benny

After just 3 weeks, my hot end failed badly. The heater block threads ruined in seconds and the peek and temp sensor are damaged. The metal sheeth for the sensor frayed to bits. I ordered new parts Saturday but so far have had no reply to my urgent questions. I am totaly stuck without the spare parts. I ordered with express delivery and all parts were in stock..Im quite put out that the hotend failed so quickly and I had to order new parts... Also I couldnt buy a new temp sensor as it is not in the shop. So where on earth do I get a new one..? I have looked everywhere on the net but no luck.. My Order: # 100009672

These pics are of course not my work, just testing the printer and climbing the vertical learning curve that is 3d printing..I will post some pics of my models, and later when ready I will show some printed versions.. Just tried one of my characters I made for HL2 about 10 years ago but it dosent like the printer.. Lots of editing on most of my meshes me thinks... Managed about 8 great downloaded prints today.. Stay Tuned..!

What would you guys recommend for printing upgraded parts for my UM. Which ones of the many available would really benefit me using my UM almost 24/7? I have a ton of models I have produced over the years as a 3d artist, so I will be printing non stop pretty much, and dont want the stress of having a broken printer. I am going to order a new hot end & bits an bobs, possibly an extra motor, and pulleys etc.. But what could I print that would make the UM do an even better job..? Any thoughts.?

Thanks illuminarti, got the feeder sorted out. It was a simple case of not pushing it firmly enough against the knurled bolt for grabbing the filament. retraction works fine now also. Here are a few first prints I have done. Still working on fine tuning the UM but so far I am very happy I can now create all my 3d work I have done over the last 20 years or so into real models.. Very exciting..

Ok, here are some pics of the problem I am having. Everytime it is the same. The extruder stops after a few layers for some reason. What can you tell from the failed prints here. Is it called under extrusion. Still very new to this so please forgive the ignorance.. :-P

I also just noticed that I was sent the old Extruder drive kit and not the new V2..Does the new one improve the old one a lot..?

Im trying just the robot and the 20mm test cube to setup my printer. My first print was the robot guy that started really well and got as high as 3/4 cm before this problem arose. All prints so far have had exactly the same result, as in extruder is no longer putting out new layer after a few mins. Im using the UC mainly and preheat the pla to 220 wait for a string to come out then load the gcode from the sd card. As for other the settings I havent touched anything exept flow which I dialed up to 110, but it had no effect. Im pretty sure its something silly I have missed, but the printer seems to work ok. No problems there. Just this lack of extrusion after a few mins or so over each print..

I have my diy build UM working so far. Prints seem to start ok and the first few layers are good, but every single print so far fails after a few minutes because the feeder mechanism at the back stops feeding in but rather starts to briefly spin backwards and continues forwards a bit and repeats this foward/backward behavior. This stops new filament going up the bowden tube resulting in a failed print due to lack of pla. I have marked on the filament in black ink just below the wood gear to visualy see the filament being pulled it. It starts the print ok but then this strange spinning backwards starts to occur for about quarter of a second then resumes forward.. Can anybody suggest what might be causing this.? The gripping bolt has a good solid grab on the filament as far as I can see but why would the UM suddenly turn the wood gear backwards even for a quarter of a second.? Pulling me hair out with this... :???: