jonnybischof

A little update here: The shafts from Misumi arrived. BOY ARE THEY AWESOME!!! The LTBC coating is some kind of dark grey / anthracite, and very matte (but perfectly polished which sounds kinda strange...). Almost looks like plastic. The shafts are perfectly straight: I put two of them together, held them towards a light and turned them. Not even a slight bit of light passes by between the shafts... Also, the bronze bushings and linear bearings fit ridiculously well - there's almost no play at all, but they still move fine. Made in Japan - that's quality to be proud of, period. I guess that was money well spent ^^ Technically, I could have left the LTBC away, but it's going to look gorgeous It's probably going to take a while until I can start building the UM black edition because I'm still busy designing my test adapter for work which has #1 priority... (Just hope I'll be able to finish it before the launch of TES online o.O)

A couple of WEEKS??? What were you thinking, leaving us here all alone with people like Ian o.O Now you see what came out of it... No, seriously.. I love you guys (especially for being simple and modest all the time)! Best forum ever

The type of filament and settings used are probably making your problem. I noticed that fine-tuning is much more important than it seems. Also, I noticed that depending on the type of filament I use, there can be quite some difference in the resulting print. For example, holes for M3 screws can vary a lot in diameter between various filaments. I guess the flow parameter is one of the most important things here, because if you have a slight underextrusion, your lines will be thinner (or thicker with overextrusion) than they should be - making holes slightly smaller or bigger. That should translate 1:1 to the hinges... You could try to simply decrease your flow (not flow rate!) a little, maybe 5 to 10%, and see if it helps.

Ok, you're talking of connectors snapping off. I had the issue that the cable actually broke (slack joint) which is not surprising because the cable moves all the time. It would be a good idea to use a cable which is actually made for being flexed: high flex cable. I know, these cost about 5 times more than standard cables. But for a flexing cabling, you should use highly flexible cables (makes sense, no?). I will switch out the cable myself, as I don't need most of the wires in the standard cable anyways and can save some weight there. /edit: Maybe, instead of using a hflex cable, it would already suffice to improve the strain relief and make it very rigid so that the parts where the sleeve is cut off can't flex at all. I believe this is where the slack joint is located, but I'm not sure. I'll add that to my list for the "UM black edition".

You're right. Sorry I wasn't clear on that...

Hi community I've just discovered an awful bug that ruined several prints and part of my hotend: If the thermocouple sensor is disconnected while the UM is running, then there is no error. The temperature reading just remains at it's last value. If you ask "why the heck would you disconnect the sensor?!?": Disconnecting is what I did to simulate a broken wire (I suspected that would be the culprit, and I was right...). So, my wire that runs in parallel to the Bowden tube is broken (aka slack joint). It has connection most of the time, but in a very certain position the connection breaks, and the friggin' temperature reading just freezes o.O. Of course this happened while the heater was ON, meaning the heater was just kept on heating and heating until God knows what temperature and the printer didn't realize it because of the broken wire. And I wondered why the thing started smoking and clogging up the nozzle all the time... I left the printer running with the wire disconnected while I wrote this. It still shows 67°C. This is so unacceptable it hurts. THIS CAN'T BE, DAMMIT! This is a safety relevant feature, THERE HAS TO BE AN ERROR MESSAGE and of course the heater needs to be switched off if there is no temperature reading. Who programmed this sh!-- ? That is so basic, I still can't believe it... Where does this have to be reported to be fixed ASAP? I'm using a custom firmware from Ginge's Marlinbuilder, build date december 20, 2013. I have the hex file around. /edit: After 10 more minutes the temperature now reads 70°C even though there was no sensor wire connected... /edit: Recreated the error multiple times now. It definetly does behave the way I described...

Very nice design! Did you also rotate the feeder mechanism by 90°? I was looking to do that too because my printer will be placed on a very thin shelf soon...

Do you mean the radius of the spool or the actual radius (diameter) of the filament? What kind of filament are you using? I noticed there can be HUGE differences between crappy filament and high quality filament... Actually, the filament seems to be the most important variable of the "how-good-will my-print-quality-be" equation.

You've got a point here... I'll go for direct drive so I won't have to worry. But if someone doesn't, the printed "heated chamber" could be good option. I've only started with the top hinge yet. My approach is very simple: Integrate the hinge into the cover for the linear shaft. I just made that cover a little bit longer and added a hinge to it. But maybe we should make another thread for that

Seems like there were major problems with that print though Making a "real" heated chamber will waste no material at all... With the printer in the picture it would be a big deal making a chamber for it because there doesn't seem to be much of a frame. But the Ultimaker with it's frame is very easy to upgrade... I'm working on a design for a front side door, but that's going to take a while because my to do list is getting longer and longer...

