jbeale

I ordered my UM2 and three extra spools of filament from ultimaker.com on Sunday, June 22 2014 and FedEx delivered it to my doorstep in California this morning, Friday June 27. At five days total, that is quite a bit faster than either of the two estimates I received when ordering (UM2 delivery was variously quoted at 6-8 weeks and 8-10 weeks in the two order confirmation emails I got on June 22). The day before it arrived, a FedEx import agent called me with an import form I had to fill out, and wanted a value for the 0,00 Euro power cable item. I said it was included as part of the UM2 itself, which was apparently OK. I have not (yet) been hit with extra import duty or fees, although that can apparently happen weeks later. So far so good. The new UM2 is printing OK so far, although I have a few initial observations which perhaps should go in another thread.

I did not know about iMakr.us before, their website says UM2 is now in stock. Maker Shed does not have stock right now. The official lead times on the UM website and order confirmation is still up to 8 or 10 weeks but they may be better in practice right now.

I'm in the US and I ordered a UM2 direct from the Netherlands, along with three spools of filament. FedEx then wanted me to get acquainted with US Customs Form 5106 (Importer ID record), which needs my address, phone, SSN and signature. The FedEx import agent also objected to the invoice item "cable-us (Power cord: US) -- Euro 0,00" and said they need a specific value for the power cord, although to me it is obviously included in the price of the UM2 itself. I explained that on the phone to her and she said she would make a note on the paperwork that it was a component of the printer.

I don't know the exact size but there are a number of spool designs on Thingiverse, Youmagine etc. and this one https://www.youmagine.com/designs/loose-filament-holder-v1 claims to be sized for the Ultimaker in particular. On the other hand, some people recommend not using a spool at all, leaving the filament loose and letting it unspool from the floor; that way there is no drag from spool hub friction which could cause under-extrusion or other problems.

Does it typically work out OK to print with no infill at all? I was worried that walls would sag sideways during the print process with no lateral support. Yes, the epoxy curing process is exothermic (heats up as it hardens). How high the temperature goes depends on the volume of material, and the type (fast or slow speed cure). For slow-cure epoxy which takes hours to harden, I have never even noticed the heat rise, at least for small volumes. I havn't done much 3D printing yet but I never tried PLA, so far I have always used ABS as it is less brittle. Epoxy is probably more expensive per volume than PLA or ABS, so the first step would be just go to 100% infill, but I want to see if I can get higher strength with an epoxy fill. I would like to try a strong material like this polyester filament http://www.amazon.com/Taulman-T-Glase-Polyester-Filament-1-75mm/dp/B00GOKYZ3I but I am not sure it is available in the 3mm size. There is a 3mm "T-Glase" but the description is different and it does not say "polyester" http://www.amazon.com/Taulman-Clear-T-Glase-3-00mm/dp/B00KYA7KPO/ref=sr_1_7?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1403737573&sr=1-7 also, the comments in another forum suggest T-Glase is difficult to print with a 0.4mm nozzle, instead 0.7 to 1 mm is recommended. With a Ultimaker 2 I guess that isn't possible.

Oops, I just realized that Fill Density % is on the "Basic" tab, not the advanced settings. A low value like 8% gives me a very sparse infill, and setting it to 0 % does remove all infill.

I just received a reply to my question from the CEO of toybuilderlabs.com:

Thanks for the recommendations! Coming from an engineering background, I feel a little frustrated with this: http://toybuilderlabs.com/abs-300/natural-abs-filament-300mm-1kgroll "... 3.00 mm nominal diameter ..." I have been told that I shouldn't take marketing material that mentions "3mm filament" at face value, because the quality filament vendors always deliver "3 mm" filament which is actually 3.0 mm maximum, with average diameter held to something less than that. But if your specification is "3.00 mm nominal diameter" I understand that to mean the filament has an average intended diameter of 3.00 mm with some inevitable tolerance on either side. That in turn means (if other posts here are correct) that it is not suitable for use in Ultimaker, because when a section that is slightly over 3.00 mm passes through the machine it will jam. Yet if people have tried it and found this vendor's filament to work well, it suggests either that "3.00 mm nominal" is wrong, or the Ultimaker tolerances are looser than that.

Thanks for that report, it is good to know things can be (laboriously) fixed. >My UM2 has roughly 1000 hours of use now, printing both ABS and PLA Is there any reason to suppose that if you print exclusively in one material, the gunk buildup inside the tip would be reduced? In any event, a ready supply of replacement nozzle assemblies would certainly be welcome.

