simon

Yep, it was this connection on the heated bed. Unfortunately I couldn't solder mine quite so easily. It failed again after 5 minutes. I can't help feeling that a connector that went through the PCB rather than one than sat on top of it, would be more reliable. This is the 3rd time this has failed for me and don't do that much printing. :-(

Thanks GR5. It does read the correct ambient when cold but when heating up it doesn't. The reported temp shoots up but the actual temp is bearly warm. However I get the same result with a different plate, so I'm thinking the error is with the cable or connection at the PCB end or PCB itself.

Hi all, I've been printing fine with my UM2 for many months. My last print came detached and after a little investigative work found the bed temperature was only about 30 degrees C. I haven't changed anything with my setup for about 10 months so it's nothing I've done recently. The UM2 screen reports back a temperature of 105 (the target temperature), but it reaches this very quickly (about 60 seconds) rather than the expected 10-15 minutes). The actual temperature is about 30 degrees even after 25 minutes. After about 30 minutes I get: ' ERROR - STOPPED Temp Sensor Bed' I've swapped over the heated bed for a spare, but this didn't help. Any ideas? Thanks Simon

Hi Pete, no problem, ask away, if I can find the answer easily, I'll let you know. The features that Troy has mentioned about Netfabb are also possible, although implementation is slightly different for some cases. I particularly like the fact that you can print both sparse infill and support material in alternate directions for alternate layers, so rather than each layer of sparse infill being a complete square grid, its actually a series of parallel lines at your chosen density. The layer before, and after, the current layer is at 90 degrees to this (or any angle you specify). You can also miss out infill every other 1 or 2 or whatever lines to significantly reduce the internal infill volume. This would be good for thin walled structures where you're not bridging large spans. For support material, this makes it quicker to print and easier to break up. I find Cura support unnecessarily strong.

Hi Yellowshark, I've sent you a PM with the email address of the support chap I've been dealing with but I didn't think it appropriate to post on the forum. He has been very helpful and always responded within 12 hours, allowing for different time zones. They do have a contact page but they don't give out the email. Unfortunately there is no trial version and documentation is only in the form of overview tutorials. You could also try the S3D forum for feedback on dual extrusion. What specifically do you want to know? I could have a look for you and send you some screen shots. Obviously I can't try it out for you though. Its a pity there's no in depth user manual to look at, I think it would be a good PR tool for them in addition to it being a useful resource to new users. On the upside, it is very easy to use. However you're right it isn't free so you need to make sure it's a good match for your requirements. In my opinion the fact that its costs money to buy is not necessarily a bad thing though. It ensures that they will continue to develop the software and attempt to stay ahead of the competition, otherwise no one will buy it and they'll go out of business. Its a tough market, especially with there being good and free slicers out there like Cura. There has to be a reason to buy it. For me it has, without a doubt, been a very good investment.

Nicolinux, the filament has no manufacturers brand name unfortunately. The chocolate one is actually sold as 'copper' but I think bronze is a better description. The supplier is wedo3dprinting on ebay uk

Ok, so this is the opposite of a stress test, in fact the opposite of every other print on this thread, but I just wanted to show a range of nice ABS colours I've just bought. The thing I'm pleased about is that I printed them all with the exact same settings on my UM2. If I can get nice even prints without any tuning I feel confident I can tweak each one if needed to get the result I'm after. 15 Different Filaments in total. The black red and white are Ultimaker stock the metallics (gold, silver and bronze) actually have a metal fleck in to give the effect. They print a bit woolly, almost like a wood fibre (no unpleasing, you can't see the build layers), but on the base which has been against glass, you can see the sparkle. I think a bit of vapour smoothing would sort these out! You might of been thinking 'hang on, he's got 2 whites'. Well yes but one glows in the dark. Spooky The black takes a lot of purging to clean it though completely, and the white is easy to over cook. You get tiny brown marks in the print from time to time. But the UM filament was probably the best for a smooth feed. The Dark blue was about the same, but the others wouldn't feed quite as fast, but at the speed I print at this isn't an issue. The non-Um filaments were just purchased off eBay. I really didn't know what to expect, because when I had the Afinia, I only bought Up! filament. I was relieved when all the blocks came off, one after another, all with the same gCode, no tweaking and no messing around. They definitely have different properties for printing, but I'm really pleased, this is a good start. Great to have all these colours to choose from and 1/2 the price of Up! filament.

Oh, I should add, I've only been using for a couple of weeks. I haven't found any bugs and I haven't had any crashes, but you know sometimes these things can vary from machine to machine.

