anon4321

BTW, if you are in the US and want XT, PrintedSolid who I believe the last poster represents has it and the service was very quick. Ordered Sunday night, shipped Mon and received on Tues. I'm in PA and I believe they are in DE so that helped the shipping time but the rest was quick too.

Nick, did you increase the feed rate of the Z axis? My guess is that the Z driver is overheating and in Nicks case increasing the feed rate and moving the bed up and down at that increase rate is overheating the driver (barely). It momentarily shuts down and quickly cools just enough to restart. For both of you, try DECREASING the current.

Another note as you have already seen this. With XT, you need to keep the nozzle free of any stuck on XT from priming the nozzle as it turns brown during the print and will fall into the printed part producing ugly brown spots.

Correct me if Im wrong but you are using the UM2 settings on then UM1. Colorfabb recommends hotter temps for the UM1. 245 is the low end and you are below that. Try hotter. http://learn.colorfabb.com/print-_xt/ I have a UM1 plus a heated bed. XT is difficult to get to stick to heated glass. However, add a little hairspray and bingo. One note, use less fan than PLA. Use 100% fan seems to cause a lot of shrinkage. In fact, my fan was broken when I first started with XT and it printed fine. I'd recommend 0-40% fan,

I read that one downside to 1.75mm is that size variance is more of a problem. 1.75mm+-0.05 is much worse than 2.85+-0.05 in terms of changes in volume due to the variance in diameter.

It doesn't sound that bad to be honest. One problem is the left side panel where the Y stepper is mounted resonates at a higher frequency whereas the back panel where the X stepper is mounted resonates at a lower frequency. Try grabbing the side panel near the stepper motor tightly and see if the sound changes BUT BE CAREFUL as the stepper might be hot and don't get anything such as clothing or fingers caught in the belts.

:oops: I meant in terms of the days that we need to wait...

But that's sooooo far away!

Well if you are willing to invest, go with a heated bed and ditch the tape. Ultimaker is supposed to come out with a heated bed upgrade for the UM1"soon" and while it sounds top notch, it also sounds expensive as it includes a Z stage upgrade too. I might go for it just because they make good stuff but it depends on the price and what it includes. I have JasonHK's heated bed upgrade with borosilicate glass. With just the right temps (230/65-ish slow speed reduced to 215/60 (or 55)) PLA sticks to the glass well. If you have a part that doesn't have a lot of bottom surface or you can't get the temps dialed in, dust the glass with hairspray (best to do off the printer for obvious reasons) and you will find that the part will be difficult to get off. Without the hairspray, if you get the part to stick well to the glass, it literally pops off as the part cools. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Heated-Bed-Premium-Kit-for-Ultimaker-3d-Printers-with-Borosilicate-Glass-Surface-/151272164070?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2338860ae6 You will need an additional 24V PS for the bed as it is very power hungry at 240 watts. Jason has one he recommends. However, I went with a consumer one for extra protection from Meanwell (The UM2 uses a Meanwell PS). http://www.meanwell.com/search/GS280/default.htm Model GS280A24-C4P

And a fire fighting protective suit...

Jemma, given all the problems you have had and I know you have the Ulticontroller, you are probably in the same frustrating situation of the darn controller flopping all over the place when you service the electronics. I printed (one of) this last night and it is bloody brilliant! Need to print the other side, didn't have time last night. I've been flipping my UM1 up and down so much that the side panel "hooks" are mangled and the controller no longer hooks on well and slowly comes off as you use it and of course it immediately falls off if I tilt the printer to get to the electronics. However, this is a great solution: UltiController Locking Sideplates http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:131278

The oozing occurs because the feeder applies pressure to the filament forcing it into the nozzle during printing. At the end, the nozzle cools faster than the pressure is released from oozing trapping some of the pressure. You can change the end code to retract the filament a bit removing the pressure (or most of it) at the end of the print. But then you must add some gcode in the start code to overfeed the filament at the start of the next print so that the slack has been removed and the pressure builds to the correct amount for the start of the print. Alternately, as long as your build surface can tolerate the heat, you can use the surface to prevent oozing by homing the printer. NOTE however that I think the standard bed of UM1 will melt if in remains in contact with a hot nozzle.

