yellowshark

Hi @SandervG I wonder if the development team are aware of this issue? From a logistics perspective it is probably not an easy thing to test so perhaps it was missed.

Interesting; as someone who prints at 100% infill most of the time I am wondering what the difference is between skin and 99% infill, is there any real difference? My focus would be on structural strength.

I am sure @gr5 is right. I had the same problem about a year ago and it took me some time and effort to resolve it. It was all about bed level and nozzle to bed distance and of course when you start getting desperate you start playing with other things like extruder temp too. For me my brim and walls were fine, it was the infill that was exhibiting the problem. I cannot recall what the solution was although I will have notes somewhere of the settings I was trying, I was trying lots of nozzle to bed distance variations and extruder temps - I figured that as the problem was not in the middle, for me it was not a levelling problem. But to this day I cannot say I really know what it was. One other thing not to overlook, especially as your problem is at the perimeter, is that your bed heater may well be focussed on the bed centre and it will take time for the perimeters to reach the correct temp. On my printer when the middle of the bed reaches the target temp. the perimeters will be at least 10 degrees cooler and may take 10-15 mins to reach target temp. Of course for smaller models it is not an issue but for large surface areas like your print it could well present problems if you do not wait and check the perimeter temps. If you are happy with your current method of adhesion then personally I would leave well alone rather than potentially adding to your problem. As @gr5 says just be careful and make sure your bed is really clean especially in the area that is giving you problems

I would think so. I did my fan caps with their nGen filament which I think has a lower melt temp. that HT

Whilst you temp. is not making a difference for you, you must try and print as cool as possible. Reduce you temp until you get under extrusion then back off 5 degrees. My retraction settings (for PLA) are Distance 5.5mm Speed 50 mm/s Minimum travel 1.0mm Maximum count 90 Min. extrusion distance 0.2mm This is not to say they will be the best for you, you should do some tuning but maybe they give you a start. Important to realise that filament impacts this; i.e. your settings which work well for one filament may need some tuning for another filament (even sometimes the same filament type e.g. PLA from the same manufacturer) - not usual but can happen). In my limited experience I would say that different filament types, e.g. PLA vs Nylon may well need tuning.

Interesting that in the last week or so we have had several posts by new people, using Sketchup, who have all had problems with their models from Sketchup when transferred to Cura. I would recommend that you try something else, such as Autodesk's 123D Design or Fusion 360, and dump Sketchup (which is not to say there are not people on this forum successfully using Sketchup)(and yes there other products out there apart from Autodesk). In the professional world, where people design jumbo jets, nuclear power stations, complex bridges, automotive engines etc. they tend to use Autodesk or Solidworks products and Catia also, not as big I think but it has a presence in the aerospace industry. A couple of years back Autodesk broke into our 3D world releasing a variety of free software packages, including design software 123D Design and buying up products such as Meshmixer. The point is that these people have large software development groups focussed on CAD, are professional and know what they are doing. They also have the size and discipline to ensure that what they release works. About 18 months back I tried Sketchup and suffered the same problems being reported here and so gave up and tried the Autodesk software. I had zero problems. I am not saying that it is easier to use than Sketchup or has more functionality than Sketchup, BUT these guys know how to create fault free meshes and it is free - so IMHO it is worth you trying. I have no affiliation to Autodesk,indeed my company uses their arch rival Solidworks design software over Autodesk Inventor, which after trials we felt was better. You have two options.. Get Autodesk 123D Design - this is designated freeware these days, easily found on the Net Go to the Autodesk website and get Autodesk Fusion 360 - now whilst there is a 30 day trial and it is then chargeable you can get a special licence which is free for a year - if you are either a hobbyist or a non commercial personal user, or a startup business with annual income < 100K USD. Quite what happens at the end of that first year I know not! Caveat: I have not tried to use Sketchup or Autodesk 123D Design since that episode 18 months ago and yes things move on, or not as it seems to be in the Sketchup world. Also I have no idea what the difference is between 123D Design and Fusion 360.It may be that in pure design not much and that Fusion 360 has additional professional functionality such as documentation, file management and collaboration - but I am guessing now.

