macua85

I think this is one of the most promising and exciting developments yet for UMO and dual extrusion ( I have the experimental kit, and it does work, but not completely 'clean'. Out of interest, what are your main professions? Once more question...i'm thinking of implementing the flex drive solution you built. You changed to direct drive, any reason for that other than the challenge, or was the flex giving bad results?

Its a mac by the way. I can't find any literature on it googleing. Is there a way to manually edit the gcode as in previous versions of cura?

Thanks for the link! However, I have no idea how I add plugins to cura

It never ceases to amaze me what you come up with! This is open source at its best, looking forward to seeing if its workable. I assume the space constraint it the size of the carriage required to carry the direct extrude mechanism you are using? A carriage with bowden only would be much smaller I guess.

In the previous version of cura, I could edit the gcode and put T1 in place of T0 to use the second extruder for a print. However it seems this is no longer in the gcode: M190 S62.000000 M109 S241.000000 ;Sliced at: Thu 12-02-2015 21:03:27 ;Basic settings: Layer height: 0.2 Walls: 1.2 Fill: 15 ;Print time: 1 hour 1 minutes ;Filament used: 1.157m 9.0g ;Filament cost: 0.34 / 0.49 ;M190 S62 ;Uncomment to add your own bed temperature line ;M109 S241 ;Uncomment to add your own temperature line G21 ;metric values G90 ;absolute positioning M82 ;set extruder to absolute mode M107 ;start with the fan off G28 X0 Y0 ;move X/Y to min endstops G28 Z0 ;move Z to min endstops G1 Z15.0 F9000 ;move the platform down 15mm G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length G1 F200 E3 ;extrude 3mm of feed stock G92 E0 ;zero the extruded length again G1 F9000 ;Put printing message on LCD screen M117 Printing... ;Layer count: 168 ;LAYER:0 M107 G0 F9000 X117.939 Y58.425 Z0.300 G0 X118.234 Y58.425 ;TYPE:SKIRT Which bit do I change now to print from second extruder? Thanks

Yea for the motor that swaps to the other side. Cant be doing with having to faff with the firmware every time an update comes out, i'd rather sort it mechanically.

great thanks for the help

Maybe just start off with the standard UMO feeder...you may be surprised! Ooooor, try and install a flex3d drive or whatever it's called. Direct feeder on print head.

The iroberti feeder is a variant of the UM2 feeder though? It still uses the stepper motor with knurled bolt on the shaft, which will mean same temperature issues.

Hey guys, Is it possible to select in cura which extuder is doing which bit of the model? I was printing in two different materials last night, and I wanted the lower part to be flex pla, and the top the regular PLA, however it came out the other way around. How can I reverse it? Thanks

Welcome to the ultimaker club! I'm not entirely sure why you would want to change to a UM2 feeder? From what I have read, the UM2 feeder suffers from a problem with the heat from the stepper motor transferring to the knurled bolt (its on the stepper shaft). This leads to the filament getting softened as it feeds....which leads to grinding. Gets worse on retraction heavy prints. This is all just stuff i've read on the forums, and I dont have a UM2. The feeder on my UMO works perfectly though, even with flex pla.

Hey guys, If I convert to direct drive, am I right in assuming no firmware changes will be required. The current setup is 1:1 with the standard pulleys, so assume direct drive will not need any steps adjustment? Thanks,

Sounds good foehnsturm, let us know in here when you have a reply. Thanks

I printed with flex on my UMO last night for the first time. What i learned: - I was printing at 0.2, and to get good layer adhesion and enough extrusion had to print at 240 degrees - Fan needs to be off or if have some overhangs, on a low settings, otherwise layer adhesion affected again. - Feeder tension needs to be sufficient to give good grip to get decent extrusion, but no so tight it squishes filament. - I can print dual materials....I printed PLA with a Flex PLA 'foot'. The adhesion between the PLA and Flex PLA was excellent. - Printing with double wall causes problems....as the extrusion seems to be less (due to friction etc), i ended up with a tiny gap between the walls, which meant they didn't bond together. Single wall printing came out much better. As you can tell, i'm at the beginning of my flex PLA adventure, so much to learn. Exciting filament though, opens up a lot more options/designs.

Foehnstrum.....how far off are we having enough people?

He needs at least 10 orders to make it worth while, there is a list in one of the posts somewhere, think you would take it up to around 4/5 people now. Keep pushing, I want some too!

No haven't used that I don' think....will check tonight though and report back. Is it a plugin or a selectable option?

Yea that's what I was just wondering....has to be pretty wasteful. Doubt you will get good colour definition.

I've noticed a lot of z stage wobble, perhaps that's partially the cause. It's the first time I've printed anything this tall, apart from spiralised cylinder which doesn't jerk the z as much. Probably always been like this but just never noticed before.

I was printing at 0.15 layer height, 60mm/s. Shame filament manufacturers don't come out with a temperature/layer height/print speed chart for their filaments. I know each printer is different, but would give a good idea.

Hey guys, So I read that the XT 'recipe' has changed, and needs to be printed at a higher temperature. I didn't print with the old stuff so not sure how that one behaves. Does anyone else have any experience with the new stuff? I have so far found that printing below 243ish degrees without fan leads to some pretty bad results. at 249 with 50% fan, its better, and hoping the layer adhesion is ok. Can anyone else share their settings? Thanks,

Hi, Will give that a go thanks. The outer shell is set at 0.4, as the total thickness of the thin part is 0.8.

The horizontal lines aren't due to the 0.2 print layer setting, as these lines appear every few layers. I was wondering if anything mechanical can cause this? Head moves freely, think pulleys are tight. Its not random either, strange. Can try at 0.1, but will be different model as I don't need to print this one again! Any more ideas? Also, I find i get neater results at higher PLA temp rather than lower, whats the science behind lower temps? Thanks for the help

horizontal....but if you have a suggestion for both!?

Hey guys, Is there any way to improve this print? I'm getting these strange lines. Print settings 220 degrees, ultimaker PLA, 0.2 layers, 60mm/s Thanks for any help you can offer.