jonnybischof

So... It seems in Cura 14.01 there has been a lot of improvement done with brim. Small holes don't get brim anymore, and medium holes don't get closed all the way by the brim anymore. I like that very much, good work Daid! However... (darn :??? I frequently have problems with small holes (typically M3 holes for screws) on the bottom layer. The small circles usually don't stick well and get dragged around, messing up the entire first layer (and rendering the part useless or at least ugly in the process). I'm currently working around that by not drawing these holes all the way through the part, but leaving 0.1mm of material on the bottom. This makes the bottom flat and gets me a clean first layer. The holes then start on the seond layer where they print fine. The workaround has some annoying parts to it however: For one, it means that I always have to use the same first layer height. If I ever choose to make my first layers thinner, I'll have to redesign every single hole in all of my parts... And then there is the thing that if I do that with a design that I publish on YM, then I have to explain about that and everyone else will also have to use the same first layer height (or have stronger material to cut away when post-processing the part). So, I want to propose another feature for Cura: Make it possible to ignore all inside "islands" on the first layer, so that it will always print a clean and simple first layer and start with the inside structures on the second layer. Cutting that away afterwards is no problem, and the first layer looks much better because there aren't strings everywhere. Maybe make it like that: "Print inside structures on bottom layer only if larger than: XX mm2". Default: 0 -> will always print everything. So, no change unless someone wants it. That would pretty much solve every issue with the first layer! /edit: Some images to illustrate what I mean: First layer is clean. Easy to print without any issues. Second layer starts the inside strutures. These print nicely and without problems on top of the first layer. Post processing is easy as there is only one layer that needs to be cut away. The result is still far better than normal. Note that some filaments melt up very well on a HBP and that all the mess won't be visible anymore. But that is not always the case! Especially with my good, preferred PLA filament it is definetly NOT the case.

Still pretty good for a non-ideal-for-3D-printing model

Na, das sind Mal tolle Neuigkeiten... Ich würde direkt bei Ultimaking bestellen - die liefern ja weltweit. Wer sich mit der Idee anfreunden kann, einen 3D Drucker nach Anleitung selber zu bauen, ist nach wie vor mit dem Original Kit sehr gut bedient. Habe bereits mein zweites bestellt, wurde innerhalb einer Woche nach Bestellungseingang geliefert. In die Schweiz, mit Zoll und allen Feinigkeiten...

Lol that's nice to know Thanks Daid, will try that right now..

Good to hear they came some way from the Original Ultimaker - which is basically a hobbyist project. Works really well, but the electronics design is... well... hobbyist style If I remember correctly, we fixed our problems by measuring the PT100 with PWM at considerably higher current than rated - but only for a short time. That neglected the error. But this was done with a ridiculously expensive industrial heater controller (made by the Swiss company Indel), guess they know what they're doing..

Thanks for the info. I guess I won't change any of the bearings - the Ultimaker stuff seems very appropriate. Atm I fancy LTBC coated shafts (black matte chrome finish) from Misumi. I know, that's a friggin waste of money, but it would look gorgeous!! If I switch to tolerance f8, then the material and coating choices change (C45E as suggested earlier). So I suppose that's a completely different product. Also, the price is about 3 to 4 times lower for f8 compared to h5 / g6. In fact, only the g6 shafts can be ordered with LTBC. h5 is the same material, but can only be hard chrome coated. I suppose I will try out g6 with LTBC. We'll see if it's worth the money (even if only for the style factor...). A full set of shafts should top out at about 150 EUR. That's definetly too much to make it a "standard recommendation". So, considering I have two Ultimakers anyways, I'll just order one set of the expensive ones, and one set of the f8 stuff (which will come out somewhere at 50 Euros or maybe less). Then I can compare directly. I received news from Hertsch.ch. They can't make any statements concerning the straightness of the rods - apparently no one wants to do that... Also, they can't chamfer the shafts which is one thing that I want. I cut myself while installing the rods for the first time. Not Ian's kind of bloodbath, but it still hurt Why would I care if there is a difference of 0.001mm in diameter??? I only care if there is a wobble of 0.1mm or even more because that's something which will introduce a measurable error in the print result. As for a reference surface: We don't have a stone kitchen counter anymore, and my dad would kill me if I used a mirror. Guess I'll just have to use my brand new work bench desk top... But honestly, if a "precision linear shaft - straigt" from a professional supplier like Misumi is not good enough - then what is? /edit: Orders are out - I expect it'll take until the end of february for everything to arrive...