Well if you do mean 3-4mm and not 0.3-0.4mm then a Dremel with a 2,3 or 4mm drill bit, depending on what you are exactly trying to achieved. Alternatively good quality jeweller's files have circular options or semi-circular options which will be the right size to get in there - I use them a lot as my wife makes jewellery! Most cutting modelling knives probably will not be slim enough to let you get to the depth you need but maybe Dremel have something. Taking a different route, if you use a soluble support material (assuming you have dual extruders) you should be able to do the job just by soaking the part in whatever the filament needs you to soak it in!

I am not sure quite what referring to with the word "coil" but I have had, on a couple of occasions, needed to remove filament from the inside of the nozzle's threaded shaft and have just used boiling water to soften the plastic then scraped it away. I use isopropyl alcohol to remove filament off a hot nozzle but I do not know if it would clean off cooled plastic chemically.

Thanks that is really helpful and what you say makes a lot of sense. I suspect I was impatient and did it cold when I broke that one

Caveat: I have never printed ABS. Limitation of 3D printing - no; limitation of Ultimaker 2+ - probably certainly not; Convert image import - no idea what that is but if you have looked closely at the model on the Cura bed and the lines are not wavy then that is what Cura will slice - also look at it in xray view and see if there are any indicated mesh errors. Adjust layer height - I doubt that will make any difference Change wall thickness - again doubt it; but your wall thickness should be a multiple of your nozzle diameter, eg 0.8,1.2,1.6 etc. if using a 0.4 nozzle. Not having this will court other problems Change nozzle - well could be I suppose; not a bad idea but if all your other models are printing straight lines then I doubt it. Temp settings - two part answer; it would not have been my first thought; but you do have artefacts on your surface which could be caused by a too higher temp. and/or your retraction settings You do not mention prints speed - if you are printing really fast san 80/90 mm/s + then I wonder. Looking at your photo my first thought was to think that something was loose, such as your belts, which was causing errors in the positioning of the print head; but you will need an Ultimaker user to help you with diagnosing/fixing that

Hi @SandervG, was that aimed at me? No I do not I have a 3ntr and that is the printer I want to change the nozzle on; I could just not remember if it was best done hot or cold. Indeed the 2nd or 3rd time I did a change the nozzle broke off the screw thread which cost me a new nozzle and extruder, so I certainly would not offer to do it for someone else without a cast iron contract!!

My first point would be that when you print you should use either a brim or a skirt; that will allow the extruder pressure and laying of the line to settle before you start printing your model. My 2nd point would be , sure I suffer from that too (not al the time) but because of point 1. it never causes me a problem! Fine tuning your nozzle to bed distance will remove the problem in the first place. i.e your nozzle needs to a bit closer to the bed

My retraction settings, for PLA, up to 18 months ago were Distance 5.5mm Speed 50 mm/s Minimum travel 0.8mm Maximum count 90 Min. extrusion distance 5.5mm Then I tried the nGen filament and got a lot of stringing. I overcame that by changing Minimum travel from 0.8mm to 1.0mm Min extrusion distance from 5.5mm to 0.2 mm And I have used these new settings with PLA ever since (and PLA was fine on the older settings). Which only goes to show that the material in use can affect it, even it is one manufacturers PLA compared with another's PLA and that you may need to experiment a bit to get it right for you. I am not trying to suggest that the above settings are the best and you should use them, just that the settings work for me. The change in the min. extrusion distance is dramatic and I have no memory of what led me to that change.

Lol thanks @SandervG I want to change a nozzle at the weekend and was about to ask that question - a long time since I have changed one and memory was letting me down!

The RepRap website states that Repetier uses M203 for setting max federate; I tried the Repetier website but could not find anything. Whilst I use Repetier this is not something I have ever played with, so cannot help further.

