aaronalai

We definitely should make this a sticky, I love rendering and looking at rendered CAD images! Anyway here are a few of my contributions:

That's a nice looking print. I imagine there was a lot of retraction when making the points, and there is no noticeable stringing or blobbing. What did you use to design the model? Also, what filament type are you using?

Hmm, I don't have my printer in hand yet so I'm probably not a good resource for suggestions. That being said, could it be because there are little burnt pieces blocking the nozzle as a function of the higher temp? Have you tried a slightly slower print speed with a slightly lower temp? You might be really close to optimal settings with no clogging issues. IDK really, perhaps someone of more experience will jump in, I just hate to hear that such a nice printer is clogging up on you.

Do you have any hypotheses as to why you are getting frequent nozzle blockages? From what I understand this shouldn't be happening very often.

Thanks! My current lenses are plastic, I was still going to print them from abs anyway so I can try the acetone vapor technique and give them a smooth finish, although the 3d printed finish would be pretty cool for glasses as well. Actual glass glasses seems like a good idea for the future though. I've been wondering if an optometrist can fit lenses to any frames or just the frames they sell, or if they would even tell me the truth that I don't really need to buy their expensive frames. I've uploaded updated versions of the SolidWorks files uploaded earlier, I didn't do a name change so I would just start with what's there now. I found the front piece file hard to edit so I made some tweaks, I also reduced the fillet size on the arm that fits the frame for more material support, and I uploaded a newer version of the front part with a much better nose piece; apparently I'm not very good at free handing Meshmixer yet so it's all still in SW. Thanks for the link to ChrispCreators glasses, printing in one piece seems like a better idea for structure. I read through his post and was glad to see the results, I'm excited to try and print out a pair of frames. My current frames are so glued together they are one solid piece and sometimes I find it annoying and wish I could fold them. After making the glasses I saw what others were doing glasses related, and came across some really interesting ideas. It would be nice to have a glasses frame software or something that had the basic shape and you essentially pulled it into the shape you wanted, except that getting the lens size right would be difficult, unless you also made the lenses. Its an interesting business idea to make lenses for customers that design their own frames. O'Yeah, I ordered a UM2; and am looking forward to going back to work just so I am forced to think about something else, I'm starting to think about my UM2 too much.

I have a bit more vacation left still, so I'm designing some more stuff to give my printer when it eventually arrives. I whipped up these glasses last night for the lenses in my current set of glasses. My current frames are nearing 50% plastic with the remainder some amalgam of JB weld, Epoxy, Shapelock, superglue and shrink tubing. I broke the original hinges, and gluing to such a small surface yields very little strength. Since then I have broken the hinges so many times I just didn't find it economical to buy new frames. Thus, I am very interested in printing out new glasses frames over and over again; also, now that I have a CAD model of the glasses I can add room for wires and surface mount components and put neat things inside the glasses. I also changed some of the dimensions of the glasses to help prevent them from falling off my head, my current frames have arms that are just a bit too short so they don't wrap around my ears much at all. To make them I taped my current frames to my screen zoomed to a 1:1 ratio, and carefully made a spline of the lens perimeter dimension, then did a bunch of fine tuning with my calipers and the dots consisting of the spline. All the other splines were done visually to my taste, as long as the lens dimensions are good the rest of the glasses can be any shape. There is some curvature on the original frames, I plan on printing the frames flat then heating them with my hot air reflow station and adjusting to fit. I will probably give the nose bridge more of an organic shape in Meshmixer, it will just look cooler. The hinges may be a bit weak, but I have like 10 more design ideas, one of them will work. If anyone is interested in messing around with the CAD or stl files I can supply them. The only real hard part was getting the inside lens dimensions, after that there was a lot of cloning and mirroring; you can roll back the CAD files to change the lenses to your own liking. https://www.youmagine.com/designs/glasses-frames http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:217781

Hello, I've been reading a lot of the forums lately while I wait for my printer to ship out, and wanted to start making models to print. I have finished a non-fixed axle YoYo with all the parts except the string. I searched around for a good YoYo model but could only find fixed axle types, and those are no fun. This one has a bearing that hopefully spins well around the axle, remember I've never printed anything on a 3d printer before, so if it doesn't work sorry. I'm including SolidWorks files along with the stls for those that want to change tolerances or something. I wasn't sure what print orientation to put them in the .amf file from Cura, I tried the current way and 90 degrees rotated, and selected the current one as I think it preserves the more important dimensions, while potentially making the support structure more difficult to remove. Put petroleum jelly in the pockets of the walls of the YoYo as well as on the axle. If the plastic axle does not work, the nut and bolt hex dimensions are those of a standard M5. The included printable M5 bolt has its non-threaded part extended to allow for smoother axle bearing interaction, and it's head is thickened for better mass distribution. If you don't have YoYo string laying around, some string of about 0.8-0.9 mm should do the trick. With a YoYo of this type (if it works) you can do the YoYo tricks that make the YoYo fun. A tip, print the bearing portion in nylon if you can for less friction between the bearing and axle. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:216901/#files https://www.youmagine.com/designs/bearing-yoyo If you do print this file please post whatever you can, I am interested in all aspects of the build like the print orientation, how well the pieces fit together, what material and settings you used...anything. Even if you don't print this file I would still like to hear any observations or constructive criticism. For an easier print, I also made a half with a completely flat side; I doubt this will affect performance of the YoYo much. The textured surface was to keep the string nice and straight down the middle of the YoYo without applying too much friction. I have also been thinking about the mass of the device, I've seen people adding currency for mass. The next version is definitely going to have something like this, coins could fit under the interior lip or something. Thanks!

Woah! Thanks for the good closeups in both the video and the pictures!! This think looks great, I'm really surprised to see how well the wings came out, the filament choice was a nice touch. From your experience do you think the Cura support structure algorithm results would have been equally good around the wings? Would it have stuck to the thin wing parts too much? Thanks again for documenting your experiences with Meshmixer, it seems to add a bit more utility to the Ultimaker and being free helps quite a bit. I spent a lot of time choosing a 3d printer and I'm glad I settled on this one, I'm very excited to receive mine to start honing my skills.

Great, thanks! There are some really interesting ones to choose from. I really liked the folds in the design and am looking for simple things to print when my printer arrives.

Looks like a great print. Do you have a source, I would like to try and print it out as well.

Looks really nice, even at those settings. Anyone know if there is another support type that also uses some type of organic structures. It's a pretty neat idea, everything else uses a seemingly different variant of a straight forward approach. Thanks for the pics.

Thanks for the suggestions! I have some really basic test prints I've found and these sound like perfect settings to start out with. SpaceClaim looks like something I could definitely use for work too. I mentioned to my artist friend I was getting a 3D printer and he started talking about Z-Brush as well, and gave it an equivalently positive review. It looks pretty interesting, perhaps after the manufacturing of parts I'll try some artistic prints.

Could one use increase Minimum speed and check Cool head lift on Expert config to move the head away from the build to allow for cooling, or am I just misunderstanding the intent of these settings?

Yeah, I knew I remembered seeing bridges somewhere thanks! Are the ones in the photos 8" long? Well I'm definitely going to try the Meshmixer support at some point after I have gotten some basic prints down to see how well the head bridges those points and then builds upon them.

Awesome, thanks for the picture. That looks like a great print. This is one of the suggested support structures Meshmixer generated for a completely horizontal overhang. I was just testing the software, this probably isn't the best orientation to print such an object. What do you think? Do you think the Ultimaker could bridge those spans or would there need to be more posts. Instinctively I'm think more posts, but my instincts are still developing.