I'd try lowering your temperatures. Try 60°C for the bed. You may have to stick with 225°C for the first layer in order to get it to stick, but immediately after the first layer is done, lower the temperature to about 190°C (depends on filament quality! UM blue doesn't seem to like going lower than 200°C, but that should already work). Then, you have to play with the fan speeds. I can't say much because I don't have a UM2, but you can make a comparison yourself... The cures would also look a lot better if you used smaller layer height. For example, if you youse 0.05mm layer height instead of 0.2, you will have a four times better resolution. You can even go 0.025mm layer height, but then the print takes ages to complete. I was also going to mention flipping the part & adding support, because you want the visible faces to be as clean as possible. The inner faces are not so important because they'll be covered by the phone. /edit: Either I'm too slow or you guys are too fast By the way: You can try lowering the bed temperature even as low as 50°C. But then you have to watch the print carefully - it might warp more than with 60°C. -> The lower the bed temperature, the better the cooling. Your bed keeps the whole part at bed temperature, which means it's always going to be soft during the entire print.

Definetly Sketchup! Go for Version 8 (free), not the new 2013 (some weird shareware with different versions, I didn't really get it..) I've been using it for about half a year now. You need only a few minutes to get the basics. Then, you can watch some adanced tutorials (many of them are integrated into the program) and get better with it. You'll need to hack in an STL exporter plugin, but that's just drag & drop. I think I'm using this one: http://www.guitar-list.com/download-software/convert-sketchup-skp-files-dxf-or-stl Very simple... There are some quirks that you'll need to know in order to make clean models with Sketchup 8. Just always view your models with "X-Ray view" in Cura, and you'll see where the problems are. Sketchup sometimes makes 2 (or more) planes on top of each other, you'll just have to delete one of them. But it's easier to just see for yourself in X-ray, it took me only a few minutes. You could of course just use the "fix horrible" settings in Cura, but I prefer to have clean models (and I always uncheck all the "fix horrible" settings).

Wow, that's cool I always wondered why they didn't use PT100s because it's actually one of the sensors that is usable over a pretty large temperature range and give good results. However, a PT100 can be susceptible to noise, too, if not designed properly. Had to fiddle with that kind of stuff before (soft solder die bonder machine, had lots of temperature sensors on it ). But they also had a little bit bigger motors on that machine, so there was more noise around than on an Ultimaker...

I can confirm that. The rather hard "Raven Super Premium PLA" from qu-bd (anyone wonders who bought all of the spools they had in stock - I'm totally innocent) was the first and until now only filament that ground up badly when I did too many retractions. One side note on that: Don't forget that a thinner initial layer also makes your brim thinner which makes it easier for larger parts to warp. I only print with 0.3mm initial layer thickness, otherwise all of my prints would warp.

Don't put in zeroes. If I remember correctly, that causes major problems. Think about how retraction works, respectively what it is used for: If the printhead has to "travel", meaning switch it's position quickly from one point to another, without printing in between, then it can do that by either just moving fast and stopping the extruder. That will cause some oozing and make a thin strain along the travel path. The other possibility is to retract the filament for the travelling distance and then "reinsert" it again. That usually gets rid of the oozing. Now, if you specify "0" as the travel distance where the printer should start retracting, then it may retract even if there is no travel at all (because "0" is no travel at all). One important thing about retraction is, that every time you retract, you apply extra stress on the filament where it is going through the knurled bolt (in the extruder drive). Depending on the hardness of your filament and the spring tension of the extruder drive, the knurled bolt may grind the filament and fail to push it further. That will lead to a failed print. So, usually, you don't want to have too many retractions but only retract where it makes sense. One thing is minimum travel (expert settings). It usually doesn't make sense to retract for just a very small travel distance but only the longer bits. That depends on what you're trying to acheive - play with this setting and you'll see how it changes the result. There are many suitable test models for that purpose. The "minimal extrusion before retracting" (expert settings) is necessary only if you have the problem that the knurled bolt grinds your filament too much. Usually, it is set to a very small value (*), but if you set it for example to "1", there will only be one retraction for every 1 mm of filament going through the knurled bolt. Note that 1 mm extrusion is not the same as 1 mm of printhead movement! The advanced settings tab also has something about retraction. I never played with this before, but the retraction distance is also an important thing: if you lower that value, you make the retraction less effective, but also less stressful for the filament. You can fine-tune that, lowering the value more and more as long as the retraction still works well (no oozing while travelling with retraction). This is a lot or work however - and it depends on the type of filament you're using, as well as printing speed and temperature. You change any of these - you'll have to redo the fine-tuning. I always stuck with the standard settings so far - it always worked fine enough for me. (*) For some reason, this is set to 0.02 and not 0, even though that doesn't make any physical difference. Maybe setting it to 0 causes bugs (division by 0 maybe?). So, I'd leave it at 0.02 or increase it if necessary.

