albert

I have only used LocTite on the pulleys mounted directly on the stepper motors on my UM 1 build. So far nothing has come loose in about one year. I had thought about LocTite on the screws for the pulleys on the XY gantry, but decided against it because of the difficulty of dis-assembly. Instead I made black edding marks on pulleys and on all axes. This way one can see if anything has loosened. A trick to loosen inbus bolts that have been treated with loctite: I take a fine soldering iron and heat the inbus screw, this softens the loctite sufficiently to be able to loosen the bolt without messing up the screwhead. 30 years of model helicopter flying have taught me to be very careful with LocTite. The stuff is absolutely necessary in certain cases but can amount to a giant headache when you have to take things apart.

I have just looked at all these new models of 3d printers presented at CES. What really comes to mind is that they are putting more money and thought into DESIGN issues than FUNCTIONALITY. Lots of bling bling and catering to the digital citizen crowd. What use is there in a camera and app for the smartphone? show your friends your house is burning down because the printer had a short? This is GADGET thinking. Cube goes all the more into proprietary stuff...the shitstorm about their bloody cartridge system has not moved them in the slightest. They may have redesigned their cartridges, they might even work now, but I will still not touch a 3d printer with a cartridge system with a ten foot pole. If their printer prices would go down to the level we are used to with paper printers where you can get the machine for the price of a 3color refill, I might swallow the hook....but having a 3000+$ machine AND hugely overblown material prices is a bit too much. Makerbot, too is more about bling than function. Inadmit these new printers look sexy as hell but I stick to my wooden UM boxes that work so well for me. None of the features they advertise tempts me to change horses now.

Thank you Illuminarti- now retraction happens on these critical moves...I have not tried what it does when the entire object is printed this way but at least the first layer seems to work now!

Hi again, Thanks for all the replies, I have uploaded a few pictures to the gallery. Unfortunately I have forgotten how to embed them right in here.... The problem is not the skirt, it is the inner perimeters. The head does a fast travel move to get to the start point of the inner hole and leaves a messy line of pla behind. This empties out the nozzle and so the start point of the inner circle wont stick. The remedy for this would be to either " print" the travel move or to retract - stop and re- prime the nozzle for the next step. I have tried various bed levels, speeds and temperatures but could not get this to work.... can I change some other settings in Cura to get rid of this problem? edit by gr5: added the images (next time click "my media" when you are want to insert the pic):

Hi Daid, thanks for getting back to me..I will try to get some photos but it may take a while since I'm out this afternoon. BTW: you have helped me this summer to get CURA running on my two older machines. I'm happy to report that all your later versions run perfectly on my machines now.

Hi everyone, I lately keep running into problems with larger models that have holes in them. On the first layer, the printer first traces the outer perimeter, then goes to the inside and traces the holes, but without retraction, so I get a lot of messy thin PLA tracks that will either not stick to the bed at all or they will melt and mess up the printhead when the head returns to the second round. On a particular model I have restarted the print for an hour until I got it to do the first layer. I even tried to modify the model to start the holes a couple of tenths after the first layer and then drill them out. I have tried several versions of CURA, even going back to 13.03 with Skeinforge. I think there should be a short stop, retraction, then going in for the inner perimeters of the holes...anyone had the same problem?

I have finally bought Cubify Design. The parametric idea has been taken to great length here and I have found this to be the most important necessity in a CAD program that is supposed to work with the UM. Nothing is more frustrating than having to start a model all over when you can't change the diameter of some holes or the fit of a tube with another one. The shrinkage of the 3d print makes it necessary to adjust some dimensions if the print is supposed to work in a technical context. On larger and more complicated things I start the print and stop it a few layers in. Then I peel off the part and measure it with calipers. I make changes and then go ahead again for the full model. .. Especially good for holes, tubes and the like. Another advantage is that Cubify/Alibre imports a lot of other file formats like Rhino 3dm for freeform objects. The limitation to STL export does not bother me since its just what I need. I can always make another copy of the model in MeshLab and save it in a variety of formats later on. The assembly function is also a great asset.

Is there a way to make gears like the ones in your drawing directly in Alibre? i have not found a way to do this yet. At the moment I use an external gear generator to create a dxf, and then I have to turn this into a 3d model. Takes a lot of time ....

Have a look at cubify design...Alibre design with a new name on it. Cubify Invent was too watered down to be of much use. But the new version has an assembly function and is fully parametric and history based. For us that is very important for tweaking of the design after the first test print. I was completely baffled by the interface at first. But after a few tutorials I am making progress and I think its hard to beat for 150 Euros. The interface still annoys me at times but its getting less in the way.... The stl export works well and it can import files in many formats including Rhino. There is a two week trial available.