1. Couldn't agree more, I could model every item in a room to the letter except for the person standing in it. To my knowledge there is no real free-form function in SW. I was modifying Nude-Panther which has some seemingly complex geometry form a SW standpoint. Do you know if SW can do support structures? This is why I got involved in Meshmixer in the first place, I don't intend on making sculptures or figurines with my ^2, I'll probably just use SW for everything and it would be interesting to see if I could skip a few rendering steps. I do though have an artist friend who is already perusing the forums and is very keen on using my printer for the manufacturing of organic shapes, I'll link to stuff he makes. 2. Yeah, through my internet travels I have figured out that the 20 micron thing is pretty extreme on all accounts especially when it comes to functional items vs form items, no need to make it look nice if it's going to work either way. Although, I am interested in using this feature for experimental type stuff on a small scale. I can't help it, I simply want to max the thing out and understand all the settings to satisfy my curiosity.

Thanks for the reply, I really like how active the whole Ultimaker community is. I hear there are frequent software updates, so I'll see how this problem progresses over time.

O'Yeah, I was also going to mention that I use the Align feature in Meshmixer when trying to get things orientated correctly. Either LastPlane or AABox seem to do the trick with one of the axes, but this only makes them parallel to the build grid; it seems like I'm eyeballing how close to the surface of the grid the piece to print really is.

Thanks, it was some of your photos that convinced me to try out the Ultimaker 2, it's also where I first came across Meshmixer. I found a video about the supports and have been fiddling with the feature since, glad to hear I'm not the only one frustrated with the strange UI. Those keyboard shortcuts always get me, the ones in Meshmixer were also a bit tricky. Your blog post was really helpful! I am totally going to try and put Ultimaker 2 through its paces when it gets here, and now I have great place to start when it comes to the more intricate prints I have planned. Do you plan on printing out some of the items from your post, like the dragon. I have some horizontal type overhangs I have made support structures for in both Cura and Meshmixer, and am curious to see the differences in print quality and the ease of removal.

I want to saw I've been perusing the forums for the last few days and am very excited to start testing out my Ultimater 2. I have been learning the Cura and Meshmixer environments by downloading stls and exporting SolidWorks files likewise. I am very impressed by both environments. I also just put two and two together today and realized the SolidWorks Toolbox allows the generation of any standard fastener, of any size, thread type... through a customization wizard. Below is a 1/2-20 2.5 inches long fully threaded socket head cap screw: So that was pretty cool, but then I started messing with Meshmixer and couldn't believe the stuff you could do. Most of my practice was manipulating nude_pantherv2-stl by fantasygraph which is why I only have this lame looking bear head on a nut to show you, but nonetheless the bear nut was still a great Cura learning experience. bear nut in Meshmixer: This is what everything looked like inside the "box": I was doing some layer tests in the software (which I'll get back to in a moment), when I noticed this: My poor bear now has a slot in his head, to be honest I was just goofing around in Meshmixer and was testing surface smoothness stuff, and even then it looked a little glitchy. So I remembered my forum training and enabled extensive stitching in the Expert config menu and that seemed to fix the issue. So back to my layer height tests; I noticed that when I entered in a layer thickness of around 20 microns and tried to view some pieces with the layer filter on, the piece would cease to render in the screen or render really really slowly but only at a specific height (I have 32Gb of RAM, I don't think it's a memory issue). The camera pans up and down as if the layers were sequentially being rendered, but the piece is not actually being rendered. Has anyone else run into this issue? Will the printer still print the full piece regardless? I'm assuming so because it spits out the Gcode alright. Also, is there a way to pan in Cura? It seems like such a simple question, I should have found the answer by now, so I hope the answer is no, but really I would like to pan the camera around. One more thing, if anyone wants a nut or bolt .stl file just send me a message and I'll go about generating one for you, I'll also post the .stl files. I would like to do tests of different thread sizes at different resolutions with different materials and document how well different combos work. I have access to an Instron machine at work, perhaps I could do this all official like with graphs and such, I can also simulate them in SW using the actual print material to test the print version vs the full solid version in the simulation. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:214891