Anders Olsson

I don't think you strip the nozzle thread easily, something else probably bends or breaks first. These non flexible metal to metal seals are quite difficult to tighten I think, even though I have a lot of hands on experience working with similar things. The torque wrench was just something that popped up in my head two weeks ago. The prototype worked surprisingly well and I realized this could be quite a nice accessory for the heater blocks. Since it potentially can reduce the failure rate, I thought it was worth putting some effort in optimizing the design so that "anyone" can print it, and then make it available for free. :smile: The torque wrench actually has quite some future potential for lab-use so it is something I will probably redesign and reuse for other purposes.

I would recommend to print IRobertI's feeder instead: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/alternative-um2-feeder-version-two It certainly is an improvement over the original feeder I think, even if the original feeder did not cause me any major problems. If you insist on printing the original feeder the step-files should be available here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2 Yo need to convert the step-files to stl if you are going to attempt printing them.

Sleep? nahh, no time for that :smile: In general, I experienced a bit higher maximum extrusion rates with my heater block and possibly that I could print at 10 degrees lower and so, but it depends. If you run the fans at full speed they seem to affect the extrusion in some cases for example. If anyone decide to mount the UMO-nozzle (which fits), the fans might have quite an impact on the nozzle temperature, that remains to be properly tested. The blue PLA that came with my Ultimaker a year ago is really quite strange by the way. I had to go up from 210 to 230 C when the fans started with that one to avoid underextrusion, but I haven't experienced anything like that with any other PLA or ABS (?), so I am starting to believe that the blue PLA is cursed :???: Meduza appears to have been printing at more than 14mm3/s with he 0.8 mm nozzle, that is impressive! :smile: I have pushed it that far too, but for ABS I think 10-12mm3/s feels like a good compromise, it is still way faster than anything I could do with the 0.4 mm nozzle anyway. I haven't tried the 0.25 mm nozzle much really, so I am looking forward to read about your experiments. It was a bit difficult to get ABS to stick to the platform with the 0.25 mm nozzle for some reason, so at the time I needed to print small I went for the 0.3 mm instead, which worked fine. After that I have not really had any need to go smaller than 0.3 mm, so that remains unexplored for me. Printing times gets quite ridiculous too when you go that small, so you really need a good reason, or a very small object, for doing that :smile: The 0.3 mm saved me a few times though, so that one is highly recommended by me! Regarding the fan cap clearance, here are two photos: I decided now it is time to sacrifice that nozzle for science, so I just started a 3 hour print with Carbon Fiber PLA at 0.02 mm layer height :smile: Did you try the printable nozzle torque wrench by the way, gixxer?

I really enjoy reading about you playing with the new heater blocks! :smile: It reminds me of when I got my first prototype heater block and stayed up all night to test all the new exciting possibilities. :smile: Now it feels like that exchangeable nozzle has always been there, but still it is something that makes my printer more useful and my life easier. I hope I did not sound too much like I was complaining about Ultimaker in my previous post by the way, I just tried to explain why things went this route. gixxer Check that you have some space between the heater block and the fan cap. If they are touching you might get all sorts of extrusion issues. I would also recommend you to turn down the tube that sticks through the fan cap a bit. It was very tight on my first prototype too, it worked better after it was turned down to 7 mm. You might want to be a bit careful making your design public before you tested it properly. Some people have a tendency to copy without noticing the word "prototype" and then they come back complaining when it did not work. At least for me that can really kill my inspiration, so I prefer not to make things public until they are well tested. Your drop in extrusion temperature could be because you changed sensor with the block and that the old one was faulty I guess? 255 C for PLA sounds a bit high to me.

Time for an update :smile: I have printed about 200 hours now (the log says 182 hours but I know I forgot to log a few prints). When printing torque wrenches I changed back and forth between PLA and ABS numerous times and I had zero problems so far. The spacer still looks okay on the outside (looks a bit ugly at this photo though): But there is a small deformation on the inside now which was not there at ~110h: The deformation does not stretch all the way around the inside of the spacer for some reason, only about half way. I haven't done anything obvious cause the deformation, I think. I did notice some black burnt stuff coming out of the nozzle a few days ago though, and I had an incident printing when the nozzle was not fully heated today. If anyone else is about to try a Vespel washer, I think it might be worth trying a slightly thicker one, like 1.5 mm or so. I was feeding both ABS and PLA by hand just a few hours ago and both appeared to feed perfectly fine, so as far as I can see up until now the Vespel is not causing any excessive friction.

Honestly, your heater block was among the few that I did not send to swordriff because they required a bit more torque on the fixing screw to keep the temperature sensor. But it is not an engineering sample. The reason why you got it so soon is that you were among the first ones to request one and that you happen to live very close to me :smile: When it comes to Ultimaker, I offered them the design for free. They got one of the four heater blocks from the prototype batch as IRobertI mentioned and I also provided STEP-files. However they seem not to be that interested. The only reply I got was like "yea, we looked at that but we will probably do things a bit differently". I heard some rumor that Ultimaker had lots of support tickets on the exchangeable nozzle on the UMO. Avoiding that would requite people to use a torque wrench or similar I guess.. yes, exactly :smile: I think the UM2 is an excellent platform to modify to suit my needs though since it is very reliable, common and has all these people spending time here on this forum supporting it. When it comes to oozing I haven't done any comparisons yet, but I would love to know how it compares. I heard rumors that Delta Tower's nozzles, which look identical to the E3D-nozzles, are somehow different. I suspect oozing might be one reason that they apparently went for a different internal design (?) I have another route to prevent oozing which i want to explore. Hopefully I have time to do that now when swordriff takes care of the heater blocks :smile: Thank you UltiArjan for the torque measurements! I wish I had access to tools like that, not just an adjustable wrench and a luggage scale. By the way, I can't wait to get that scientific paper finished so I can tell the story about why the professor payed for manufacturing the first four prototypes of this design and what horrors my Ultimaker had to go through as a result of that.

There were actually not one, but two independent bugs that could/would affect the bed leveling that were not yet found in the 14.03 firmware: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/5935-z-axis-homing-inconsistent-on-um2-workaround-and-patch/ Apart from that, the priming was significantly improved around 14.06-14.07, which significantly reduced filament grinding issues. So before you start any troubleshooting of the hardware, upgrade the firmware! :smile:

I have to say that I am quite curious as to how Ultimaker is going to solve this. Since the UM2Go and the UM2Extend does not seem to have any changes in the print head I kind of wonder if there will be any changes in the hardware at all to fit the second extruder? Are we just talking about a more durable PTFE-spacer and very carefully set retraction parameters, combined with wiping tower or similar? I had the impression that in order to get the dual head printing good enough for Ultimaker to release it we would be talking about a more complex redesign including a nozzle valve and a nozzle lift system. In fact I have been thinking about designing something like that now when I am finished with the custom heater blocks :smile:

Here is some more information regarding the heater blocks and the torque wrench, I thought I would make a video too, but that has to wait a bit: - There are two slots on the side of the heater block which is facing down. Through these slots you can see if the sensor/heater is fully inserted in the hole. The slots can also be used to access the sensor/heater with a small hex key to push them out in case they are stuck :smile: - You can tighten the fixing screw quite hard without destroying things, but I recommend to tighten it bit by bit, pulling very gently in the sensor/heater to check if they are fixed in between. A rule of thumb is that the screw will be level with the surface of the heater block when they are tightened. - Don't screw the thermal heat break pipe all the way down to the surface of the heater block. I recommend to leave a space of 0.5 mm or so. The dimensions are a bit tight here too, that is why I don't recommend to tighten it all the way to the bottom. - When installing the fan cap, install the four screws but leave them loose. Move the cap back and forth and try to fix it in an intermediate position where it is not touching the heater block. (It was impossible to make the part where the nozzle is inserted any smaller, so this is the reasonable way to get around that problem :smile: ) Besides E3D/Delta tower, Ultimaker Original nozzles will also fit this heater block. There are most likely other types that will work too, basically anything with an M6 thread longer than 6mm should fit. - There might be a hex bit version of the torque wrench available soon, in case some of you prefer that. :smile: (It should be a bit stronger and more heat resistant, but requires more things to be purchased) EDIT: One more thing: Remember to level the bed before test printing!

