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lieven-standaert

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Everything posted by lieven-standaert

  1. Hi, I’ve been playing with an UM2 and ABS over the weekend. A quick search here turned up little info on the subject. As I have always been printing with ABS and PLA (I always used Makerbots befor), I though my notes might be useful: -please note this is based on one weekend of use. My conclusions might be specific for th few objects I printed -default settings are 260° print temp and 50% fans. I turned off the fans and reduced the temp to 230°. I printed on the glass plate using the glue. No raft, just a brim -the idea behind turning off the fans is that you want to minimize thermal shock/stress in the print. ABS shrinks a lot more as it cools than PLA, which tends to warp prints. That is why the Makerbot rep2X has an enclosed printing chamber. It keeps the ABS at 50°… In general you want the ABS to cool down slowly. In order not to get saggy prints without thee fan I increased minimum layer time in Cura to 25s. I would advise putting an enclosure around your UM2 if you are interested in ABS-prints (the one I’m using isn’t mine, so I’m holding off on the modifications for now) -I have never been able to get reliable prints with ABS at the highest resolution. A print that comes out nicely in the Makerbot Rep 2 at 0.1mm with PLA would fail with ABS /0.1mm on the Rep 2x. The UM2 seems to confirm this; I get very good prints at 0.15mm, but a print at 0.06mm failed The 260° in the default settings might enable higher resolutions, I haven’t tried that. Best, Lieven
  2. @SandervG : yes, I have the Taulman nylons in 1.75 and love them. I ordered a 3mm roll yesterday, and a roll of polycarbonate. (haven't tried that yet) to play around with. I saw a post by Daïd they had considered the E3D printhead for the UM2. My interest is in mechanically strong components, for the PC this means higher temperatures. Do you know of anyone who has already mounted an E3D or a Prusa head on the UM2? @Daïd: the enclosure/hood on the Replicator 2X does do a lot for ABS print quality. You want to minimise thermal stresses and keeping the whole print warm helps. Lasercutting a plexi hood and front lid for the UM2 is on my to-do list. Then again, the Taulman nylon might make my interest in ABS a thing of the past. best, Lieven
  3. Hi, I have just been playing an evening with an Ultimaker2 I'm fixing for someone else. I have been building and using Makerbots from the first Cupcakes up to the Replicator 2X's (I have several of them in my lab) I though I'ld share my impressions, as I liked the Ultimaker 1 but had heard mixed reviews on the Ultimaker2: -I like it! It's beautifully engineered. With the Makerbots the next versions have not always been improvements (the 2X has lower quality bearings than the 2's and more backlash. The Replicator 1 print head was more reliable than the newer ones) This is definitely not the case here: this is the same design, but better. -I think marketing this as a 'trouble free' printer is a mistake. nobody has been able to deliver on this promise, and it is the reason I had heard some nasty things about this printer. -I love the fact the company sticked to their story and has open-sourced the U2. It's all there on Gitbhub: solidworks files + a BOM. I'm a fan & converted. -at first I didn't like the fact that everything was hidden away. To reach the steppers you need to remove some panels. This turns out to be trivial as everything can be disassembled easily. The print head looks too slick & delicate to my taste, but disassembles by removing the 4 main screws. Elegant. -in general it is easier to disassemble and repair than I had expected based on the pictures I saw and the reports I had heard from other people using them. -temperature settings are not done in Cura, but are set in the machine per material. I found this annoying and weird. However, I considered that this means you could print a single file on the SD-card with whatever material is loaded, withou regenerating the file. That is a nice feature. -I have been printing with PLA and ABS and find the default settings for both materials a bit strange: -PLA has the build platform set for 70°. I always had good results printing on cold blue painters tape, and so did the Ultimaker1. So why change this? Heating that bed takes a long time. For small parts this significantly increases print time. -ABS has the cooling fans on. They shouldn't be. I find the default settings cause warping in flat prints. I turned of the fans, and increased minimum layer time to 25 s. This gives much better prints for my test objects -ABS has the temperature set to 260° I've always printed at 230, and don't see why it is set so high. -I don't like the fact that the LCD does not show actual temperatures for the bed & print head. You can monitor it in the 'Tune' menu but I'ld rather see it on-screen. -though I always liked the Ultimaker 1, I decided against it for my lab, as we need high-strength parts for our robotics classes. I wanted to have the ability to print ABS. If I would compare the Ultimaker2 to the Replicator 2x today, I would say the U2 is a better designed machine (easier to disassemble, lighter, better focussed design), with better parts (no plastic cantilever arms, no cost-savings on bearings, better cable harness,better high-temperature capability) best, Lieven www.fablab-brussels.be
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