entomophile

The UM2 just continues to impress! Printed this raven skull by 3D Kitbash today using the high quality quickprint setting at 215C with Ultimate-Blue PLA. Printed in just over 6 hours. The details are amazing, layers are barely visible. Files are available on http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:289987.

My UM2 is printing great. Print quality is unbelievable. However, I noticed the feeder skips on the first layer only and the nozzle pushes around excess PLA during the first layer (see pic). As the print progresses, it hides the errors of the first layer and the print ends up perfect with about a 0.5 mm lip on the first layer. Is my bed leveled too close to the nozzle? I thought about lowering the bed but I don't want to loose my adhesion. Any thoughts?

OK illuminarti, let me see if I've got this straight...So for now, my actual bottom thickness will be the bottom/top thickness setting + whatever my initial layer setting is.

Now I get it. Thank you.

In the full settings, what the is difference in the bottom/top thickness setting on the basic tab and the initial layer thickness setting on the advanced tab? Isn't the initial layer the bottom layer?

The test print is still there. I failed to realize that the print quality settings are already in the gcode. I thought I needed to choose the quality settings in Cura first. Slowly getting the hang of this thing.

Thanks for the advice. I realize the robot is not an easy print, that's why I chose it. I figure if I can get that to print nice and pretty, other prints should be a breeze. Really, I'm just trying to learn the in's and out's of tuning the machine and see how the settings affect the prints. BTW, the test print included with the UM2...Do you know what quality/settings that was printed at? I would like to see if I can match that print.

Funny, I read those posts before but I missed the importance of temperature. What a difference 5 degrees makes. Reprinted at 215 and got a much better print with just a hint of under extrusion. I'll try again at 220.

Just got my Ultimaker 2, my first 3D printer. Immediately after setup, I printed the Ultimaker robot from the SD card with the included PLA filament and got a pretty good print. The flaw in the base I think was the transition from the remaining test filament in the machine, to the new filament. I think the print is pretty good for a first print except for the small holes and gaps in the surface. Two days later I tried printing the same thing again. Only difference, I moved the printer to a new location and opened the file in Cura and saved it to SD card again. I left all of the default settings and printed on normal quality. You can see the print quality went way down with the holes and gaps being much larger this time. What error(s) am I looking at here? Underextrusion maybe? What steps should I take to troubleshoot? Thanks for any advice, Greg