Hi Daid, my congratulations to all of you - your company has come a long way without losing its soul. My own thoughts for the future go along these lines: FASTER MORE PRECISION No deformation of finished prints How far can the pla printing process go? what speeds can be reached? How accurate could the prints become? How can holes and openings be improved? The first two items are contradictory of course. The faster you go the more errors will come up. Can there be a way to get unwarped prints with a COLD print bed? I don't like the power consumption of a heated bed too much. I want to experiment with prints on glass plates or other substrates. Finally: What else can be done with the same basic mechanism? would love to be able to cut small parts from plywood with a laser process. Or could the same xyz mechanism be used for scanning? Many of us would like to have these functionalities, but we all have limited workshop space. So adding some kind of multi-functionality to one and the same machine would be cool indeed. All the best Albert

Second that!

Thanks for the hint to test this program! I started reading the thread and at the mention of the prices I went.....again apples hanging too high on the tree....but then I downloaded the free package immediately and started to work with it. This approach uses the same ideas as Autodesks 123 or creo . Those 2 are extremely buggy or crippled down to the point where you cannot use them. DesignSpark/SpaceclaimForDummies orwhatsitscalled is useable for many of our daily needs with the 3d printer. I test a lot of packages to learn more about the different approaches they take tackling basic problems. The basic idea is very clever, putting a lot of intelligence and context based decision making into the program. The program "suggests" things and most of the time these suggestions are correct. The trim function for instance is mostly correct in seeing which parts of a 2d curve you want to remove. sketchup is like a melody played with one finger on a piano, here in DesignSpark you get the full orchestra. (Or well...a jazz combo). As far as I could see the most needed basic functions are there. Using Rhino , I often found myself stuck when I wanted to change something after the first test print. If one does not save each and any little incremental step of the design, there is no way to go back at all, you have to start over. How many times I had to change hole diameters or the size of inserts for nuts because of unpredictable shrinkage in the print? To be able to go back into the model and change it is a great time saver, also if you need to make slightly different versions of the same thing. The STL export function seems to work well enough if you tweak the output resolution to your needs. But there is not much leeway between a model that will be too coarse and one that will be ridiculously heavy and overdetailed. Going back into a finished stl would be great but does not work in this version. As someone has said here if they could make a slightly better version for a few hundred euros or bucks they would get a lot of business from the 3d print community.

Hi Ian, wonderful idea! I also thought along these lines but would prefer to use an old slide projector to hold and transport the slides. If you are like me and have thousands of slides lying around, a way to automate this would be very much needed indeed. The same goes for 8 mm movie to digital conversion. Also Whats needed is a macro lens. And those are expensive. And so Far I have not been able to produce - that is construct in a 3d program-precision threads of large diameter to be able to go onto a filter thread of a lens. If you have a solution for this I would love to see it. There is so much talk about the new ultimaker but will it finally be able to produce precision holes and screw threads? I always have to print parts several times if there is any need for a precise fit. The plastic stuff shrinks, and interior holes have a much smaller diameter than my drawings. This is a real headache with FDM 3d printing.

Do you print directly on the glass? No more hassle with the blue tape would be a REAL improvement. Glue stick? How much power does the machine draw? if you run it a lot, a heated bed can make for quite an electricity bill. Do the two fans cool the top part of the hotend as well as the object? I think having injection molded pieces holding the linear bearings is an improvement on the gantry if there is a way to tension the belts. Bed leveling seems to be simplified too. What is thew processor on board? I have not followed the latest developments of CURA. Is it up to the challenge of running the printer? Is the extruder an improvement? Have some doubts as to the impossibility of advancing the filament by hand....

Can anyone tell us or show us the new extruder for the UM 2? As far as I can see it is driven directly from the stepper motor. Is there a way to turn it manually? I am asking because I believe that many problems with the bowden tube and clogged nozzles come from the fact that people use the automatic "extrude" option and pump too much material into the nozzle when they start the machine. I have always "primed" the mechanism by hand and never had a jam since I started to work with the Ultimaker in March.

Taking up the subject you had before, I use ProBooleans in Max all the time because I love that you can go back and change parameters or move elements after the boolean has executed. I have fewer crashes since I have adopted the strategy to finely subdivide the elements of the boolean. If you subtract a cylinder form a cube to make a hole in it there might be a crash if the cylinder has 12 sides, if I go to 60 sides it works better. A really great program for booleans is RHINO. It uses nurbs curves and therefore does all kinds of booleans much better than a polygon based modeller. Nice chamfers and bevels with varying radiuses are also simple to do. RHINO only makes a polygon model after construction is finished and then it approximates the nurbs surfaces really well without making models that are too heavy.

