yellowshark

Thanks for that Daid :cool:

Hi I am in Cura (13.06.4) for the first time. I cannot see where you instruct the job to use a raft- I have found certain settings for rafts in the Expert settings but it is a function to use one that I want - or is Cura clever enough to know the part will fall over :mrgreen: Similalry with support material - can I tell the software to use support "there" and "there". I have read about manually assigning support material but maybe Cura does not have this capability? Pete

Thanks for your help on that one - I see I can get Dylon too on Amazon so I will need to experiment. Yup I saw Youtube video of a guy dyeing some ABS; personally I would have bought a coloured reel!

Wondering if any of you have used RIT dyes to colour your nylon models. Did you use the powder or liquid variant? Results?

Thanks guys that is perfect for us as I suspect the design PC may not be co-located with the UM2. Thanks for the answer on Retraction George, understood. Are there any disadvantages in leaving it turned on - just wondering why there is a parameter for it if one would always have it turned on.

Bump I am confused about retraction. I can understand physically what it is but I do not understand why and when you would use it or would not? Also I have just realised I do not know what the connection is - nothing I can see on the web site. Is it usb from the computer? Standard size or mini size connector at the printer end? Can one also use a USB stick or card reader? SD card?

Hi Nancy What do we want to do? Well two markets. First is prototyping, for local engineering and manufacturing companies. Certainly we will use the UM2 initially but medium term I am sure we will go further up the range of printers. Speed i.e. turnaround and reliability will be major factors in developing/maintaining such a customer base and I do not think you can achieve that with printers at the price point we are talking about. Our second area is niche consumer products and yes I am planning that we will produce every day. But each print job will be to a single custom order; customisation is predominantly by colour although one product is customisable by height, although the profile stays the same. In essence once we have the optimum settings for each product then that is it, as far as I can see. There is certainly an element of risk here as we are unlikely to hold stock, but we have some techniques in mind to control demand, will be building some failures into our production capacity planning and hopefully within the first month or so will buy a 2nd UM2 to give us back up.

Thanks for your advice guys, most helpful. Nico (?) when you say speed vs temperature, could you expand on that please. My understanding is that reducing the speed used will reduce problems and increase quality; additionally one should be printing at an optimum temperature for the material. But I have not considered how the temperature is controlled. Is it “controlled” by the speed used or is there a thermostatically controlled heater in the printer?

Hi, a newbie here. I am on the brink of buying an Ultimaker 2, I am just awaiting prints from some .stl files I have sent to Ultimaker for final decision making. I have a few questions. I have searched everywhere but cannot find a specification document or comments as to the extruder size, i.e. 3mm or 1.75mm? If the former can one successfully feed 1.75mm? If no, is the size mandatory or is it optional, to be specified at order time? With the research I have done on 3D over the past couple of weeks I get the impression that for PLA you want an open design to aid cooling and for ABS a closed design to maintain a consistent temperature. If that is the case than how does Ultimaker 2 fare with PLA? Does one take off the 4 side panels? Does Ultimaker 1 have two fans for the cooling? What does Ultimaker 2 have? I am confused about retraction. I can understand physically what it is but I do not understand why and when you would use it? I wonder if there are people on the forum who have experience in other print methods, e.g SLA, DLP and have either moved to FDM or use multiple methods. How have you found working with plastics? Can the Ultimaker 2 work with nylon? Is there a detailed specification document anywhere? I cannot see anything on the website. Finally and this may be a bit controversial but I hope I can get some objective opinions. One of the comparison reviews I read noted that Ultimaker had a great and active community. I have been following the community for the past week and have learned a lot and have been very impressed by the tenor of the forum and the wealth of expertise that is has. On the negative side though and almost unavoidable, I been struck by the number of people and the number of problems they have experienced. We are a start-up company and will be producing product. My son is an engineer and I have years of experience in software development, so we have no concerns about getting the system up and running and optimised. We realise and plan to start with a testing phase to determine the optimum settings for the PLA/ABS materials we intend to use, i.e. the specific product coming from a specific supplier. But once bedded in I do not want us to be spending 5 hours a day solving problems when we should be producing. From the forum I have started to harbour some doubts as to whether the machine is up to production work or is the reality that it will fall over most days? From personal experience I know that on technical forums you will always get these “negative” subjects, that is what the forum is there for; there just seem to a be lot of them! Thank you Pete