nick-s

I agree with gr5. I used to only make ABS parts in an enclosed UM2 with ABS juice for adhesion. This worked well most times and occasionally removed lumps of glass from the bed with the print. I was always a little concerned about overheating the enclosed UM2 and the high temp hot end limiting its life. I have now switched to nGen and found this a good alternative to ABS and much easier to print. For this I only use the thin pva system on a 90 deg bed and do not enclose the machine. It obviously depends upon your applications, but it's definitely worth trying out.

You most certainly can print lettering like this. I am in England UK and make a business from doing this type of work for a variety of customer types. To see examples of what can be done go to sheardown3d.co.uk A lot of my lettering also has positive or negative draft around the sides, for casting purposes. We normally use Colorfabb nGen material for this work on a UM2 machine. As DidierKlein says, it depends on the size and the only real limitation is the bed size. Even with this, I have made letters and words etc in parts and glued them together, which works well.

There are lots of other free CAD programmes available that may be better for you than Sketchup. I started with Design Spark Mechanical from RS Components. Take a look at these two suggestions: https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/mechanical-software https://www.tinkercad.com/

Here is a link to the guide I use for replacing the nozzle. Its the Olsson version, but works for the original nozzle as well and helps with the Teflon tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Nh0snHLYw After some 2 years plus of good printing on the UM2 I have also just started getting gaps between lines, a lack of cover or pillowing on final layers and other under extrusion problems. I changed the Teflon part first but this did not fully solve it. Finally replaced with a new Olsson nozzle and it did the trick.

Hi lukem. Are you fully printing the first case and it grinds when starting on the second? When you put this into Cura, did you look at the Layers option and see how it does? it may help if you could give us your settings, speeds and temps.

Hi Everyone. Thanks for asking. It's stopped raining, so things are looking up. I have been a bit busy lately, so have only just realised that I have not received any emails from the forums that I have been following. So logged in and just amazed at what I have found. What happened to the old one? I always feel that change is not easy but it happens, so just get used to it. Particularly after Microsoft does it to the new version of word or excel, and you have to hunt through the menus again to find what you know is there some where. Now starting to find my way around here again. Are there any instructions about how to navigate the new system, see the thread topics and get the follow links going again?

Also, have a look at this great article by Illuminarti on how to use Meshmixer support system: http://www.extrudable.me/2013/12/28/meshmixer-2-0-best-newcomer-in-a-supporting-role/ The free Meshmixer can be a little challenging, but there are some tutorials on Youtube and it is worth persevering with.

I am regularly using ABS and have found the following to be very reliable: Have a clean glass bed and cover with a wash of ABS (the same colour as you intend to print with) dissolved in acetate. This holds the print well and has the added advantage of giving a great smooth bottom to the finished part. Once the print is finished let it cool slowly (which also helps reduce distortion) and you will hear it pop off the glass so it is easy to remove once cooled down. I have a door covering the printers front and box mounted on top. The box has an open bottom for the Bowden tube and cables to enter, but this is not a problem as long as the room the printer is in has no drafts such as open windows. I was initially worried about the box over heating the printers drives etc but monitoring with a laser thermometer showed it to get to about 55 / 60 deg C on the motors. I have been doing this for a while and they seem fine. My standard settings are: layer 0.06 to 0.10mm shell 1.20mm retraction Y - "No skin" setting Bottom / top 1.20mm (to match shell and I need quite robust parts) fill 25% speed 50mm/sec - but also see below speeds which seems to over ride this Bed adhesion brim + wash as above nozzle 0.4mm initial layer 0.3mm travel speed150mm/sec bottom speed 20mm/sec infill speed 50mm/sec top/bottom speed 30mm/sec outer shell speed30mm/sec inner shell speed 50mm/sec min layer time 5sec NO FANS at any time Bed temp 100 deg C Nozzle temp 250 deg C These speeds and layer heights can make for some slow prints, but I need the quality. I am sure you could speed them up a little if not needing high quality. Hope this helps in at least giving you a starting point.

As advised above I print Marvin as a twin. I found the best orientation was with them each facing a fan i.e. built back to back facing left and right across the bed. This helps the air to flow between the legs as well as onto the faces, for the eye slots and top hat ridge. Also position them with enough gap between for the fans to work on one while its twin is being made. This also helps to cool the top loops.

Have a look at this article. It gives great tips on finishing methods, friction welding and filling with a Dremel like tool. http://makezine.com/projects/make-34/skill-builder-finishing-and-post-processing-your-3d-printed-objects/ After reading this I went out and got my Dremel. It works great. Particularly like the trick on using "rivet" fixings and hinges.

Having the support of this forum definitely helped my purchasing decision. It and the experienced people involved have been very helpful in overcoming many issues. And welcome to the group Krys.