I have continued to experiment today. Without a primer on the pla you can scratch the acrylic paint off the surface with a fingernail. With the primer it gets slightly better. I have tried thinning acrylics with a tiny amount of white spirit instead of water. This might work but it takes a long time for the paint to finally harden. So I can't say yet if it is a fix to the problem. In this week I will also try oil paints just to see what that will do. It might be necessary to go back to some more classic techniques. Luckily we have a warm and dry weather spell so I can do these tests outdoors.

Puppet head painted with airbrush and acrylics.The paint and sculpting are for the stage, i.e. I need to watch where shadows and highlights will be. In plain daylight this looks a little bland but takes on a life of its own under stage lighting conditions. The Acrylic paint does not stick well to the plastic although the head has been painted with a primer. What kind of solvent based paint could one use here on PLA without dissolving the material? I need something that "bites" slightly into the plastic to make the paint bond better to the surface. The head was cut in half in netfabb and then printed on two different machines.

The isopropyl alcohol works fine but its definitely worth the effort to experiment with different brands of tape. I use a wide paper based tape for objects of small diameter that I want to get off without re doing the bed all the time. Sometimes I even use one kind of tape on top of another or I apply them crossed over each other. You have to make slight adjustments to bed height for different tapes. I usually do this on the fly.

Have been thinking along these lines too. A cheap source for a silent compressor is an old refrigerator. I have used that for powering an airbrush for a long time. One can use any pressurable container such as an old gas bottle or even a football as a vessel to get the pulsing out of the air stream. Then use a silicon aquarium type tube to get the air where you want it. The luxury version will include a valve and a water separator to avoid getting droplets of condensed water on the model. I have also used this to cool a frame of film in the projector gate for single frame work. Some old compressors from the junk pile can be made to run again if one fills in a small amount of oil into the air intake.

I have had only a few hours with the new Cura, and the speed is really mindblowing. As you mentioned, there are a few "ifs" and I think these will be ironed out and then this thing is going to rock. I think the integration of the project planner / multiple model arranger into the main surface is a good idea. And the models are done one after the other- a good way to get rid of the stringing and blobbing when the printhead moves back and forth between models. But as far as I could see the arrangement can cause the print head to collide with a previously finished model. Or am I wrong here? I have only simulated this in the preview, not on the machine yet.

I have tried to shell the object, creating a second inner hull. This serves to hold the outer layer . You can then print with low infill.

I have found this website with mostly really disastrous insider reviews of the company. The current management seems to be completely incapable of running a company that has expanded to this size. Ultimaker, keep to "small is beautiful"!! The sale might be their only way out. So many disgruntled employees...I must admit that the public appearances of Mr Bre Pettis gave me the impression of an "overcooked ham" to employ a word from the acting profession. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Makerbot-Reviews-E480203.htm

Makerbot and Thingiverse have been sold to Stratasys. For half a billion dollars. Comments welcome

I think its an interesting discussion here. Snowy is correct of course. But think about the size of the company and the state of development they are in. To me it boils down to the kind of company that Ultimaker wants to be. They can go the Makerbot road, professionalize their machine, (at least optically) close down the software and put themselves in the hands of big capital investors. These guys wont give them a dime if they dont get rid of the "pioneer spirit". I 'd rather see slower development of the machine but sticking to the open source theme. I guess the step from "a couple guys in a shed" to a professional company is the most difficult thing. They seem to have come thru this without being broke or being squeezed out of business or being reduced to doormen in their own company. This is an achievement in itself. Possibly they should split the ultimaker product line into a PLA and an ABS machine. A universal machine is always a compromise. I had not thought I would ever long for ABS printing, but a recent test (we have a heat wave here at the moment) has shown me that the darker varieties of PLA will even melt and deform being outside in sunlight. Not talking about the hot car! Dual extrusion is not on my priority list since it will always come with print times being too long. Your printhead will get heavier, and you need time to switch between the two hot ends.What is great about the UM is the compromise between quality and speed, and in this respect I think it is indeed unique on the amateur market at the moment. So a lot of the improvements would be nice to have, but I think at the moment they should consolidate their company, improve the existing product if it does not cost them control of the company and sell as many of the classic machines as possible. I'm sure some sort of UM 2 is in the works anyway. Albert