Should work just fine, it's even tested for that application according to the seller. Looking at it, I might acutally get some of those myself Generally (if you were looking at another converter), you just have to watch out that you have enough "Dropout" voltage: Buck converters usually need to convert from a higher input voltage to a lower output voltage, and there's a minimum voltage drop, which would be something between 1 to 3 V. Always depends on the converter. In our case we have 24V - 19V = 5V drop. So you need to look for a converter that can operate with a voltage drop of 5V or less. If that information is not given, look for another product... You could probably not do 22V output at 24V input. Depends on the module.

Standard (expert) settings for Skirt are: Line count: 1 Start distance (mm): 3.0 Minimal length (mm): 150 That means it will make at least 1 line around the model. If that results in more than 150mm length, then the skirt is done. If it's less than 150 mm, it will make more skirt lines until the total length reaches 150mm. I like that, because that way it doesn't make a difference whether if you're printing a large or small model. I changed the minimal length setting to 300mm which, until now, has always been enough to compensate for the delayed extrusion. But I haven't been using Skirt for a long time now - brim is usually the best choice. Never used a raft either. With brim, you'll just get about 1-2 lines less (...because extrusion doesn't start instantly), but that doesn't make much of a difference... Sometimes I also start a print, let it run until the extrusion is good, then stop, quickly clean the build plate, and restart. But that's not really necessary, I'm just over-cautious /edit: That's of course assuming you are using Cura and not another slicing software

Got two bowden tubes laying around atm: One which was purchased in August 2013, and one just recently. They both have about 3.2mm ID (somewhere between 3.15 and 3.3, it's very flexible material...) Note that one end of the bowden tube is widened slightly (actually, to about 4mm ID) to make a better fitting for the entering filament. That's why the tube is marked with blue tape... But that's only for a few millimeters, the rest of the tube has the 3.16mm nominal ID Sander described. You can see that if you look closely.

Ultimaker uses Perspex PMMA (acrylic) which is of very good quality. I think that's actually a US-made brand (Spandex), so you should find that easily. If you want to cut your plate to shape with a mill or saw, you should get a good quality, cast acrylic. The cheap stuff you sometimes find in DIY shops (like 50% the price of a brand product) will melt away under your saw / mill if you're not very careful. Don't know about lasercutting, maybe it doesn't matter there...

Make sure you get the maiden flight with hydrogen on video - That's gonna be one to remember Btw, you spelled Jamaican wrong (I know, I'm evil).

The first model is awesome!!

Using a DC/DC converter like you describe would work fine. But it's probably more intelligent to actually supply the UM electronics with 24V and deal with the consequences: - The hotend will be supplied with 24V instead of 19V. That will make it heat up more quickly. It shouldn't have any problem with that because it's actually made for 24V if I'm not mistaken (I doubt that 19V heater cartridges even exist). But maybe the temperature control (PID settings) will need to be adjusted a little in order to handle the new circumstances. I don't know - never tried it. Again, that's no big deal, you can change the PID settings by making a custom firmware (e.g. with the marlinbuilder forn robotfuzz). - You'll need to replace the 7812 linear regulator, ideally replace it with a DC/DC switching regulator. You won't need a 150W switcher because you don't need to convert the main power hungry part of the UM anymore (the hotend). I suppose a 50W regulator will still have a lot of headroom because the 7812 could never sink that much power. I guess there's only the fans and the electronics board left that run from 12V. I'm not sure about the steppers, but I sure hope they're supplied from 19V and not 12V. I think that's actually everything.. Afaik some people here in the forum have already done this mod.

It's a shame they don't make them for 3mm filament anymore... I suppose there's no news regarding that matter? No more 3mm Ubis hotends? :-|

Please keep us posted! I'm too busy atm creating a needle test adapter for our latest product. So besides myself, my printer is also busy :( But I want to join in asap creating a better cooling solution.

I'd lower the speed to 40 or 50 mm/s. It usually helps with the quality. I only do "let's have a look if this works at all" prints at higher speeds than 50 mm/s. If it has to be good, I go 50 mm/s. Not that it couldn't print faster, but you just get the very best results if you print slower. Usually. This is probably not applicable for all situations...