Here is the nozzle torque wrench: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/nozzle-torque-wrench I hope it keeps those of you who are waiting for your heater blocks busy for a few hours :smile: It has been test-printed by in various plastics and seems to work okay now, but is still somewhat a prototype. Credits to UltiArjan, ChrisR, IRobertI and swordriff for helping me testing it! :smile:

I was thinking about exactly the same thing the other day :smile: It should not be that difficult to calculate how much the shaft has rotated based on where the head is, really. I guess it could be a feature in Cura, lite a "slice for flexible shaft"-button, in case it is too complex to integrate in the firmware.

Ultimaker really should try to arrange local dealers in all countries where they have substantial sales. I am lucky to live in Sweden where 3DVerkstan is an official Ultimaker dealer. They are superb at supplying whatever accessories and spare parts I need, not just things you would find in the Ultimaker store, but any component I might need. :smile: I can not recall that have I had that good support for any other product I bought lately! :smile: Hopefully you will experience the same thing in the US when Fbrc8 starts selling spare parts. It possibly could reduce the load on Ultimaker HQ too, which is obviously overloaded with orders, reducing the delivery times for other customers.

I have mostly printed ABS and never had any problem whatsoever with the teflon spacer, even though it has been badly fried a few times. On the other hand, it seems to work fine with a metal spacer and ABS too. My impression is that the cause of the deformation is a combination of temperature and printing PLA, which apparently causes way more friction inside the spacer. (Just compare feeding PLA and ABS by hand, retracting and feeding again) I am curious about korneel's results, did the shorter teflon spacer also suffer from deformations, even though not running so hot thanks to the vespel washer? I would also like to know more about glloq's Duratron spacer. Besides the cost and the machining properties, that material appears to have potential to be a final solution. For my part, I rarely print PLA, but I don't want to invent something that does not work with PLA, since the teflon more or less do work for most things I do. My main goal is to find something that reduces the temperature of the spacer closest to the heater block because: 1. I think it looks ugly when it is fried, and it might affect PLA printing, even thought ABS seems to not care about fried spacers. 2. I want to be able to print at temperatures up to 300 C, and then to go back to PLA, without having to rebuild the printer each time. I have a hard time believing that EldRick's spacer would have no signs of being burnt at all after 2000 hours at 260 C with that little extra cooling. The reason is that teflon has way much lower thermal conductivity than brass, so the temperature closest to the heater block should be more or less the same with or without the extra cooling. (Or did you print at temperatures considerably lower than 260 C? Here is how a glass filled spacer looks after a few hundred hours of ABS at 255-260C in my printer: I am not surprised at all that it kept working for 2000 hours with ABS though. As I said, my machine never had any feeding issues or needed any replacement parts as long as printed ABS only.

I had to realize that I am way too busy for this, so I will let "swordriff" do all the sales and shipping of the heater blocks. He has my list of people who requested heater blocks (in order) and will contact you soon :smile:

Funny, that was exactly my reaction when I watched Barnacules video about it. It is just a copy of a metal ratchet with some minor changes, basically. Clevens design is way better than NASAs, I would say :smile: NASA really could need someone with a bit more skills in designing for 3D-printing to use that printer efficiently. After all, it must be quite expensive to print things in space if your filament has to be shipped from planet earth and so on.. :smile:

Interesting, I suspected that would be an issue and that is why I went for a washer as thin as possible. I just want it thick enough for the temperature to decrease enough to save the spacer, any thicker than that will most likely just cause problems with PLA. (The washer always has to be warm enough to really melt the PLA, not just make it rubbery) If i remember correctly I made the hole in my washer 3.3 mm for it not to interfere with the filament. It appears to work fine with ABS, which was my main concern since the printing temperatures for ABS is what kills my spacers. I am testing PLA right now, but I don't have enough hours yet to get to any conclusion. So far it works just fine though with PLA, but it needs further testing.