Oooo, can you be printed into a part like a coin trap? This is customizable !!! http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:193941

OK, that is very strange. When the machine powers off, how to you get it to turn back on? If you need to unplug the PS to get it back on, that means the PS shut down due to over-current protection and something on that connector or the circuit around it is shorted.

What do you mean by "causes the machine to shut down."? Are the LEDs still on? Ulticontroller? Anything working? Does it "hang"? Display an error? Is the USB comm still occurring? Are you saying you can take the temp sensor cable with nothing attached, plug it into temp2 without problems but you take the exact same cable with nothing connected and plug it into temp1 and things stop working?

If what you are pumping is hot, ABS might be better or I would recommend Colorfabb XT which is similar to ABS but easier to print. Take a look at that pump design. All the friction points are on bearings and it even uses bearings to compress the tube I think the precision of the printed parts would be good enough for this. As far as pumping precise amounts, that would depend on the length of tube to the head and it's elasticity and the pump's pressure and leakage back through it. Not sure about your comments on stainless and sintered parts as nothing but the tube comes in contact with what is being pumped. Certainly, you understand what it is needed for but might be worth a try.

Some brim porn from a mathematically leveled bed... Psssst, that cradle looking thing with things that look like magnets is not standard.

Jonny, I ran this sequence five times. Home the hotend which sets the initial Z value then issued a G29 which does a four point probe and then moved the hotend up 20mm through the Cura Pronterface UI (so the probe doesn't drag when homing at the start of the next set). The raw output is below but I'll summarize in a table (see note that follows) --- edit: The forum didn't like a table copied from excel even though it pasted OK.... here is a pic: NOTE: I wanted to see how repeatable my mag-mount was. As you can tell by the numbers above, I spend some time leveling the bed first. Then I ran the sequence to get the numbers above. This took much longer than I have ever left the probe in the cradle next to the hotend at temperature. When I went to unclip the probe, it was soft enough to deform. So I couldn't test the repeatability of the the probe/ cradle mount and it's possible that his slightly affected the numbers above. However, all things considered, the most variance was 0.06mm which is better than I think I can do with a feeler gauge so in my opinion it works (for me). Off to reprint the arm in XT since the fixed part on the hotend did weill under the heat. Then for Duesentrieb, I'll take some pics and upload the models to youmagine. However, it's nothing more then a way to manually magnetically clip a endstop to the hotend. < echo:Unknown command: "" > G29 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.02 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.05 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.07 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.00 < Eqn coefficients: a: 0.00 b: 0.00 d: 7.00 < planeNormal x: -0.00 y: -0.00 z: 1.00 < echo:endstops hit: Z PROBE:7.00 > G28 > G29 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.04 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.07 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.07 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 180.00 z: 6.98 < Eqn coefficients: a: 0.00 b: -0.00 d: 7.02 < planeNormal x: -0.00 y: 0.00 z: 1.00 < echo:endstops hit: Z PROBE:6.99 > G28 > G29 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.04 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.03 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.08 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.00 < Eqn coefficients: a: 0.00 b: 0.00 d: 7.02 < planeNormal x: -0.00 y: -0.00 z: 1.00 < echo:endstops hit: Z PROBE:7.01 > G28 > G29 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.04 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.01 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.07 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.03 < Eqn coefficients: a: 0.00 b: 0.00 d: 7.02 < planeNormal x: -0.00 y: -0.00 z: 1.00 < echo:endstops hit: Z PROBE:7.03 > G28 > G29 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.04 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 20.00 z: 7.02 < Bed x: 170.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.05 < Bed x: 15.00 y: 180.00 z: 7.01 < Eqn coefficients: a: 0.00 b: -0.00 d: 7.02 < planeNormal x: -0.00 y: 0.00 z: 1.00 < echo:endstops hit: Z PROBE:7.01

You can limit the wear on the Z screw by dialing in the bed so it is as level as possible.

