yellowshark

Ok I have just loaded the spring into Cura and it is fine - not a single travel line. I run 15.05.02; I think 15.05.04 is the last version of the old software. I suggest for the moment you run one of those two, they certainly are clean versions and yes they may have a bug or too but I have never noticed any nor had Cura crash. If you still have a problem after loading the older version of Cura then please post pics of your settings so we can try to help - basic tab, advanced tab and expert settings.

Lol @gareee I would contest your last statement, as written. As a general statement the best quality is achieved, in part, by using the lowest temp you can achieve for a specific filament/ speed/layer thickness. Of course if you go lower than the lowest temp. you will start to under-extrude. If you go to the highest temp. you will likely suffer corners that are not straight, blobs, both over-extruded, filament trails on retraction, to name a few.

Hi @SandervG, just wanted you to know that, in England, I find the site to be super fast. I am also a bit confused by these "problems" with navigation. I just go to the notification area and they are all there, soooo easy, it is brill! I will say, and it is only an unproved suspicion, that just occasionally a new thread is not notified. Conversely I am 100% sure that new posts to threads I am following are always notified.

As you are printing ABS I guess I am surprised that you do not have the "roof" enclosed.

I do not measure everything but some of the engineering stuff requires it. I have never measured a variance of > 30 microns, so better than your figures above. I have seen both 10 microns and indeed 0 variance but of course the resolution and indeed the accuracy of the measuring device come into play. I will assume you have an accurate micrometre with a resolution of at least 10 microns and have received training in how to measure accurately. I have not done real intense testing on this but I have observed... The filament can play a part on the accuracy; I do not mean PLA vs ABS vs Nylon etc; I mean a different colour of the same filament from the same manufacturer can have an impact. Speed can have an impact. I never print at 50mm/s I print at 30mm/s or 20mm/s. You should do some testing and see if you can improve your figures - of course if the accuracy is of concern to you. I guarantee a tolerance of 50 microns but would be happy to go down to 30 microns if required, although that does depend on the accuracy of the part required on whatever is oriented on the z axis. I would not want to go any lower without doing some serious testing. I have never gone below 50 micron layers except once when I started, I think it was 20 microns and I had trouble with it sticking to the bed. I would hope that now I could overcome that. I run the extruder at as cooler temp. as possible (no idea if this makes a difference) and fans at 100%. When the print is finished I walk away for several hours and let the printer enclosure cool down to ambient temp. before removing the part (only if accuracy is important and again no idea if it makes a difference). I am not a materials expert but it seems to me that would reduce any shock to the material).

Note from the model text which I assume is your problem?? The Mainspring is printed with PETG (PLA probably breaks after a while). I switched off "combing" in Cura. While this is a cool feature for regular shaped parts, it causes problems with large spiral shaped parts: The print-head does many useless long (2 meters!) travelling moves. Printing not only takes 30% longer, it oozes during the move, and when continuing to print, the nozzle is empty of material, and the resulting under-extrusion is disastrous.

Para 1. Yes those are your printer dimensions in terms of printable area. They are not standard so Cura needs to know your measurements so it can ensure you model is printable without going outside of you printable area, i.e. a cube in space. I was just suggesting that you double check your max height against your printer specification. If you spec is 200 and you entered 185 you would be 15mm short. Para 2&3. These measurements are only relevant if you are printing more than one model. Firstly Cura needs to ensure that the models have enough space around them so that when it is printing one model the print head cannot touch another model. Now it is a long time ago but when I set my printer up I found this confusing because the help text says the same thing for the min. box and the max. box. I think I measured from the nozzle out to the outside edge of the fan and put that measurement into both boxes. This does not have to be accurate to 100 microns. I think I probably went 1 or 2 millimetres over the measurement to be sure. If you are printing multiple modes in "print one at a time" mode instead of "print all at once mode", Cura needs to ensure that after printing the first model there is enough height to print subsequent models without the gantry hitting the completed model(s). Para 4. Erm, no I do not think so otherwise that would not be the Cura default. Indeed they all have 0 defaults so presumably the Cura default is that you are not printing multiple models. You may as well put in your measurement, in 2 months time you will print multiple models forgetting that you did not set it! Para 5. Z=0 is not the same command as Z0. Z0 moves the bed to the minimum end stop, i.e. your max height setting. Z=0 is an offset command; if it is z=0 then there is no offset and your bed would be moved to position 0. If you put in z=15 and then issued z0, the print bed would be positioned 15mm below the nozzle. If it is set to 0 then it is irrelevant in terms of your problem. For example on my printer I do the bed levelling without the glass plate inserted. If I did nothing else then when the print is initiated the glass plate would smash into the nozzle. So I put in a z-offset command to compensate, so that the bed itself is positioned below the nozzle at a distance which equates to the height of the glass plate. Ok in your first post you did not say anything about printing successfully with another slicer - I assumed you had set the printer up and your first print had failed. My point is that you should check Cura's max height setting to ensure it is correct for your printer. If it is not then that could easily be your problem. I cannot think of anything else that would cause your problem from within Cura, unless you have a duff z-offset command in the start gcode section.

@jameshs formed Revitt so he might be able to help. If he does not see this post, suggest you PM him.

There is a setting in Cura, under Machine/Machine settings where you set the z height of your printer. If this is wrong it may exhibit the problem you have, or smash the bed into your extruder

Hmn, some very interesting comments. I guess on most things I have a different view:) . I have been 3d printing for 2.5 years and have been on the forum for several months longer. Although I came really close I do not have a UM printer but I have found the forum very interesting , extremely helpful in my early months and yes I still learn things today. 1. The worst thing you could do right now is just go off and start a new forum without agreement/support from UM. You will fracture the forum making it worse, losing (presumably) UM on- forum support, presumably lose new users, who need your support, as they will be directed here by the UM website. 2. So what is wrong with the forum today in terms of bugs/navigation? I do not have any problems/issues with it that make me wince every time I sign on. I regularly access another 4 or 5 forums, nothing to do with 3D, they are all different, work on different platforms as far as I can see and I get along with all of them. I assume UM built the previous forum platform and if they did I am sure they had discussions on whether to redevelop or move to another platform. Whatever their reasons were, I think we should be thankful that they were prepared to make the investment to improve the platform – I cannot remember the old forum now but I am sure the new one must have some better things .  In my view UM released the new forum too early with too much important stuff not working well; if they did not realise that at the time I am sure they do now. I do not forgive them for that, although I will say, as someone who has spent a long time in software development, that beta testing a forum must be difficult. I am not saying it is impossible but by its very nature it cannot be easy. Of course you could argue that when the forum was released that was the start of Beta testing. Whatever, it was a bad mistake. But is does seem to me that they have been working hard to rectify the situation. 3. So what is wrong with the forum today in terms of content? Yes, it does seem to be full problem solving, more so than before. You guys are experienced and dare I say it, you are the type of people that should be generating the interesting topics, not the newbies – (and I am not saying that you have not, only that that is where they come from). Also industries go in cycles; I went to the TCT show in England last autumn and found it generally boring , i.e. not really anything new; the only thing that caught my eye was the number of fantastic, large multi coloured models being produced on the expensive professional printers. 4. I would not hold your breath waiting for HP. I spoke with them at the TCT show and they were very tight lipped. But with some leading questions and reading between the lines, I came away sure that their printer would not be priced anywhere near to something that I could afford and my printer was more expensive than the UM. 5. Yes the 3D printer world will change but its direction will not be open source and a couple of guys in a garage making kits. The market place is populated by people who are not technologists, not interested in circuit boards, not interested in pulling a machine apart to fix things. They want a printer which is the modern day equivalent of a computer that they plug in, switch on and use. They want it to be self healing, reliable and capable of producing the right result first time and being able to repeat that result. All they want to do is make things. Our part of the industry needs to mature a lot to do that – just as the PC world had to – and maybe that is the direction UM are going in. If it is I would not blame them. At the end of the day we are the early entrants and there is a price to pay for that but eventually there will be followers, hordes of them when the product is right. Of course we will not want to be there when the most popular forum post is “Hey have you seen the new camouflage paint job on the Synchomaker, oh I am such a girl should I choose that or the pink. Help please”.

Well in machine settings in Cura you have to set the maximum height of the printer. If you have that wrong that would cause your problem, i.e. at start up the bed will be raised to that position.

Ah, in that case you have a blockage probably, wrong pressure setting on your drive gear possibly but maybe unlikely if you have been printing OK p until now, worn or deformed gear more likely if oyu have done hundreds of hours of printing - others are better qualified than I to comment on the longevity as I do not have a UM. Start with the Atomic pulls - use a different coloured filament so that you see the white filament being extracted. If you do not see any on the first pull then repeat the process a number of times anyway; and if you do see white filament then again keep on trying until it disappears.