I know it supports dual extrusion, but because I have a UM2 (with one extruder) and I haven't looked at any other slicing software with focus on dual extrusion I can't really say whether its any good. But here's a tutorial link, you may be able to judge for yourself. http://www.simplify3d.com/support/tutorials/printing-with-multiple-extruders/

I don't have any experience of Repetier Host but I can tell you why I like Simplify3D. I prefer the way it’s structured compared to Cura. It uses 'processes' to control all the settings. Each process contains all the information required to write gCode for either the whole model, part of a model or one or more models of the several you may have on the build platform. You can either build all models at the same time or sequentially, like you can in Cura. However because each process can be different it allows you to have models with multi-zone characteristics. Different densities of internal fill, densities of support, levels of cooling, percentage flow rate, in fact any controllable variable, and all variables are controllable. You therefore can apply these controls to different models on the same build platform. You can build one model with 0.1mm layers and a different model with 0.15mm layers and so on. You can even build a model with 0.1mm layers and 10% infill at the bottom, 0.2mm layers in the with 20% infill in the middle and some other combination at the top. You can include as many processes as you want, to build the model or models in any way you want. You get the idea, lots of freedom. You can also change the infill from rectilinear to concentric and so on. It has functionality of Tweak at Z built into the package in a seamless way, but with more functions than TAZ. So you can control bed and nozzle temperatures as well as fan settings by layer within a single process. In additional to that you can also override fan setting with minimal layer time special cases and bridging cases and you can define what a bridge is considered to be. Supports are customisable; you can place them where you want at whatever size, density and angle you want. You can also place them automatically based on overhang angle (that you specify) or adjust the auto placed supports. They work really well. At the moment support material is only vertical, but still its better than Cura support. (I’m not Cura bashing BTW, Cura is great, I’m just explaining why I prefer S3D). Before printing, you get to preview all the gCode graphically either slice by slice or line by line. It shows you all the retracts and rapids and if you have coast selected, you can see these too. The preview is a 3D model that can be sectioned anywhere and each bead of plastic is colour coded for speed so you can make sure the speed is what you want it to be. Soon fan speed etc. will be incorporated into this graphical preview. It also has all the functionality of Pronter face built in. It’s very easy to use and I’m really struggling to find something I don’t like about it. You can almost certainly get all this functionality by using multiple free alternatives, but I found this to be a one stop shop, for everything I need, with a GUI I find easy to work with. I’m producing only geometric engineering models at the moment, nothing organic, but for what I want it’s perfect. I can’t qualify it for organic objects, but it may do those fine. These are only some of the things I like about it, but there are many more. However I’m not selling it and I’ve gone on long enough now.

If you look at any active forum for any 3D printer you'll find people who have issues and problems. People tend to use forums to sort out problems. I had a couple myself that were easily resolved. Ultimaker and a few people in the forum gave immediate assistance. One of the huge benefits of the UM forum is the wealth of experience of it's members and their willingness to help out. As to price tag and the 'Prosumer' label. To be honest, as a hobby, its a luxury, an indulgence to own a 3D printer, but as a professional user, building models for commercial purposes, these things are cheap. Really cheap. Everything you see in the shops is made in the 100's of 1000's so £1700 buys you a pretty nice camera or a moped, a great computer etc. But for a hand made item made in low quantities £1700 doesn't buy you much. I think that all 3D printers at this end of the market are remarkably good value. I bought my first printer 12 months ago for £1000. it has saved me 10's of thousands in prototyping costs and weeks of development time (which is even more valuable). Having said this there is definitely some mis-selling of 3D printing technology in the industry as a whole. I think the 'make anything you want' and 'just press print' type of sales pitch is very misleading. If you know nothing about 3d printing, engineering, design or materials, then its a steeper and longer learning curve. There is a craft and skill to 3D printing which has to be learnt. You can have the most expensive 3D printer out there, but a poor understanding of the process and bad design will always lead to failure. Stick with it and you'll have a great time