Well it all depends on what you do. All I am saying is that 100% will solve your problem; which arguably means it is necessary. Most of my work is engineering where strength is important, even when prototyping if that incudes "form and fit"; so 90% of what I print uses 100%, which on the smaller parts is sometimes is faster to print that say 20%. And yes if I have a piece that is at least 75% of the bed space I will try to avoid 100%. Personally over 4+ years I have never had an issue with 100% infill so I am wondering what you have experienced. Another solution is to consider "inserts for plastic" In fact I think @eldrick has been using these for a long time for his foil handles. These are metal threads that you insert into the plastic so you can screw in bolts securely. I managed to get a sample set for free from one of the manufacturers/distributors and they seem to work very well although I have not tried them in earnest in production yet; having said that although I cannot remember I suspect I used 100% infill when I tried them.

And of course the simplest method is to use 100% infill not 20%

OK, well it looks quite small and with those narrowing cones I think you are way too fast. I suggest.. 30 mm/s fan 100% You do not mention extruder temp but cooler will help reduce/remove stringing. At 30 mm/s and .100 layers I would suggest 190 for the extruder. I do not know if you can manually change the print speed during a print on a UM3 but you can you may want to reduce it to 20 mm/s as you start to get closer to the top of the cones. Apart from the 1st layer (20 mm/s) set all your other printing speeds to 30mm/s i.e. the same as you main print speed. You do not say what your retraction settings are but yes they may be helping to cause the problem; although if they are standard Cura settings (which I have never used so do not know what they are) one would think they will be OK. I do not have access to mine on this PC; I will try and get them tomorrow

Yes your analysis is right and course @gr5 's comments are right too, as one would suspect. But if it were me I might be inclined to turn the front two screws 1/4 turn anticlockwise to bring the front of the bed up to meet the rear. Like gr5 I too like to have the brim that thin, especially on parts with a large surface area, to ensure it sticks securely to the bed. Anyway whatever you do just remember what that part of the brim looks like now, then if you have adhesion problems in the future try adjusting the distance so the brim looks like it does at the rear now.

Lol seems I was a bit out of touch! I have just installed 15.04.6. Firstly the printer defn. I cannot find where it is installed but it is easy to create it yourself. Select machine(menu item)\add new machine\Other\Custom then answer the questions - no doubt you will find te answers in your printer manual if you do not know them already. Now the .cfg files. You can store them anywhere you want and then when you load Cura, select File(menu item)\Open profile and an explorer dialogue box is displayed so you can select your profile. But old Cura does not use .cfg files it uses .ini files. I guess you have two options. 1. rename the files to .ini and see if 15.04.6 will read them. 2. Open the files with a text editor and try to pick out the information and enter it directly into Cura; thne select File(menu item)\Save profile and the settings will be stored for you and available the next time you need them.

With file explorer go to the Windows (c:) directory then the Users folder and select your profile directory. You want Appdata\Local\Cura\. You will see two folders “machine_instances” and “quality”. Your printer definition file goes in the first and your .cfg files into the 2nd. Now historically this has changed a bit and I do not have 15.04 installed on my PC so I cannot be 100% certain but I think what I have just said is correct. You will probably see a printer definition for the Ultimaker in the machine-instances folder and some .cfg files in the quality folder. If not then I have got it wrong!

If you post your Cura settings we will be better able to help you. For starters the primary ones are Layer height & 1st layer height Print speed and 1st layer print speed Bed temp and 1st layer bed temp Extruder temp Is retraction on Nozzle width line width wall width Infill % and infill speed Cooling % Which material are you using and manufacturer When you say poor quality a bit more info would be helpful, especially some pics! Which bits are poor quality - when you say poor quality what do you mean, gaps, stringing, blobs rough surface, poor circles or straight lines, etc.?

Well that is good news, enjoy your printing

You may find that Autodesk's Fusion 360 (free) will be better for you. I tried Sketchup a couple of years ago and though it was the pants

Above is vital for this, I suspect the nozzle may be jumping around a bit. Plus print 1st layer slow not > 20mm/s keep extruder temp as low as possible to avoid stringing it may help to slightly reduce the nozzle to bed gap so that the filament is really pushed into the bed If still suffering try a different colour if you have one; the colour dyes can impact the performance of the filament - white is the worst.