For standard Cura, i.e without any dual extrusion add-ins present. The "resetting" movement is independent of the number of extruders. If you are using 1 extruder, i.e. T0 then Cura just does the "resetting" without any reference to the extruders. I assume the default (contained in the firmware??) is T0. If you have 2 extruders then Cura performs the initial movement, as said above with no reference to extruders; swaps to T1 and extrudes; swaps to T0 and extrudes; carries on. The Cura generated G code will reflect 2 extruders rather than 1 (irrespective of how many are fitted to the printer) if... * you enter 2nd extruder under Support on the Basic tab * (I think) - if the model you load is two .stl files combined I cannot be sure on the 2nd point as I have not done dual extrusion with Cura. My presumption would be that in this case another dialogue would appear to assign which extruder to which .stl file I

Ah, were I running Cura like that I guess I would have known Yes that is a great guide, you should read it @sopmod03. OK personally I think .100 at 60mm/s and 210c is OK; for now it might help to slow it down a bit, say 40mm/s. I would say you have a blockage or feed resistance. Personally I would make the settings changes that I have suggested and change to another non white colorfabb filament and give it another go; if that fails then it is most likely a blockage. Make sure that the filament you need for the print, e.g. 2 meter is loose on the spool with no friction - indeed I would place the spool on the desk or floor and unwind 2-3 mtr. If this fails too then you need to debug a blockage - 1. do some atomic pulls; 2. check your white drive gear; 3 check for any resistance in your Bowden tube. If you check some of the other postings for under-extrusion/atomic pulls etc. you will see instructions for these. Indeed I think the 3Dverkstan manual now has a link at the bottom for Atomic pulls. You did not mention it and I did not ask, but did you hear any clicking whilst it was printing? (maybe you were not there). But listen this time as that is indicative of a blockage as it is caused by the drive gear slipping on the filament.

Need the temperature before you try anything! Also is this the 1st time you have used the filament? Have you used it before with same settings? Also, not really related to the filament but to me .1 layer and 60mm/s is a bit of a strange combination - although I can see why with the circular piece you are going with .100. But thinner layer gives better quality and slower speed gives better quality and I think 60mm/s is a bit fast for quality.

I wonder what version of Cura you are using? Basis tab should have the extruder temp under Speed and Temp., unless it has been moved in one of the later versions. I cannot see it anywhere and it is err vital! We need that, but for the moment note... I would set your print, infill, interior wall, exterior wall speed settings to the same speed - just set the last four to 0. Whenever you change speed the pressure in the extruder changes and takes time to stabilise will cause for a short period of time some under/over extrusion which can cause artefacts to appear on the surface. If you want to go back to you settings after your problem is fixed, fine. Personally I would set the minimum layer time to 10 secs, I think 5 is a bit low although some people get away with it. You don't want the whole thing to print; either start and then stop or sink the model into the bed and start at the square peg round hole part.

Looks like under-extrusion, which could be due to a number of things. It would be helpful if you could post your settings, speeds, temps layer height. Do you have a different filament you can use to see if you get the same result?

I feel sorry for the guy, his command of the English language seems as poor as his knowledge of 3D printing. Every newbie goes through those initial weeks with failures and frustration, it is the same as PCs back in the eighties and nineties, plug 'n play they are not. But the smart ones think, test, train themselves, join the Ultimaker forum irrespective of printer, and learn and go on to produce marvellous pieces. What fascinated me most was realising that the Cube had gone

Also sitting in a car subjects you to petroleum based emissions whereas PLA is made from vegetables or maybe vegetable roots, memory fails me. Unlike ABS which is petroleum based.

Ditto - probably as I have never used XT and do not know what the recommended setting are. Also, I am suspecting that the model, at the base, is very small and maybe too small for the printed layer to cool don before the next is printed - you need about 10 secs, so you can watch and see if that is the problem. Various ways to overcome but the easiest is probably to print at least two copies of the model concurrently

Lol what a lovely post, love the bit about the filament change

Doopy doopy doop, dah dah dah

Fair point

I am wondering whether the model(s) comes from somewhere like (Thingiverse) and is not manifold. If you go to the Netfabb site you can either download their Basic software for free or use their cloud service. It will give you model a healthcheck, I think that is the button with the red cross in the basic software. It may be able to fix it too - it has fixed stuff that I have run through it.

Interesting concept, good under-extrusion and bad under-extrusion . It will be interesting to see what @taleo11 says about those earlier layers