similar to the one below) and post it in this thread. Thx in advance.

Picture posted at the request of gr5 gr5 edits: Text from above picture: bottom left: feeder spring 13,61mm (used until now) bottom center: feeder spring 13,81mm bottom right: feeder spring 16,42mm (sign of underextrusion) top left: after small belt tightening top right: after long belts tighten...

Make magazine’s torture test It doesn’t do it everytime, depends on the settings. It was only an observation anyway, not important. I don’t have isopropyl so I didn’t use any. If it makes the tape stick to the bed how do you remove the tape ? I’m using Cura 13.04 The center of the bed is at the proper distance (line is squished into the tape) so I can’t reduce the distance for points on the perimeter. The large scope calibration print stuck well and was accurate so I’m gonna leave it like that. I tried printing a cylinder at the 4 corners but incredibly the printer started to print from the top ! I tried again to make sure there was no problem with the Z axis, same thing. Try for yourself. ---------------- In my reasoning if there is no underextruding in the walls then there is no underextruding at all. And I don’t see how less plastic can lead to gaps between lines, it already leads to gaps inside the lines. The feeder’s spring was screwed to measure 13,82mm, I screwed it more to 13,61mm but that did not change the gap between lines. I then unscrewed it to the limit of underextrusion (16,42mm) - that did not change the gap between lines either, but showed underextrusion in the walls. I screwed it back to 13,82 which was when it became harder to screw (as instructions said). I unscrewed the X&Y motors, found that the spacers were buried in the wood, added washers on that side and screwed them back lower to tighten the belts - (during first assembly I was afraid to put too much strain on the motors). The result is that the gap between lines almost disappeared. Then I put longer bolts and more nuts on the long belts lock mechanism - I believe the 4 belts are now ideally tightened. The result is that the gap is a bit more pronounced than after I tightened the short belts, but less than before. Maybe tightening the long belts was what gave me round circles, I don’t know because I only printed a cube after having tightened the shot belts. I then printed the calibration scope again but with less infill and faster because I didn’t want to wait. The bottoms and top touch the walls more than before but not perfectly everywhere. There was a lot of underextrusion in the walls and I don’t understand what causes it because I printed (different model) walls alone (no infill) at 600% of 25mm/s =150 (walls seem to print slower if no infill, maybe half - couldn’t find the setting) at 230°C and saw no underextrusion. I suspected retraction because it messes up plastic in the hot end but it doesn’t happen everytime there is retraction. Maybe bad filament quality (from Ultimaking) ? Could anyone with a fine tuned UM print these gcodes so I can compare with my result and see what I can expect from my printer. (in grey if possible because colours affect the perception of shapes)

Some clarifications: I printed small models to get quick results without wasting too much plastic if it failed. I intend to print for other people, so sizes and shapes will be varied. When I don’t specify the settings it means that the default ones from quickprint normal quality have been used. By floor I meant not the bottom but an horizontal mesh that is layered between infills. To illuminatri: By backslash do you mean that the rods can move inside the frame ? (I noticed this during assembly and added a washer but it didn’t block it) or that a pulley is not held tight to the rod ? What should be the temperature for 100mm/s and 150 ? is there a formula ? I use a calliper to measure the distance between over the tape and under the heat block. Right now it’s level to 0,15mm precision. I already made sure during assembly that the bolts pushed down the plate and that the spring was held by a bottom and top washer. I don’t know what makes you say my bed isn’t level. If it’s the furthest line on the test print then it always comes out this way, due to early underextrusion I assume. I posted another photo and you should be able to see that the line gets thinner at the center. I don’t see where it’s under extruding except where there are holes in the 100mm/s prints. If by underextruding you mean not extruding all the time then I think it’s because the temperature was too low for 100mm/s. If on the other hand you mean that it’s not extruding enough plastic during the whole print then I don’t see the reason for that because I’m using Ultimaking hardware (nozzle, PLA etc) and default software settings (0,4mm nozzle and 2,89mm filament) - unless Ultimaking gave me a different nozzle and a very bad filament (checked, it matches). To me it looks like the pathway is simply not covering the entire surface. It’s doing A instead of B I didn’t change the steps settings. The filament is held firmly by the feeder, it has marks after it goes through it. However, by design, the feeder is not solidary from the frame - should I secure it ? What about my belts tension, do they make the right sound in the video ? I have already tried advanced settings but the current issue don’t let me appreciate them. To gr5: In Make magazine’s torture test, when finishing the box, the nozzle would not do sides ABCD, ABCD etc but would go back to a start point. In Makerbot’s torture test there is a thin wall, I think it should have appeared in the Y=40mm print. To all: I printed a full size calibration model (using illuminatri’s settings), took pictures and annotated them to show the defects. Tell me your conclusions.