"I keep referring to candles and fried food because the vapors are created similarly - by heating oils to high temperature. You get the same sort of aerosols from a candle or by making a grilled cheese sandwich as you do from heating PLA." I like it. If I could convince my partner that printing is analogous to scented candles I could save a fortune, and some ear ache.

It would be good to hear if some one has a better method, but I use a timer on the power plug. Just make sure it's set well in advance of the print duration. I have ruined a couple of good prints by getting this wrong and killing the power before it's finished.

Hi Moldovan Marius. Where are you located?

If it is dust from the environment, try this: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/dust-filter Very simple and does the job. I use it all the time now.

Prior to getting my UM2 I seriously considered the Stratasys uPrint Se Plus. I had some meetings and demonstrations and was very close to placing an order. Then I got back some trial prints with times and material costings. I could not believe the material cost. This just killed the project until I saw the UM2 at an exhibition. The Stratasys material, which has to be used on their machines, is ten times the price of the filament used on UM2 type of printers. In addition to this, MMartin states that the material has a use by date once opened! I did not realise this and there was no mention of it at any point when being told about the machines by their reps. So glad I found out about the material costs in time and got the UM2. The material cost saving makes trial and error printing more feasible and more than compensates for a bit of messing around with the UM2 settings and post printing finishing. Having said all of that, I get that MMartin is only trying to point out what can be learnt from the bigger companies and incorporated in the UM3 of the future. When I got the UM2 the second nozzle (for support material) was promised for mid 2015. This upgrade was a big factor in my purchase decision and I am very disappointed that it is not going to happen. So it is definitely worth looking at other good machines which do have two nozzles and see what can be learnt from them.

Hello brownIO2 I know that this is an old thread, but if you have not already got your printer, I would suggest that you have a look at the new UM2 GO. It is simply a more compact version of UM2. There is no heated plate so not good for ABS (which you probably will not use anyway) but it may be better in the class room. Regardless of the printer that you use, there are a group of Ultimaker people in England specialising in taking 3D printing to schools. Have a look at their web site at http://www.createeducation.co.uk . I don't know if they have an American division. Hope this helps. Nick

I have had injection moulded plastic parts chrome plated by a plating shop in Essex England. They first covered the parts in an electroless nickel coating and then used this for the electrical conduction to apply the normal copper, nickel and final chrome layers. This was all done on jigs in large industrial tanks. Not seen the hand process before. It looks very interesting. I remember the plating shop being full of very hazardous chemicals with arsenic treatment medical kits on the walls, so wonder what the home kit consists of?

Hi DonMilne. Yes I agree about the lack of a UK web presence. I came across them at the 3D show in London last year. They are putting a lot of effort into the Ultimaker CREATE education programme. They run the http://www.createeducation.co.uk web site and do a lot of school visits, talks and demonstrations. I purchased my UM2 from them as well as hot end spare parts, an extra glass plate and ABS & PLA filament. They seem to try and stock what is shown on the main Ultimaker web site. Prices seem to be sterling equivalents to the Euro and carriage is a lot cheaper than from Holland. They should be on here more and promoting their services better. While at their office I saw the new taller UM and the little GO, which really does look tiny compared to the UM2. But it seems perfect for taking to school demonstrations and is probably all they need within most schools. A good design move targeting this type of market.

Am I being a bit slow here? You send the STL from the cloud directly to the printer. But my UM2 only prints via the SD card. A missing link here then! Since UM say that you should only really print via the SD card and not directly by cable, I have never tried this method. There are many online prints that require the addition of support prior to printing. For example I am working on Left Shark right now. His fins will not print on their own. Also, I don't think that I want to tie up my computer and slow down the internet stream for the hours that some prints take. I have pretty good broad band, but the children would notice and complain while gaming or watching films. So overall I think I will be ignoring this site.

Hi Nalfy. I remember some school lessons' saying that one of the reasons for all the old cotton mills around here (Manchester) was due to the damp / humid climate. I think this may be as big a factor as the room temp. It's important to keep the filament warm and store it in plastic bag, preferably with some of that absorbent silicon jell stuff. For those not familiar with Manchester, if it's not raining it looks as though it's about to.... Or you could just move further south!

Thanks Chris.

Hi ChrisR I tried to cut and paste some links to the Verkstan web pages for Nalfy but it would not paste into the text. How do you do this? And while I am asking, how do you occasionally copy part of some ones string into your reply? Thanks.

Hi Nalfy. Welcome to the forum. I only got my UM2 last October, so am pretty new also. I have found this forum to be full of clever (no not me) and helpful members. I have been following lots of strings and learned a lot from reading about other peoples and one or two of my own questions. Its a good place to learn how to get the most from the machine. I note that you are local to me. Is this as a hobby or for business use?