I think we have a disconnect between what we mean when we say auto level. The Marlin firmware has the ability to perform a matrix translation on coordinates. The matrix comes from the leveling data. Using that AND the Z axis in BOTH directions (so backlash can be a problem), Marlin can mathematically cope with an unlevel bed. Believe me, it is very simple and effective. Just distance probing gets you a good first layer. The mathematical leveling gets you a near perfect level. Using inexpensive calibers, I've measured the brim on parts and it was within +-.03mm which is very difficult to get with mechanically leveling via the screws. The other benefit is you get consistent initial layer thickness AND you can change the initial layer thickness for more/less squish via the ulticontroller. When the firmware is compiled for the auto leveling feature, there is a "probe to nozzle" distance setting which if you decrease, the first layer has less squish, increase it for more squish. Below is an extreme example. Marlin outputs the distances when probing the level. I dial them in as much as possible so very little Z axis movement is required. Notice that at the end, the part is actually leaning to stay square to the bed.

Re auto level, it's not that hard. The FW supports it, you just need some kind of probe. I didn't want to add too much weight to the hotend so I came up with the mag mount. It has a small saddle on the hotend that has 5 neo magnets for extremely strong attachment and positioning. The magnets are arranged so they locate the arm in all three dimensions. The probe needs to be clipped on, home needs to be set and then the four point probe for the level function is done. While the removable probe seems like a good idea, it is very inconvenient because any resetting causes the home position to be lost as well as the leveling info. Also, either disabling the steppers manually or having them disable due to timeout will also clear the height and leveling data. Furthermore, homing requires the probe to be clipped so all gcode needs to NOT home the printer. And it case it isn't obvious, every time a USB connection is made, the arduino is reset. So using a host like Cura the sequence always needs to be: Load model, make sure to dial in settings Open print dialog, wait for connection Clip probe on Home printer In Cura print window (in Pronterface mode) issue G29 to get the level probing Remove probe Now NEVER move the hotend manually AND never let the steppers idle long enough to be disabled as this clears the height and leveling data too. Click print and enjoy beautiful skirts and brims. You can move the hotend via gcode or the ulticontroller and set retain the parameters. However, if you hit an endstop, I believe things go wonky. Oh, sorry, no pics because I think the solution isn't optimal. I'll try to take some and possibly a video to show it. If it is something someone else wants to try, I'll happily make the models available.

Interesting topic... I made what I call a mag mount for the auto bed level function. It's a switch mounted to an arm that positions the switch arm just below the nozzle and there is a cradle to which the arm is "clicked" onto using magnets. The switch I used was some piece of junk I pulled out of a grab bag of switches. If I had to guess, the repeatability is in the +- .07mm range but it's hard to tell since the UM1 bed is not very stable. However, it is repeatable enough that I get awesome first layers and brims. Sadly, it was printed in PLA and deformed from the hotend heat. I have a new version in XT I'll try with repeated probes to see the repeatability when I get home.

Saw this and thought you might be interested - LionShark http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:412197 wait what ?!?!.... No this is it - Peristaltic Pump http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:412150 Wonder if you could drive it with a stepper for precise dispensing.

Gr5's method works if you can keep the part attached to the bed. I thought this one was interesting because they used (double sided I presume) tape to reattach the part to the bed to continue. Yeah, it would be interesting to see how well the system handles the translation when finishing a failed print instead of printing on top of another print. You can see that the point data isn't perfect so you wonder about the accuracy.

http://hackaday.com/2014/08/02/restarting-3d-prints/ 3D Printing on an object using in-Situ 3D Scanning