In case anyone is interested, here are my Simplify3D settings that I use with my UM2. I've only used ABS so I don't know what the PLA setting would be. They are pretty much standard with a few tweaks on temperature. The standard PLA settings are probably worth a try. Just past this text into a notebook file named *.fff (* being whatever you what to call it). Then import within the S3D software. it uses 0.15mm steps with a 0.1mm first layer. I run my UM2 in a small metal cabinet which gets upto about 27 degrees in the middle. I also use ABS juice and occasionally a brim. I don't seem so far to have a problem with warping. At least not one that I can't solve. processName,Process1 applyToModels,P1206 Heat Shield 4 Pt2 printMaterial,ABS printQuality,High extruderName,Primary Extruder extruderToolheadNumber,0 extruderDiameter,0.4 extruderAutoWidth,0 extruderWidth,0.4 extrusionMultiplier,1.07 extruderUseRetract,1 extruderRetractionDistance,4.5 extruderExtraRestartDistance,-0.13 extruderRetractionZLift,0 extruderRetractionSpeed,1500 extruderUseCoasting,0 extruderCoastingDistance,2.3 extruderUseWipe,0 extruderWipeDistance,5 primaryExtruder,0 layerHeight,0.15 topSolidLayers,6 bottomSolidLayers,6 perimeterOutlines,2 printPerimetersInsideOut,1 randomOutlineStartPoint,0 sequentialIslands,0 spiralVaseMode,0 firstLayerHeightRatio,0.66 firstLayerUnderspeed,0.5 useRaft,0 raftLayers,3 raftOffset,3 raftInfill,85 useSkirt,1 skirtLayers,1 skirtOutlines,20 skirtOffset,0.3 infillExtruder,0 externalInfillPattern,Rectilinear infillPercentage,20 outlineOverlapPercentage,20 minInfillLength,3 infillLayerInterval,1 randomInfillStartPoint,0 infillAngles,45,-45 generateSupport,1 supportExtruder,0 supportInfill,40 supportLayerInterval,1 supportHorizontalPartOffset,0.45 supportUpperSeparationLayers,1 supportLowerSeparationLayers,1 supportGridSpacing,4 maxOverhangAngle,45 supportAngles,45,-45 temperatureName,Primary Extruder,Heated Build Platform temperatureNumber,0,1 temperatureSetpointCount,3,1 temperatureSetpointLayers,1,2,4,1 temperatureSetpointTemperatures,260,257,255,105 temperatureStabilizeAtStartup,1,1 temperatureHeatedBed,0,1 temperatureRelayBetweenLayers,0,0 temperatureRelayBetweenLoops,0,0 fanLayers,1,6 fanSpeeds,0,20 blipFanToFullPower,1 adjustSpeedForCooling,1 minSpeedLayerTime,15 minCoolingSpeedSlowdown,20 increaseFanForCooling,1 minFanLayerTime,10 maxCoolingFanSpeed,30 increaseFanForBridging,1 bridgingFanSpeed,45 use5D,1 relativeEdistances,0 allowEaxisZeroing,1 includeM10123,0 stickySupport,1 detectArcs,0 arcReplaceG2G3,0 arcRadialCompensation,1 gcodeXoffset,0 gcodeYoffset,0 gcodeZoffset,0 overrideMachineDefinition,0 machineTypeOverride,0 strokeXoverride,200 strokeYoverride,200 strokeZoverride,200 originOffsetXoverride,0 originOffsetYoverride,0 originOffsetZoverride,0 homeXdirOverride,-1 homeYdirOverride,-1 homeZdirOverride,-1 flipXoverride,1 flipYoverride,-1 flipZoverride,1 startingGcode,G28 ; home all axes,G0 X100 Y10 ; Bring extruder to the front,G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length,G1 E8 F225 ; purge nozzle with 8mm of filament,G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again layerChangeGcode, toolChangeGcode, endingGcode,M104 S0 ; turn off heaters,M140 S0 ; turn off bed,M84 ; disable motors createX3G,0 celebration,0 celebrationSong,Random Song postProcessing, defaultSpeed,2100 outlineUnderspeed,0.5 supportUnderspeed,0.9 rapidXYspeed,5000 rapidZspeed,1000 minBridgingArea,5 bridgingExtrusionMultiplier,1 bridgingSpeedMultiplier,0.5 filamentDiameter,2.85 useMinPrintHeight,0 minPrintHeight,0.6 useMaxPrintHeight,0 maxPrintHeight,70 overlapRemoval,0 overlapRemovalPercentage,0.3 useDiaphragm,0 diaphragmLayerInterval,20 robustSlicing,0 mergeAllIntoSolid,0 onlyRetractWhenCrossingOutline,1 retractBetweenLayers,0 useRetractionMinTravel,1 retractionMinTravel,0.02 useRetractionOozeRate,0 retractionOozeRate,100 onlyWipeOutlines,1

Here's the Dropbox link. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11059439/UM2%20Bed%20Levelling%20Screw%20Cap.zip You may have to scale up or down a little to get a press fit. I printed them in ABS, so PLA may need a tweak.

Hi All, I made these a few days ago and although very simple, I find them extremely useful. Its so simple I feel a little embarrassed to start a thread, but they have helped so much, I thought I would share. Its just a small plastic cap which press fits over the end of the adjustment screw with a pointer so I can easily see and adjust the rotation. I've found this makes levelling the bed while you're printing a first layer, ideally a brim, exceptionally easy. I can now accurately raise or lower the bed using all three screws by exactly the same amount. With a perfectly round thumb screw this is more difficult to judge. The screw thread is an M3 x 0.5mm pitch and using this, I can make accurate adjustments of 10th turn or finer and know that I've applied the same to each, keeping the bed level, or levelling it dynamically if required. The other thing I did was mark the counter sink screw heads so they now bite into the aluminium. I have found that they can sometimes turn with the thumb screw resulting in no change of length. I did this using a side cutter and just pinched across the top and underside of the countersunk fixing. I does marks the top too, but this doesn't matter.

I think the freezing idea is also not a good idea. I've seen on some other forums how the bond can be so good between the hot glass and plastic that during rapid cooling/contraction some people have actually had small shards of glass plucked off their heated plates by the plastic. I suspect that is a combination of extreme differential cooling (causing high surface stresses) and the plastic adhesion. It only takes a few minutes of natural cooling before the print can be easily removed. Damaging your glass plate isn't the end of the world but I don't think a few minutes extra waiting is really that much of a problem IMHO.