Consider one more thing for the Form1: 1 Liter of resin costs 149$. That's a LOT more than ABS or PLA filament. The Ultimaker surpasses the resolution of the Form1. But I guess you can't just compare the two printers by resolution - the Form1 probably has some major advantages being an SL printer. I agree that the UM2 is 100% worth the cost. It's more like a "do you prefer to build the printer yourself or not" thingy. /edit: Oh, and don't underestimate the build volume. I've already run into trouble that my build space was too small even with the Ultimaker. If it were even smaller, it would totally ruin the thing for me... Yay!! Have to admit though, I've never been to the Street Parade. Can't stand that kind of music o.O

Note that there are no PT100 sensors in the printhead. It's either a Thermocouple like they used on the UM1, or an NTC. You have to know the part number to know what temperature range it is specified for.

Theoretically, it's no problem. You just have to replace all of the parts which can't go over 260° with parts that can. This might include just about every part except for the aluminum block, nozzle and brass pipe. I don't know the temperature sensor and heater cartridge specifications, but I guess they are not made for much higher temperatures. I think usually, no one bothers because for plastic you don't need to go higher than 260°C. But there should be suitable materials for your needs. However, I don't think that you'll find direct replacement parts - you'll have to make them yourself. That may be a bit of a problem... /edit: Oh, and there's also the matter of heat transfer / insulation. The materials surrounding the printhead must not get too hot, so you can't just go 500°C and expect the printhead to be as cool as with 250°C on it's "cold" side. There you may run into more trouble than just finding higher-temp materials... This is a question of printhead geometry / layout. I think you'd be better off with an Original Ultimaker - it's easier to create a custom printhead (which is what you're probably going for...) for the UM1.

They (imakr) even supply Faberdashery PLA which is awesome!! /edit: On the "which printer to choose" side: I am very happy with the Original Ultimaker that I own. You can get amazing printing quality with that machine (z-resolution goes down to 20 micrometers (*), and x-y is very precise even when inspecting with a microscope) and it has proven to be very reliable. Next, you get Cura with the Ultimaker which works like a charm and is very intuitive to use. You can use Cura with other printers, but with an Ultimaker you don't have to configure any printer related data (like build size, printhead properties and what-not). Just click and print. Now with the Ultimaker 2 you get an even better printer which already has everything built-in that you'll (most likely) ever need. If you are a tinkerer and like to put stuff together, improve on it, and play with it, then you should get yourself an Original Ultimaker kit. With the kit, you'll learn much about the printer while you're assemblying it. But if you're not into that - go get an UM2. But you shouldn't forget that a 3D printer (no matter which one) is a pretty complex machine. It's well possible that you might have to adjust one or another screw, tighten some belts or align something from time to time. Maybe print out one or another little tingy to improve that little detail over there... stuff like that. But there is usually no rocket science involved, and the good people here are always willing to help troubleshooting. So, expect that you may run into minor troubles - but nothing you can't solve easily enough. (*) Sander recently showed a part printed at 20 microns resolution in the "post your latest print" thread. I've only gone down to 30 microns so far - but that is already breathtaking

I don't get it... Can you make photos showing which device has which connectors / cables? From what you wrote so far, it seems to me like: The projector has 2 sockets (1x 2pin and 1x 4pin). The transformer has only one socket (4pin). If that's true, then my guess (this is nothing more than a guess into the blue!!!) for some reason they didn't want to integrate the transformer into the projector (maybe there's EMI, or cooling issues, or it was simply a size matter). But for whatever reason they sticked to "plug the mains power cord into the projector" and then connect the transformer to the projector with a single, 4 wire cable. That would be pretty stupid though. I think I'm wrong with that guess... Moar pics please /edit: I suppose you didn't get the manual with the projector?

It's a little bit easier that way

The Basalt bed is definetly not "bad". Yesterday I did a print with Faberdashery PLA. It sticked like crazy. No glue or anything, just on the bare bed at 70°C. It only came off after the bed had cooled down below 39°C. The other materials I used came off much earlier, including the Ultimaker blue filament. I'll be able to make direct comparisons to the MK3 HBP soon, we'll see what happens... Thermal simulations sounds really good! Few people have access (and skill) to do this, it would be very helpful!

There's the possibility to (ab)use an idler pulley bearing: You could mount one in a way that it scretches the timing belt, though there's probably very little space. I don't know the UM2 in detail, you can probably see better whether that would work or not. Idler pulley bearings come in various sizes, maybe you can just put a small one in the middle between the pulleys, and then slide it out of center so that the timing belt will form a triangle. Then you could go all engineery and mount the idler pulley with a spring, controlling the belt tension nicely

I'm doing a print with glowbug yellow (it glows so much it hurts the eyes o.O) at 210°C. Works perfectly well... I don't think the problem is with your z-endswitch. Much rather the platform itself, it's pretty wobbly and if you push it too hard, it may shift. Actually you shouldn't push on it too hard, that's not good for the poor thing (It's getting friday evening again - I should stop writing)

This is indeed music to my ears Daid! Sounds really promising Ethernet is an extremely computation-heavy protocol. But you can just use an Ethernet-controller IC that interfaces to the MCU, sorting out all the overhead and security stuff and just providing a clean UART datastream to the MCU. Or so, that was the plan We're planning just that with a Cortex M3 MCU, but the priority on that dropped so atm I'm doing something else..

The 2013 NSX concept rocks Please make that one printable!

Well here's another one of my rather petty prints... Still I wanted to share it because I'm pretty proud of my printer right now Sander showed a 20 microns print earlier, so I wanted to check that out for myself. I opted for 30 microns because the print would have taken ridiculously long if I had gone even further down. Note that this is a standard Original Ultimaker, except that it has a HBP. But everything else is 100% vanilla UM1. It's only a small part, 42x18x4mm, but this one took 2 hours of printing already... I was primarily interested in how the chamfers would look, and I was not disappointed The 1x1mm chamfer on the pics consists of 32 layers, each recessed by 1/32th of a mm. For the naked eye, it looks pretty much perfect - it has a very slightly rough texture, but it looks like it was injection molded. Under the microscope you can see that even the x-y accuracy is pretty good. There are a few irregularities (jeez we're down to 0.01 mm perceivable resolution), but all in all the layers are pretty well placed. Also, I kinda have the impression that this part is stronger than it would be with 0.2mm layer height, not unlike Damascus steel which is layered dozens of times - I will definetly look into that theory when I have time. The parts are "weaved" together with the 45° infill layers (solid). Most fabrics become stronger with a tighter weaving, so why shouldn't this be noticeable here, too? But it's really difficult to say - this part is too small to tell. I'll make some test parts when I get to it. Next up: I'm drying gluestick on the HBP right now - need to make a part that covers about 90% of the build space...

I doubt that the serial number is electronically stored in the machine - that would for one require a memory location which is not overwritten with a firmware update (I don't think Arduino can do that). And it would mean that they have to program the serial number into the machine individually - a lot of work considering you don't actually do anything with the serial number (for now). The UM1 kits just come with a sticker that has the serial number on it. I guess that's it.

By now I'm not really satisfied with my Basalt bed. The parts always warp off the platform (ABS very badly, PLA just enough to ruin my high precision prints). The temperature is also not equal across the whole bed, but the maximum deviation is usually below 10K for me. I used RTV106 silicone glue to glue the heater to the Basalt bed. I think that works pretty well and a heatspreader wouldn't make any difference. Imho the reason for the uneven heat distribution is the stone itself - the Basalt bed is massive in volume, and the "petty" 180W heater just can't heat it up before it's already cooled down on top, especially if the fan is running. It also makes a huge difference whether you have the bed heated to 50°C or 100°C: 50°C heats up very quickly (about as fast as the nozzle heats up to 220°C) and the surface temperature evens out pretty well after 5-10 minutes. But for 100°C it takes 10-15 minutes to even reach target temperature, and there are bigger drops from center to the corners of the surface. Also, it takes AGES for the Basalt bed to cool down. From 100°C to 25°C takes much more than an hour. This is especially bad if you want to change the bed temperature during the print - it takes extremely long to adjust even for just 5-10K downwards. I have ordered some MK3 aluminum heaters, they seem more promising to me than the Basalt bed. Atm I'm running a 30 microns print, even though it's almost 10pm (I'm still at work) I just can't leave that one, must see how it turns out