tommyph1208

Really IMO you don't want to build an Ultimaker (UMO OR UM2) down to every detail... You want to look at the design, be inspired by that and then go from there... Building an exact replica would be both very hard and expensive. While it true what Robert said, that you probably wont come out much cheaper than an UM+ kit, building from scratch allows you to customize from the start and get rid of some of the less impressive UM parts. I would say you need to first decide on a material, you mention plywood which is what the UMO is made of... The UM2 uses dibond amongst other things. You can build both printers of both materials + a range of others... Then you need to decide on parts... Choose stuff that is easy to find and don't compromise on critical areas like the hotend (e3d are a popular quality choise), axis, pulleys etc. For electronics, any marlin compatible with SD reader and LCD should do (there are alot of reprap options, like ramps, Rambo, rumba, sanguino etc.) Look in the Modications and Hacks section of the forum, for interesting mods you want to implement right away... Once thats settled, mod the drawings to accommodate your parts, and build...

I would say adjust the endstop and level your bed... Done

Did you solder in a resistor on your board as described here, as well as in the bottom of the ebay listing: http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Heated_Bed What do you use to power the bed?

- Yes... The active cooling of the cold part of the E3D hotend (man that was a complicated explanation) is a tiny 12V fan I would think the UMO board should be able to deliver that tiny addintional amount of current on the 12v, without any problems. Plugging it in with eg. the fans for the electronics cooling (since they are also supposed to be always on) - The UMO heater cartridge for the hotend is 18V, 40W... E3D will ship either 12V or 24V, 40W heaters... BUT, if you keep the original UMO heatblock, thermocouple and heater, and replace the rest with E3D parts, you are past that problem... this way you can go with the "metal parts only" option on E3Ds website (though you would have to supply a small 12V fan yourself, or buy it on the website as well) Alternatively you can move the original heater and thermocouple from the UMO heatblock to the E3D heatblock (which for the v6 is smaller, and nicer in design), but you would have to drill out the thermistor hole to fit the thermocouple (and tolerances are quite tight), or get rid of the thermocouple (and the annoying amplifier board) and just use the thermistor (this of course requires some firmware changes)

It should work just fine if you pay attention to the shroud, adjust z home etc. A very common approach when people started adopting the E3D hotend (at least v5)into UMOs, has been to keep the UM heatblock, incl. heater and thermocouple.. This way, there was less things to rip apart, less risk of damaging heater or thermocouple, you didn't have to drill out the thermistor hole in the e3d block, etc. Summing up: E3D nozzles fit the UMO heatblock just fine If you indeed are starting to experiment with exotic filament, I would suggest just going full E3D v6 though

You might also want to look into insulating the heater block/top part of the nozzle... Not only does it reduce the heat radiation but also helps the nozzle reach temp much quicker, and keep it more stable (takes longer to cool down as well though)... Ive had great success using ceramic "tape"... Something like this (I got a roll of it somewhere, cant remember): http://www.ebay.com/itm/MakerBot-Replicator-2-Ceramic-Insulation-Tape-6-Pack-/261710227470?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cef25280e Wrap it to the heater block with kapton tape... Regarding the cooling, you might want to look into "The crossflow fan approach" as discussed here on the forums: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3890-the-crossflow-fan-approach/?hl=%2Bcrossflow+%2Bfan+%2Bapproach

That actually sounds like a cool idea... I would imagine that the washer gets hot from nozzle heat radiation though, so it wont actually be able to cool all that much... It the end it might only delay the curling...

You could also get something for insulating underneath your HB... Like: http://reprap.me/heatbed/iso200.html It might give you the last few degrees... Or at least make you reach 100 degrees a bit faster

Radical! But looks really good (and you don't have the burn marks from the laser...) Will you be painting/dying the wood?

I used a breadbord too for keeping things in place, that part worked fine... But really, the soldering iron i have is pretty bad, and probably not well suited for this kind of work (if any at all)... The tip is quite large, so its hard to place it properly (and yes, my wire insulation crimped away like crazy) Also, you cant adjust the temperature, it just either on or off... Which tends to make it either too cold or too hot... I guess I solved my own problem via the reflections in these posts: "Buy a better soldering iron" Thanks guys

Maybe my soldering iron and skills just suck, but I found it really hard to solder on all the pins and the jumper wire properly :( Also I was wondering if there is a risk of damaging the drivers with the extreme heating by the soldering iron?

