rick

Hey guys, Here's my problem. The 2 40mm fans on the side of my UM2 printhead seem to get out of alignment pretty fast by the movement of the printer, after which they make noise like theres no tomorrow at lower rpm's. I don't exactly know why this happens, but i've replaced them about 10 times now and the problem keeps coming back. So my idea was to go the crossflow way. I have some nice 120mm corsair AF series fans that i would like to mount on the side of my printer. This is obviously only possible if i make 2 120mm holes in both side panels. I would like to have some opinions about this from the community. Also (and heres a pretty dumb quistion, but gonna ask it anyways) i want to know how UM will deal with this warranty wise. As in: will this even void my warranty ? if so, can i get new side panels if the need arises ?

This crossed my mind as well, but tbh i don't think it will. M3 thread has a module of .0.4mm or so, this means that if u use ~2.85mm filament it will only cut into +/- 0.25mm of filament.

Oh and to let you guys in on what i'm working on... Here's the idea. I'm working on a system that feeds the filament trough a threaded tube(metal), For this to happen the directional feed of the motor has to change from vertical to horizontal. This is all good until i realised that the feed of M3 thread id 0.5mm per rev and the bolt feeds +/- 25mm. So i need to either make the motor 50 times faster or find some sort of gear setup that doesnt take up to much space. I have tried worm gears, but the immense torque needed for the gear to drive the worm is not something i want for this system.(they're usually the other way around) BUT ! here comes the fun part. If this works, you will have absolutely zero slipping because it will be physically impossible to slip through a cm or so of thread. Also this will solve all wear and tear problems with the feeder, as there is no contact with the actual feeder. And it will also be no problem feeding soft filament, because the threads will grip this just as easy as any other filament. Just a quick rendering and wireframe: So please share your thoughts and ideas on this, all help is welcome Rick

I have now ! sry about that, didnt know i had to put it on public.

yeah i wish i could show you the insides but i'm printing a crossflow fanoutlet atm, so it's probably not advisable to open it up right now. Also i was thinking to replace the bowden with the same spring ( i have 5M of it) and see what it does. If the spring can stay compressed under the pressure of the filament it will probably be a better choice than the plastic tube

So while i'm working on my other feeder design i needed one for the time being as my original one was totally wrecked on the inside. I used geeks's for a few weeks but noticed it started to wear itself out aswel. So i decided to try and add some metal to it. I found a coilspring with a inner diameter of 4.5mm and mounted it in the filament path up to the drive bolt. Also i placed a smaller piece in the upper part from the drive bolt to where the filament enters the bowden tube. I've been using it for a few days right now and i havent had any wear on either the filament or the feeder itself anymore. Just thought i'd share it so somebody else may use it in their design The other advantage of using the spring is that it guides the filament into the feeder and keeps it at a nice angle.

Ok, i just realized i asked the wrong question. I'll try to explain what i want to do. I'm going to try to feed the filament trough something. This has a feed of 0.5mm per rev. So in order for it to be compatible with the ultimaker 2 as it is, i need to know what gear ratio i must use in order to get the same feed as with the bolt. This has nothing to do with the software/firmware, it's just so i know what gears i need to order/make. So basically my question is: Is there a given value for this in either the firmware or in cura ? thx

Hmm i see. But to calculate all that i assume cura has to know what the feed is per rev... as this is the only moving part in the feeder. But i suppose i'll start with values between 24-25mm per rev and see from there. The way i see it, cura calculates it by multiplying the diameter of the filament with the amount of mm filament feeded. But i could be wrong ofc. Also i have not seen a single line of gdoce in my life, so that part i still haev to figure out.

Hey Guys, I'm working on a feeder as well here, one which doesn't use a bolt. I have one question for the moment. Am i correct if i say the feed per rev on the bolt is 25mm ? This is a very important part of the calculations i have to make for it to work with standard cura settings, and i wanna know it's exaxtly that. Thanks in advance ! Rick

I'll give it a try

No, let's take, for example, this one. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:83193 If you want to print the main body parts, you have pretty much an impossible overhang from the engines. So you actually have to be able to put a part under the body part to be able to support it. Now you can turn normal supprt on in cura, but then it's gonna print support beneath the entire part. Which in this case is not neccesary, and a waste of material. This overhang occurs at 3,3 mm hight. So if i would be able to place a 3,3mm high part under the overhang of the engines, it would support it correctly without having to support the entire part.

Well that's not realy what i had in mind... The point is, as it is now, you can't put any other parts within their own "gray" area. Thus making it impossible to place manual support models in the area to be printed. What you suggest is nice and automated, but it would probably be difficult to implement as you need al sorts of algorythms to calculate it. All i'm suggesting is to have an option to remove the placement restrictions caused by the grey area around the to be printed object.

Exactly ! Don't even need to put them in cura as a stock. You could just import it as a normal part.

Considering everybody wants to have an option to manually select the support structures, i thought it might be a nice temp. solution to add some sort of overlap between parts function. It's for the majority of parts fairly easy to make a support part in your CAD of choice. If you would then be allowed to place those parts in the area that needs to be supported it would save a lot of time spent on printing unneccesary supprt structures. Apart from the above it seems like a nice function to play with anyways. It could open up a whole new way of "adjusting" parts without modifying them in a CAD program.