aaronalai

Hey guys I know that I've been a bit absent from the forum lately. I've barley been following some of the main threads via my email updates. I've been messing with the printer a lot and working even more! I'm working on my first impression post, there are some good things and some bad things; mostly good things. I just wanted to post my first cylinder; sorry Schafe it made it to 10 mm^3/s on the stock holder. I didn't get any Ultimaker blue for some reason and have been doing my tests in red filament. I have a bunch of other filament types I'm going to try the cylinder test on though, and I'll report my findings as I generate them. I don't have to work Friday so tomorrow evening I'm going to try finish my post, it will be long but with lots of pictures and I hope what I have to say will help out others in the future. For now: I also wanted to say that I totally owe you guys a good post, the amount of time you have saved me via your detailed problems and solutions is more than I can ever repay back.

Hey Schafe, have you looked carefully at the housing unit for the feeder unit on the back of the unit? Nicolinux had some pretty interesting findings on his new unit that is only a couple of days old. http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3976-almost-always-missing-layers-underextruding/?p=40962 People have talked about this in the past, and are actively trying out different designs. I noticed you are not following this thread: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4393-ultimaker2-feeder-system-improvements-and-ideas/ it's got some really interesting stuff inside!! Also, do you see any black flecks inside your bowden tube or on your filament when you pull it out of the bowden tube? They might be really hard to see.

Yeah I see what you mean about not wanting to get too hot. I think I read somewhere you don't want to go above 250C or 260C with PLA not sure exactly where I saw that and I forgot to write it down. gr5 regularly prints at 240C with PLA though so I would think it's a safe printing temperature: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4541-fan-speed-issue-with-small-objects-shrinking/?p=39561

Thanks for the post Das_ENGINER; you have some pretty interesting observations. Do you think there needs to be a temperature change when you change the filament? I know they are from the same manufacture and such but perhaps the additive for the Space Marine blue requires a higher temp than whatever is in the Gold filament.

Nice job illuminarti! I'm sure your troubleshooting will help a lot of people in the future. I would have "Liked" your hard work but ran of out "Likes" for the day.

I thought someone posted something similar to this and Diad said it was a problem with a firmware update he rolled out. I tried searching the forums for specifics and couldn't find the thread I was looking for. I recall him rolling out two firmware updates in a short duration of time because of some bugs that caused collisions of the print head with either the clips and/or the build plate. Have you installed the latest firmware via Cura?

He Schafe, the only think I can think of that might work to measure current to the extruder stepper motor is this little device: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4542-comedoone-for-ultimaker2/?p=40087 I don't think there is anything wrong with the amperage going to the stepper. The little current sensors are only 10 bucks so it's a pretty good investment. When I get it working I'll post a detailed description of my methodology and you can give it a try as well, that's about as black boxed as I can do :-P. This conjures up so many peaceful thoughts :-P. Also, I ran out of "Like This" powers for the day, some days it seems like I have a lot and other it seems like I can only "Like" a couple of things. One more also, before you retreat away from the forums you must post some footage of your C-130 zipping around! One more more also, you should definitely ask your wife about her "good old times." I have taken several gfs to check out the sights and they overwhelming love it. I know it's strange but even the ladies like seeing other ladies. I don't think the inverse is true for a lot of guys though, although I've never been to a chippendales performance, so who knows; lol.

Yeah, especially if you don't want clogged shower and sink drains :mrgreen:; I'm going to be a very hairy old person. Yeah, Friday was quickly turning into Hell at work already, then I found out that I missed the phone call and had to juggle everything at once. It was very annoying to say the least; the ending of the day was rather good though.

Thanks for the post ameba, I'm just glad my order is currently in a neighboring US city making it's way to it's new home! But am curious still as to the intent of having to fill out such a detailed series of questions about my order. I ordered my printer in late December, definitely had to wait longer than the estimated shipping date; hopefully it arrives in on piece :shock:.

Hey guys! (and potentially girls, it's hard to tell with all the avatars) It's been a crazy week at work, last night I was there until 12:30 AM! loosing my sanity; it was pretty fun nonetheless. My printer is slated to arrive on Monday, and the first thing I'm going to print is the cylinder. I know the Ultimaker Robot seems to be the traditional first thing to print, but I'm curious to see how the printer performs out of the box (after I perform a hefty inspection); so soon I'll have some updates to contribute to the thread. I'll try to document the inspection of the printer as best as I can and find somewhere on the forum to post my findings. It's been a while since I've been able to sit down and read the forums in peace, it's nice to see there are a lot of people finding success in getting their printers running as efficiently as possible. Thanks Mr. Waldorf for starting this thread, it has helped out many people, probably even more than who are responding. Thanks for the detailed posts Schafe, it's interesting and informative to see how things are playing out for you. Also double thanks for the tip; next time I'm in Iowa, I'm totally checking those places out :mrgreen:. I wish I knew you when I lived in Nebraska.

Hey everyone I'm posting an update about my shipment, I also have a question. My UM2 shipped out on Thursday via FedEx International (I live in the USA). It was originally slated to arrive on Friday; I thought this was too good to be true, so I kept checking the tracking information (which was provided on both my Ultimaker account and via email) and the shipping delivery date changed to Monday. On Friday afternoon I got a phone call from someone at FedEx telling me that due to the price of the item (I also ordered 3 spools of filament) that I had to answer some questions before my item would be released from customs. I had to fill out a CF5106 document, which I had no clue to how to do without the assistance of the FedEx person who contacted me. I then had to tell them what the spools were, the diameter of the filament, the length of the material on the roll, the country of origin of the filament, and give them my SSN (social security number). Shortly thereafter my package was released from customs and looks like it's making its way through the US and to my doorstep. The CF5106 document said in the upper left hand side it was a "Department of Homeland Security U.S. Customs and Border Protection Importer ID Input Record" Is there anyone else out there that had to jump through all these hoops to get their printer in the US? Or is the guy with the wacky beard and a foreign last name (half Norwegian-half Iranian) on a list somewhere in the dark recesses of an overtly idiotic spying program.

Hey @Schafe! Lol, I "Liked"your post for several reasons . Yes D. is a reason for sure; you added a lot of detail to your post to help pin down your under-extrusion issue. I thought it was interesting that you think you are only getting 0/10 Blarp prints when it's your first print after a cold start (also Blarps for a unit of measurement is a great idea!). I was going to ask if you could provide any more details about this, but have been super busy lately and was going to ask at a later time. I suppose this is a good time. Do you always get a good cylinder after a cold start, or is it only some of the time? I also "Liked" it simply because you were trying to add valuable content to this thread. I "Like" even seemingly off handed comments because they keep the momentum of the thread going; I like when people chime in and say what's on their minds. I also like the humor of your posts, keep them coming!! BTW your subsequent posts have definitely been impressive. I like the record keeping you are doing and think this information is invaluable to help pin down the problem. Also, I want to add that I'm originally from Nebraska; I wasn't born there but spent a majority of my life there. I understand what it's like being from the Midwest. Personally I think Iowa is nicer to drive through and there is more stuff to do; you have better strip clubs for sure :mrgreen:! I lived in Bellevue, Omaha, and Lincoln so going over to Iowa to sample their local delights was always something I enjoyed. It sucks when you go overseas or something and people have no clue Nebraska exists. It's even worse when you travel within the country and hear all the stereotypes people associate with Nebraska and surrounding states. I think this is a pretty upstanding forum though, most people probably haven't developed these stereotypes so there is more mental equality .

Hey Skint, thanks for the offer :grin:. My UM2 is shipping out this week though, so no need to model anything on my behalf. Actually having the thing in hand would be make it much easier to implement my modifications.

Woah Cohen! You really went above and beyond in your analysis; I'm totally jealous with the thermal cam you got to play with :mrgreen:. I'm really excited to try and measure the current now. I'm really curious to see if I can see the current profile over time given the speed of the microstepping, the little devices I have yield a 5us response time. I, and I'm sure many other Ultimakers, appreciate all the time you spent testing the device so thoroughly. Looking forward to comparing notes in the future. Thanks again :-P.

Thanks for the update Cohen, I understand you are pretty busy over there at Ultimaker and need to prioritize your time. When I get my printer (should be within about a week, give or take several days) I plan on using a hall-effect current sensor to measure the current over time of the two motor coils. I'll post a link to the results here for easy reference. Perhaps the data will help you, perhaps not; but it's an independent test that may help yield conclusions with respect to your own data. Thanks again .

Thanks! Yeah gr5, my invoice specifically said "UltimakerFedEx International" that's why I figured it was going to be a FedEx tracking number.

Great to hear @braddock :-P! I can't find the post now, but either Daid or Sander suggested to spray some WD-40 in the bowden tube to see if it would help. I'm glad that such an easy fix helped you in your case; I suppose it's another thing to add to the list of fixes that work.

Hey MostlyAtomicBob, I think your findings are pretty interesting. I hypothesized the tefon couple could cause under extrusion on pagest 2 and 19 of Nicolinux's mega thread here. Definitely print another cylinder, maybe even a couple more cylinders, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke; I'm very interested to see your results. Regarding how the teflon coupler gets deformed in the first place. I believe it's from Creep (deformation): http://en.wikipedia....p_(deformation) and too much compression force on the teflon coupler. The wiki page on Creep Deformation is pretty interesting and talks about how susceptible plastics are to the phenomena. Essentially with increasing temperatures plastics will deform under pressure; I'm still not sure why the teflon coupler was chosen. I am not criticizing the implementation of the teflon coupler, I just think there are tons of other materials that could have been used, high durometer silicone rubber, carbon composite materials, even temperature suitable glass. I suppose there are trade-offs with the aforementioned materials and I don't have the perspective their engineering department has, but it seems like that piece is the weakest link in the extrusion system; perhaps without the presence of increased pressure from assembly, the teflon copuler is the best choice. I know the heat sinks are suppose to wick away heat before it hurts the coupler, but I think the teflon piece is still getting too hot due to its close proximity to the heated portion of the nozzle.

Cool analysis Bertho, thanks for sharing I don't think I would have come across your results on my own. Although your setup is for the UM1, the results are still pretty interesting. Thanks again Edit: In fact there are several neat things on your site :mrgreen:.

Thanks for the report Mr. Waldorf :-P. Yeah, I'm starting to question the validity of the resistor/heat/current hypothesis; that's why it's a hypothesis though. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and as of yet the extraordinary evidence seems to be lacking. I don't know if you have stated it on another post, but just so everyone knows he was getting 87C on the board during 12mm3/s so it's unlikely that this is the issue. I'm going to interface the motors with the current sensing circuitry and heat up my board with a hot air reflow station in small increments to simulate a higher than average ambient temperature to see if it makes any difference without risking any damage to the board; I think a current vs temperature graph would really help put this idea to bed. But as it sits now, I'm less convinced that this is the problem; but still think it's worth testing out if for nothing else than to have some quantifiable documentation about the actual amount of current reaching the motors, which could provide useful in the future. Nope, no suggestions from me about what to test, I think you nailed the reason for under extrusion on your unit :mrgreen:. I hope it helps others with similar issues, it's such an easy thing to test for, it would be the first thing I would test for if I were experiencing the under-extrusion issue. Looking forward to comparing notes in the future though :grin:.

Roger that, I'll start a new thread when I have some data. I also have a hot air reflow station for surface mount stuff; it has very finite increments of heat output so I can measure the effects of current as a function of heat without melting anything. I think this would be the most quantifiable way to test the precision resistor hypothesis; and put the idea to bed if it really isn't true.

Just a quick question for those who received a FedEx tracking number, did you receive an email with your tracking number or did you have to check your account. Mine is slated to ship out this week, OMG :shock:, via FedEx and was just wondering how you got your FedEx tracking number.

gr5 have you thought of trying to make a direct current measurement of the feeder stepper motor? I've got two of these hall effect-based linear current sensors just itching to be interfaced with the motors. Like Geeks said, measuring the the current of both motor coils is probably an accurate way to gauge the current. Here are a couple of datasheets for the units I own: http://www.robotshop.com/media/files/pdf/allegro-acs714-current-sensor-datasheet-1185.pdf http://www.robotshop.com/media/files/pdf/datasheet-1185.pdf They have a very high bandwidth so hopefully will be able to capture the micro-stepping functions very accurately, and the output is 185mV/A so I think they would have enough resolution to see important differences in current. If you have an o-scope, which I imagine you do since you told me you are an electrical engineer, you can just hook up the output directly to that; this is at least my intention. I understand your hesitance to make any permanent modifications to the unit, but I think a simple pigtail or micro-alligator setup would work very well without having to make any modifications to the wire. Just a thought, it would be nice to see someone else make this measurement so I have someone to compare my results with.

Thanks for posting some progress, we understand with your busy schedule it's difficult to find time to report back. It's interesting that you are reporting you cannot finish the cylinder test without active cooling on the board. Hmm, I wish more people would try and put a fan on their board to see if it makes a difference. I know Mr. Waldorf tried and couldn't see much of a difference, I think he's going to try and cool the other side of the board when he gets a chance; to focus the cooling on the suspect components. Although from the thread he started about recording the success of printing the cylinder test, it looks like his problem was because of http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4586-can-your-um2-printer-achieve-10mm3s-test-it-here/?p=39708 that keep the printer assembly together. Perhaps loosening the 4 long bolts should be next on your list of things to try out.

Roger that, through our PM I expressed that I even was hesitant of directly changing the board temp. I suppose you were as well. Again, I appreciate the attempt; but I'm still not convinced the resistors where getting hot enough. Edit, both Mr. Waldorf and Markus measured board temps almost twice that of 40C. I do think the boards are getting twice as hot as yours. Another Edit, I don't think anything suddenly happens at 75C, I think that the temperature coefficients (TCs) were not allowed to multiply due to the small temperature changes. My calculations relied heavily on the TCs, remember for each increase in 1 degree C you have to add another ppm to the resistance. I'm saying I don't think your tests were high enough to express the full potential of the TCs. Also another thing to note, is that due to the lower current demand on the motors you chose, the resistors wouldn't heat as much on their own from current flow as they would if you had gone the full 1.25 amps. I'm not trying to discredit your experiment, and I really do appreciate all the time you put into it, but I simply think you changed too many variables to make any type of conclusion.