There knurled bolt actually leaves pretty deep tracks on the PLA. For now it printed well again (did a 26 hour print over the weekend which came out awesome as usual). It seems there was a partial nozzle blockage that increased pressure and led to the grinding. My filament spool was empty just the next print, and when I tried to shove in the new filament I had to push really hard until it kinda blew out the blockage. Maybe not the best way to solve that - but now it works fine again There was even some leakage through the brass thread which had never happened before. Guess I applied a "little bit" too much pressure... I'll do a service on the printhead after I finished my second UM build (might take a while, I'm very busy atm) - I'll put in some upgrades anyways.

Of course you could "profit" (just so I don't have to use the word "steal") from others doing all the research and engineering to create a machine and just replicate it (aka fake it) at much lower costs, while the original designers still have to get back all the money they spent on their research & development. That's the beauty of the machine. There are no uber-specialized parts, it's all pretty simple in the end. But that just means there was very good engineering involved because they could also have done that in a much more complicated way. You have to decide yourself if you want to honor that work by buying an Ultimaker or just replicate it yourself.

The few test prints I've made with faberdashery PLA have sticked to the glass (Basalt to be exact) plate at 60°C very well. Actually, much better than any other material I've tried before. No gluestick or anything else used. So you definetly can't go wrong with faberdashery PLA.

I have never really looked into the raft feature. From what pitures I've seen, I remember raft as some ugly and wide net printed under the actual part. Tried it in Cura quickly (don't have much time - I'm just on a quick break) and I actually almost got the result I wanted. It's just a pity that you can't seem to combine it with a brim (which is necessary too or the part will warp). The problem seems to be that the raft consists of two layers. Setting one layer height to 0 removes the extra margin (brim). I'll have a large disc grinder soon, maybe I'll do tests with regular rafts that I can just grind away afterwards... I would still appreciate the feature as I suggested above - using a raft seems more like a workaround than a real solution to me, even if you can configure it to do just the same thing it is not really intuitive. Also, if it is independent of any platform adhesion type, then you can easily switch between using or not using brim, but still having no trouble with internal structures. @gr5: I do have a little issue with levelling atm: one corner is just a little bit too low (maybe 0.5mm or less) and can't be any higher. I'd have to add a washer, but I'm going to redesign the entire z-stage soon, and I don't usually have problems. The rest is levelled pretty good, you can see it very well with a polished glass (or stone in my case) plate. /edit2: I've printed multiple small and large parts using my workaround so far, and they all came out very good. I had a tiny bit of warped corners here and there, but only like a few mm2 areas and less than 1mm high...

Hi community I know this has been disussed before, but I've had problems with the material feeder recently so I decided to bring it up again. The problem is that atm my material feeder always starts grinding up the filament at some point of the print (very annoying because I've got a time scale for the stuff I'm printing right now...). In the assembly instructions (http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Ultimaker_rev.4_assembly:_Material_feed_mechanism) it says clearly that you have to use a 30 mm long screw for mounting the spring. It also says that in the end, the spring should stick out about 11 mm. THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE. Take a look at that picture: It's not 100% snug on the picture, but that's because I couldn't hold the parts together and take the pic at the same time (I measured that with snug fit, using precision calipers). If the 30mm long screw is screwed in all the way, then it still sticks out about 15 mm from the part. 11mm IS NOT POSSIBLE if you follow the instructions. Now, in order to get to 11mm, you need to use a 25mm screw, or use multiple washers. But then, the spring is extremely tense. I can hardly push in the black wheel when pushing the assembly down on the table! So, how much tension is needed? If you use that creamy, soft PLA stuff (like the UM blue or PLA90) you will never have problems with grinding. But with the PLA I'm printing right now (as well as with ABS which "feels" pretty much the same) it just doesn't work that easily. I'll try adding a few washers to increase tension a bit, but if it doesn't work I'll probably break something :mad: /edit: Just noticed that if you measure with filament inserted, then you can gain 3 mm. (if the black wheel is pushed all the way back instead of how it is in the picture). Then add the washer and you get to 11.5mm. Okay, so I suppose that's what the 11 mm means? *Maybe* it would be nice to correct that because at the point you measure these 11 mm, you don't have 11 mm because you're still holding the assembly in your hand and don't have the fully assembled printer with filament inserted yet o.O... But anyways I still have the problem that it keeps grinding up my filament. I print at 220°C with 50mm/s, that should definetly not be an overpressure issue. I will add a second washer and see if that improves anything... Also, on a side note: I noticed there's some support from the injection molding, see pictures: I've left this support as it is. Do you have to remove that thing? It doesn't say so... It might be grinding the little black wheel slightly when under pressure, but I'm not sure.