I am considering the possibility of filling the interior of an ABS print with epoxy to make it more solid. If I understand the "Layers" view mode in Cura 14.06.1 that infill shows as yellow, it seems that my infill is a square grid that forms separate vertical chambers. That means I would have to fill each column individually, and if the exterior geometry is not a purely vertical wall, then some of these infill columns will close off and become sealed at different z-heights. Is there a way to get a more open infill (more like a coral structure, than a honeycomb), so fluid could flow throughout the volume with a single pour from near the top? Also, can infill be turned off? If I go to Expert Settings and set "Support - Fill amount: 0%", the layer view still shows the yellow grid over the entire interior volume. If there is some way to remove all infill, I wonder if the sidewalls would then lean over or flop around during the print, and accuracy would suffer.

Thank you for your reply. It seems that protoparadigm.com (Oregon, USA) has a 2.88mm nominal filament diameter, not to exceed 3.0mm. http://www.protoparadigm.com/blog/2012/06/3d-printer-filament-buyers-guide/

Very interesting experiment! I notice your testing results with the test block show a continual progression in the position of the indicator. Did you sort the five results in order, or did it just happen that way? If the latter, I wonder if there is some actual material property you are measuring, such as layer adhesion and/or extruded linewidth becomes progressively larger (or smaller) with time as you continue printing.

I don't even have my UM2 yet, but while I await shipment I am wondering about availability of filament here in the US. Previously I just assumed supplies would be readily available but it seems that true 2.85 mm is not so common; the US retailers I have found that call out any accuracy spec generally state 3.0 mm nominal, rather than 2.85 or 2.9 mm, and most supply only 1.75 mm stock. Just as an unscientific survey of popularity of various sizes, I tried some searches on ebay.com, with these results: 0 results found for 2.85mm filament 0 results found for 2.9mm filament 1,788 results for 3.0mm filament 9,215 results for 1.75mm filament Can anyone speculate if the Ultimaker design will eventually move to the more popular standard size? Is it possible to modify it to use 1.75mm filament?

Thanks to all of you for these helpful answers. With the other model printer, I did notice that bore diameters would shrink, while outside dimensions were usually pretty close. I don't need to print at high speeds, so I can optimize for that, although it occurs to me that software ought to be able to compensate for corner bump-out effects at least somewhat. At any rate, better than 0.1 mm repeatability sounds very good.

I am new to the Ultimaker system, having previously used a Makerbot with its own software MakerWare. On that device, when I print out a conical shape, I notice there is a visible seam along a radial line, where the head steps up to the next layer in the same relative position each time. I believe this is caused by the slicer software, since there is no such feature in the original CAD model (STL exported from OpenSCAD). See for example the photo here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:340161 I gather the Ultimaker machine runs on g-code generated by the Cura software. I have skimmed through the Cura manual, and downloaded and played briefly with the program, but I do not see many detailed controls. Is there a way to tell it to randomize the relative position where the head steps between layers, to avoid that straight radial line on the surface?

I just ordered an Ultimaker 2, and I guess it will be a while before it arrives (I got two receipt emails; one said UM2 has 6-8 weeks lead time and the other said 8-10 weeks). Meanwhile: My intended use is to make mechanical prototype parts in ABS. I have done this already with a Makerbot Replicator 1, so I have a feeling for what to expect, but I am hoping the new machine will do at least a little bit better. What dimensional accuracy should I expect from parts? Say I print a rectangular bar with CAD dimensions 5 x 10 x 100 mm. How much different from 100.0 mm would I expect the actual length to be? If I print 10 of the same design on the same printer, how much variation might there be among the parts? Of course once I get the printer I can find the answer myself, but I'm just curious while I'm waiting. I assume the dominant effect is the ABS shrinking and stress-relieving during cooling, which is dependent on geometry and % fill factor, resin composition, heater temperature, maybe even printhead speed (mm/sec) and other things. Are there any rules of thumb, or programs to calculate this? Or do users of consumer 3D printers generally not deal with tolerances? Note: although a similar question appears in the FAQ http://wiki.ultimaker.com/Frequently_asked_Questions#How_accurate_is_the_machine.3F it only mentions the resolution of the printhead X-Y-Z movement. Resolution is not the same as accuracy, and printhead accuracy is not the same as finished part accuracy.