Hi all, as I’m new to 3D printing I decided to get a kit to learn how all this work. I’ve assembled it and printed many models with Cura in normal and high quality but the result is not good enough, so I’m requesting your expertise and advice to help me improve it. I’ve made sure the rods are parallel to each others, I’ve levelled the bed first with a calliper, then positioned the Z top limit switch, then levelled the bed again during a calibration print. I also added nuts to all belt locks except the (machine) left which sounded already tight. I’ve created an album with pictures of the printed models (with the settings I used), a picture of a bed levelling test print, a video of a model being printed (with sounds) and a video of the belts being rang and the printing head being moved on its axis. You should review those documents before reading further and before answering. My general observations: • the worst parts of a print are the bottom, the under (overhang) and the top - I expected the flat bottom and flat top (that is, any flat surface) to be seamless but it was more like a grid • circles are not round, none of them • higher speed (100mm/s) seems to be the reason for holes to appear in the print • the "floors" that are created between infills often do not touch the walls, this makes the print weak and create lots of strings that are prone to creating a destructive blob • support makes the print worse on other points it’s touching - it might be less true with bigger prints • below 20% infill, below 10% for sure the slicer is incapable of making floors that bridge (big hole in mesh like roof) • I levelled the bed with a calliper to 0,05mm precision, yet when I printed I had to unscrew many turns on one side to avoid the nozzle digging in the bed - I don’t understand this - later, printing showed that the perimeter of the bed was levelled but the centre was too high - I don’t see how that’s possible unless the acrylic plate is not flat or one of the rod is not straight • the high quality setting in Cura quickprint does increase the number of layers but doesn’t seem to give a better result regarding accuracy etc • the slicer seems to ignore small features even if they are big enough for a 0,4 nozzle • 0,5mm seems to be missing on all prints for X and Y, no matter the size • PLA does warp inevitably • the pathway is often not optimized, when printing a hollow box it would always go back to a starting point instead of going forward and layering up

Second day and it's already making noise... I unclipped the fan's case, broke a clip in the process, then I just put the yellow grease that I found at the bottom of the axis back on the axis. Noise disappeared but for how long ? P.S. the white circular clip is actually split at one point so you can remove it easily, no need to force.

Those switches (at least their implementation) are not adapted for calibration, so adding extra switches would only repeat the problem. The printer would know where its print head is because we would have used the Set origin and Store memory functions and it could find it again from the limit switches. example= Z=0 corresponds to Z top limit + 0,45mm That screw and plastic fine tuner seems like an excellent solution that should be adopted by Ultimaking. Too bad I can't print it. So you removed a feature that made something very difficult very easy, that did not pose any issue, for a reason that nobody cared about ? This can only be a bad decision. Both are CNC mills and 3D printers are 3D coordinates machines, so they can share solutions, even use any solution. In the end, it's the usability that rules over.

Why I want to set Z=0 ? because moving the bed on its axis is the logical and practical way to set the distance between its surface and the nozzle, which is required for printing properly. What you describe is bed levelling (making 4 points of the bed equidistant from the vertical print head). Limit switches as their names imply are for something else than homing. For XY it doesn't matter but for Z the precision required is too great to be attained by moving the Z top switch. I tried homing automatically then moving the bed manually to the proper distance so as to change where Z=0 really is, but it homes again before every print so it's useless. I'm not going to bother with gcode, I want a permanent solution.

The UltiController is supposed to have a Set origin feature but it's not in the Prepare menu anymore. How can I position the bed (manually or not) and then tell the printer this is the new Z=0 ? Bed levelling is a distinct procedure and Z top switch positioning is another distinct procedure. P.S. this must have been asked many times before but the answer hasn't been made obvious.

Few days ago the kit had a lead time of 20 days and the assembled unit of 25 days. So how is it possible that lead time got divided by more than 3 and is not longer for assembled units, did Ultimaking LTD build a factory ?! If I was running this business I would announce such improvement on the blog.

This works, the .hex files are in Cura.app/Contents/Resources/firmware/ and the baud rate is actually 250000. The port is usbmodemfa12441

So with one hot end it's fine but with 2, oozing appears ? how come ? does it happen for both hot ends or only the second ? Is it a temperature compensation problem ? or software retraction problem ? Anyway, how did other printers solve it ?

I realised that the Ultimaker already has the holes for a second hot-end as well as for a second feeder, it also has the wires and terminals ready. So, one year later, what about the software, can Cura do it ? what about netfabb ? And is there a guide on how to add a second extruder ?

Turn off and unplug your printer, then move the extruder on one axis fast enough. The LED of the extruder and the LCD of the controller will light up ! I assume it is because the motors act as dynamos. Did you ever notice ?!

Haven't seen it in the assembly instructions, what is it for ?

I'm still interested.

Thx, this wasn't much effort though compared to the gigantic 52 printers comparison chart I made (I'm not posting here cause it's not a neutral site, it can be found on 3ders.org and 3dprinting-forums.com forums) I'll add other materials when they are better identified/distributed.

This chart compares the price of Taulman 618 nylon and laywoo D3 filaments rolls as well as taxes and shipping fees for 17 stores over the world. I’m not doing it for ABS or PLA because there are too many resellers.

I wanted to test it, but with bitsfrombytes having closed it's now impossible to get this software. I'll take any version you have, preferably V2 for Mac OS. EDIT: I should have searched the web before, all versions and manuals can be found at http://cubify.com/legacy/3dtouch/downloads.aspx

A sales person from mbot3d.com is telling me that their MBot 3D printer has a fibre glass unheated bed that is suitable for ABS printing. ABS sticks so well that you need a blade to separate the print from the bed. The sales person also says that Bits From Bytes has been doing the same. If it's true it would be a little miracle as any printer could be made to print ABS just by switching for a fiber glass bed of the same dimensions. What is known about this ?

Thx, I was able to find all the parts and add them to my order.

Hello so I'm going to buy an Ultimaker in kit and as I won't be able to wait for replacement parts when they break (if they do, during the warranty) I'm going to buy them now with the kit. Which ones should I get ?

Fanplastic you shouldn't buy in a hurry, you could regret it badly. I too am looking for my first 3D printer and I still haven't looked at all the manufacturers. I'm creating the most complete comparison chart to help me and I'll publish it to help others.

Haters aren't objective.

Creatr: aluminium frame, heated bed, 13662cm3 build volume - assembled: 1250€ available in 14 days Ultimaker: wood frame, no heated bed, 9370cm3 build volume - kit: 1194€ available in 20 days - assembled: 1699€ available in 25 days Prices without VAT. Both companies are from the Netherlands, so if Leapfrog can do it... P.S. for shipping fees however Leapfrog could learn from Ultimaking: - assembled Ultimaker to Europe: from 26,50€ to 67,50€ - assembled Creatr to Europe: 223€