I added an Industrial ajustable PSU to the bottom of my printer, set to 20V for the printer itself, and made a seperate 12V rail using a DC stepdown buck unit I got on ebay, to this I have my "always on" 12V stuff connected (electronics cooling, e3d cold-end cooling and LEDs) The LEDs are these 4 sticks with a central control, from IKEA: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/ You can tune them to all sorts of different colors, and have in change dynamically in a fancy "party printer" mode... mostly I just use bright white though. Here they are, placed upright in each corner inside the printer: Still not fully mounted in those pictures... I now have them attached to the frame using double sided tape, which works like a charm...

Even so... 2.85 filament is often referred to as "3 mm." So unless he actually went and measured it for you, I don't think you can count on that... I would write him back and ask if he, by 3 mm., actually mean 2.85 mm. If indeed it is 3 mm., I believe it comes down to filament quality, more specifically; diameter variation. Deviate too much (on the + side) and the filament will become stuck in your Bowden tube... Depending on how much pressure your feeder applies to the filament, it can also become deformed (oval rather than round) which again increases the risk of it getting stuck...

Buy spoolless filament from eg. Faberdashery and wind it up in the empty spools...

Probably it is actually 2.85 mm. filament, but ask the supplier...

Well... There is an UM2 for sale here on the forums... From the Netherlands even: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/9764-um2-for-sale-the-netherlands/

A RAMPS board should do just fine and has output for a heatbed yes... I think you want to go 12V with that, and get your heatbed and hotend heat cardridge to match that (typical specs are either 12 or 24V for these things, for some obscure reason UM went with the hopelessly incompatible 19V system) E3D has both 12 and 24V cartridges. With just one hotend, a heatbed, the normal number of steppers etc. you shouldn't need more than around a 2-300W PSU (depends mostly on the heatbed)

Sounds like you are on the right track I think E3D got past their PLA problems, so I would say you can safely buy a v6 hotend from them... They have alot of other things in their store as well, like eg. the bronze bushings you need for the slide blocks. Don't bother cutting xy slide blocks from wood, get some printed instead (like the reptar or similar)... Use this forum or 3dhubs for finding someone to print for you. You will need the hotend mount and extruder anyways. What Electronics are you aiming for (board and stepper drivers)? There are alot of alternatives to the UM board out there... Personally I like the compactness of having the xy steppers inside the frame instead of direct drive... It's mostly a visual thing though, and a matter of taste... I think direct drive probably works slightly better. Another thing related to compactness... I added an Industrial PSU to the bottom of my printer instead of having that large Toshiba laptop PSU lying on the floor next to it... These PSUs have trouble fitting under the printer, so I printed some feet for mine... since you are cutting the frame yourself, you might want to edit the drawings slightly to just add a few more centimeters under the bottom... Paint the frame parts before assembly, it looks much better than the wood

Funky... Like the simplicity of just posting something to a website and downloading the result, but find it kind of odd that there are next to no settings at all to play around with "picture" or "logo", almost dosn't count... I have previously myself had quite good success with using Photoshop CS6 3d features...

SandervG is Community Manager (or something of the likes), that might be a place to start: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/user/423-sandervg/

Is it possible for you to split the object into several parts, and then glue/bolt/whatever them together? I think you will have much better results that way. I think people have had good experiences with generating support in "MeshMixer". Cura is also able to do support: - First in the "Expert" (top) -> "Switch to full settings" - Enable support in "Basic" tab under Support, where it says "Support type"... Your options are "touching buildplate" (which will only make support in places where it can extend down to the bed), or "Everywhere" (Which will generate support under all overhangs, including on top of parts of the model. -You tweak the support settings (type, angle threshold, size, amount, distances etc.) under the "Expert" tab (top) -> "Open Expert settings"

The belt tensioners Are indeed for the long belts... I dont think theyll do any harm if you put them on, even if you dont think you need them now, the belts may become looser over time. Just make sure the axis and slide blocks can move freely with the tensioners on

Some more ideas: A feeder that works? Easy exchange nozzles (so you can print with different nozzle sizes)? Possibility for a pretty enclosure? Fancier stepper drivers (silentStepStick TMC2100? or similar?) to make the printer more silent?

I think you can probably do a lot of the same essential features with a Raspberry Pi and OctoPrint... Havn't done it myself though

You can also tape some cork to the bottom of the alu plate with kapton tape, reprap sites sell cork plates for this specific purpose... Eg. http://reprap.me/heatbed?p=2