My Vespel washer is about 1mm thick i think. Here is how it looked a few days ago: The black stuff is burnt residues from extruded plastic, not the washer being burnt. The teflon insulator is a glass filled one and was brand new when I started counting hours. I am not sure exactly what grade of plastic the washer it is, but I think it is Vespel SP1 (it was made from a scrap piece found in the workshop). The washers that might be available soon are probably going to be made from another grade with even better specifications than the SP1.

I have been testing a thin vespel washer for some time now and it looks promising so far. The one I am testing is thin enough that you don't have to cut the teflon insulator. It looks like it does not have to be thicker than that to get the temperature of the teflon spacer down to levels below where it degrades. At least when you stay below 260 C. Another guy here is about to get a small batch of these made I think, so they might soon be available for people who wants to get one for testing.

I am kind of running out of heater blocks now, so further orders might not be available from the first batch. You can still send me a PM if you want heater blocks and did not contact me yet. You might get one of the last few, if not, it makes a second batch more likely. A second batch will be taken care of by another guy though, and sold through a web store. This first batch should be seen as a what it it: A test batch. I have a list of people, in the order you first contacted me by PM or in the thread. (Several of you replied both by PM and in the tread :smile: ) The first heater block from this batch is happily printing here now by the way. It is actually printing a torque wrench for nozzle changes, but that is a different story :smile:

It would be very helpful if gr5 can distribute the heater blocks in the US / North America. I have a complete list of people who requested heater blocks so far, I will sort out the details with gr5 in that case. Here is a teaser by the way: (0.8 mm nozzle / 12mm^3/s) :smile:

I had that problem on my UM2 half a year ago. Solved it by printing a thicker clip to put force on the coupler, making it grab the bowden tube better. It has worked perfectly since then. I just uploaded the stl-file to youmagine in case you want to try this: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/ultimaker-bowden-clip-thicker-version You should be able to scale it in the Z-direction if you need it to be thicker or thinner.

I got a bit worried today when checking the heater blocks. There has been a slight manufacturing mistake on all of them regarding the alignment of the holes with respect to the fixing screw: (You can see that the holes are shifted slightly to the left) Luckily, my tests confirms that this design with the countersunk screw and the toothed washer is quite tolerant to alignment errors. :smile: So it will not affect the fixing of the sensors and the heater, you might just have to tighten the screw slightly more for the temperature sensor to stay in place. The heater blocks will be ready on Monday, I will contact those of you who ordered the heater blocks so far.

I guess it is the same thing as for cars: A small car costs almost as much as a big car to develop and to manufacture, but the customers expects a small car to be considerably cheaper since it is smaller, and that is what sets the sales price. Just as the car manufacturers, Ultimaker probably makes most of the profit on the big models, but the small one is important for the sales. One thing that would be clever though is if the outer dimensions of the UM2Go are such that the leftovers from the holes in the panels of the larger models could be used for the UM2Go panels (?) (I tried to estimate it from the photos and it might just about be possible) In that case Ultimaker could save both on manufacturing costs and materials costs for the panels.

Based on my experience from sending and receiving expensive stuff at work, I really would not dare to ship the Ultimaker 2 in it's original box. Similar things that we send or receive at work are typically shipped in a double box with a complete layer of styrofoam between the boxes. The cardboard of the outer box would be five or seven layers and the inner box would be five layers (not three layers as most cardboard boxes are). And then most importantly, a box this size and weight MUST HAVE HANDLES!! If not, like in the case of the UM2, there is a major risk that one of the delivery guys gets annoyed because it is difficult to lift and "accidentally" drops it... :-| Of course, delivery companies should handle your box in a reasonable way, but I always try to do what I can to minimize the risk of "accidents" by shipping things in a "foolproof" package.

The initial batch is almost ready, just some threading left to do :smile: