Dim3nsioneer

My impression was that it's quite important how you embed the linear bearing into the wooden panels. Mine do actually have so few play that I had the problem of a sticking z stage because the two z rods very not perfectly parallel. Looks as if tolerance variation is quite large...

I haven't tested the ball clamping screws yet. I'll keep you informed.

As you realised the extrusion of the filament is not the problem. Rather problematic is the cleanliness of the raw material. If you shredder your prints and produce new filament from this granulate you incorporate a lot of dirt which makes the filament bad. In professional plastic manufacturing, pieces are shredded, washed and then admixted to new material.

The four weights are 220g each.

There goes today's concentration... Happy Friday you too.

@drayson: As we already are a bit off-topic: In (newer) Marlin, there is the possibility to define the filament diameter by an http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code#M200_-_Set_filament_diameter_.2F_Get_Endstop_Status per extruder (e.g. in the start.gcode). This makes it necessary that the GCODE contains volumetric extrusion information. With Cura, you have two possibilities: either you use the new flavour 'RepRap (Volumetric)' which Daid has implemented in Cura some days ago and which will be in the next version or you set the diameter to 1.128mm which results in the same E-numbers.

Nicht unbedingt: http://shop.madesolid.com/products/madesolid-strong-filament-1-75mm-1-lbs

Looks like combing is enabled. You may disable it in the expert settings of Cura.

Hot candidates are the heated bed and the UM2 electronics for the UM1 and the dual extruder for the UM2, I guess. edit: it seems to be the first one after having a look at the Ultimaker Marlin repository.

Interesting question. I would not see it as a problem as long as it is not on the verge of tipping. From a vibrational point of view the weight asymmetry might even be an advantage as symmetrical systems have a much higher tendency to oscillate. No, it doesn't. I even have more weight on the z stage as I have a heated bed with a basalt slab. The friction between z nut and the threaded rod might be a bit higher but the z motor should be more than strong enough for it.

I agree on making the frame heavier would be a good thing. But my present approach is rather to decouple vibrations from the frame as far as possible. However, I think it's not possible to get the z stage to vibrate/oscillate in phase with the frame as the two systems are coupled with springs; not only the four springs below the building platform but also the whole wooden construction of the stage which can oscillate.

It's widely known that the UM Orignal print quality may suffer from vibrations due to the relative low weight of the z stage (see e.g. http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3755-horizontal-banding-elimination-thread/). Quite some people put additional weight on their z stage below the building plate. This has the disadvantage that the the front part of the z stage lowers continuously due to the induced torque. There is another unused space in the z stage which is less problematic to be filled with some weight. It's at the back left and right of the threaded rod. Unfortunately this space has no bottom. Well, let's make one: It's actually not a house... ;-) And this is it what it looks like when mounted and filled with four quadratic steel bars of 70mm length: And in terms of quality? Let's put it that way: it's non-negative. On my machine it's hard to judge as the quality was quite good before, but I have a regular pattern (most probably coming from a fault in the brass z nut) which I never got rid of completely but which is now the least pronounced ever.

What shall I say? First, it's easy to find if you wrote the code by yourself... Second, thanks Daid, you're great... It works fine with 14.04-RC1!

They have a ball inside which can move if you mean this...

I got used to the new layer view in the meantime. The only thing I really hate about the layer preview in Cura 14.03, 14.03-test and 14.04-RC1 is the fact that a G92 in my start.gcode makes the uppermost (10?) layers to be shifted. It makes finding slicing errors quite difficult. I would really appreciate a fix for this in the next (test) version, if not done already(?).

@restinpieces and @gr5: Looking at your avatars, I realise that UM has not enough minions... You have to be aware that today it's a holiday in the Netherlands (Koninginnedag). So maybe some people are off for this week?

If you're not too much in a hurry, you may use a design I made this week. It uses a bolted end cap from Thingiverse and a ball clamping screw.

For giving a little help what the lines of your first layer should look like: It's actually 'only' a brim but shows the perfect bed levelling.

Maybe you're printing the _XT not hot enough? I use 230°C with 50mm/s for _XT which seems to be at the lower limit as for 220°C it gets less transparent which might be the same effect as you experienced...

You have to set the temperature for the first layer in Cura (UM1) or at the machine (UM2) and then use the TweakAtZ plugin for the temperature of the following layers. Or you can manually decrease the temperature on the machine while printing.

Works ok on my UM1 with a single object. What's the meaning of the dot at the end? Seems unnecessary to me. edit: Renewing the display leads to significant flackering on my Ulticontroller (once per layer). Do other UM1 users have the same effect or is it due to the fact my UM1 might be a bit more busy due to additional step calculation caused by different stepper drivers?

Looks as if you had a visit by a dragonslayer this night... :shock: This is not something UM2 specific as I had the same effect on my UM1 some time ago. Are you writing directly from Cura to SD card or are you saving the file somewhere on the harddisk and then copy it to the SD card?

@Robert: Same problem here... caused by Swiss Chocolate... :lol:

Uhhmm... test this I will... :mrgreen:

In this case I guess it doesn't get better if you increase the temperature for some degree, right?