arapp

Hello all, Long time no response but I got to the bottom of my problem. The problem was in the feeder/filament/bowden tube. I discovered the issue as I was changing the feeder over to this one (youmagine), which I highly recommend. It turned out that the end of my bowden (the side inserted in my feeder) was slightly crimped adding a great deal of friction to the system. This, along with the poor stock feeder design that comes with the UM2, was preventing a consistent flow of filament to the hot end, thus a spotty under extrusion. I recommend every/anyone to use this replacement feeder, it is easier to fine adjust and it has a quick release feature. The quick release allows me to skip the "change material" prompts and hand feed it while using the "move material" in advance settings. I have also found more success by increasing the temp to 215-225C and slightly increasing speed, this being said it reduces x & y accuracy. My Replicator2 (PLA at 230C) usually prints a wall 0.2mm more than what I entered, I enjoy the Ultimaker2s (210-220C) precision as it often measure much closer to the true value. I hope this helps others. Feel free to message me if you are having similar results and I will do my best to assist.

It has been a while since I posted as things have been going better. Here is a photo of it set at 50mm/s with 213C. As you can see it goes through periods of under extrusion to acting relatively fine. (the solid middle part was warped) I finally added veggy oil to the filament before loading, this has seemed to help. Here is a large print from after (photo), in it you can see it printed very well until it hit a point, I think some large piece of dirt was stuck in it, it took a lot of force for me to push through. I recommend veggy oil for all 3d printers. It seems to print a lot better now. Although not without problems. As you can see in the "post structure" this photo, it will still under extrude at random layers. Also in that photo you can see it changes texture on the "tower" above and below the point where the "post" ends. I still cannot seem to keep the machine operating consistently.

Could this be a broken heater problem? Ill post more photos but it will go from doing good small prints to a half good large print to a fine large print and then back to bad everything... We had a bad heater on the makerbot, it caused many inconsistencies like these.

Dim3nsioneer: I havent and am not familiar how to.. I havent changed the motor, shouldnt it be the same as stock?

Dim3nsioneer: I adjusted the feeder dial. When it was UNDER the middle line it would jump back so often it could not push the filament through. When it was AT the middle line it would push the filament slowly and would still jump back very frequently. I have found that in between the top and middle is a good spot for it. Although it did not change the extrusion much at all. ilsaarin: The filament is from ultimaker themselves and it all falls within +/-0.05 of 2.85mm. I have also never used ABS in this machine but I am open to try anything that may work. What method did you use to clear out the clog? Also where do you think the copper came from?

Putting the temp up to 230 didn't work at all for large prints (although it did for small ones). You can see the evidence http://imgur.com/fMhVfLgand http://imgur.com/fMhVfLg,Txby9kh#1. Dim3nsioneer: I'll adjust my feeder dial and let you know how that works out.

Leon- Sorry I forgot to mention my material but yes I am printing with PLA. I have read about the PLA/ABS problems with the Ultimaker2 but we havent ever run ABS through the machine and shouldnt be having that issue. Interestingly, I do use veggy oil on the Makerbot Replicator2, the oil resolved many problems we had with the machine. I dont know why I hadnt thought to try it on the Ultimaker2. From my experience I only add oil to the filament every third or so filament change on the makerbot, I've had too much built up before and it is a hassle to undo. I will start adding veggy oil during filament changes now on and see how it performs. Dim3nsioneer- There were occasional times that the hot end was hard to push through manually but usually the atomic method resolves that problem, for the most part it feels fine when I manually feed the hot end. I have taken note of that long stringy filament left behind after using the "change filament" option and am always sure to remove it before inserting new filament. I was concerned it may be my feeder but all forums show it is properly set up. The white dial is all the way up in the "minimum" position. If needed i could post a video/photo of it to show the group. Update: I have been printing at 230C (.2mm and 50mm/s) today with no under extrusion although as you could guess there is a significant amount of stringing occurring. This doesn't fall well on gr5's temp vs speed graph which he posted here.

Hello, This would be my first post and I am really in need of help. To give you some context: We are running a Ultimaker2 and a Makerbot Replicator2 at a start up company. We have had the Makerbot for sometime and use it as a production machine for small parts. After many bad interactions with the Makerbot company and several bad printers we looked elsewhere. This brought us to the Ultimaker2. Out of the box the Ultimaker2 ran well, minor adjustments were needed but that was all. Now things only look bleak. My default print settings are, 0.2mm thick, 50mm/s and z-hop 0.075mm, everything else I have left on the default Cura settings. After a short amount of time it started to have a large under extrusion problem. Slowing it down helped but was not an answer I was looking for (speed is important to us). I tried the Atomic method and had good success, it pulled out a lot of gunk and seemed to help with under extrusion. It did not solve the problem though, prints will do fine and then have a couple layers of under extrusion. It was always seemed to occur more in larger/taller prints than the smaller test prints. I kept battling with this problem for a week or so, using the ultimaker2 for experimental prints and occasionally large prints to test how its working. Two days ago I changed the fan mount on it, printed up one I found online that better directed the right airflow to the single print nozzle. http://imgur.com/mAYb0Nr Everything seemed fine. Left a large print over night and found it the next day EXTREMELY under extruded. http://imgur.com/h8UXrN7 All of yesterday I spent trying any method I could find online to correct it, nothing worked. It was odd, all the preset ultimaker files (such as the robot and tetrawire) would print fine but my files would come out terribly. Finally, out of desperation, I replaced the original fan mount back on and it printed fine again but because I was curious to why the fan mount would change it soo much. So I put the new fan mount back on the machine... and it printed fine. For the life of me I dont understand why it started working again. I set the temperature up to 215C after adding the new fan mount because it seemed like it was running lower than before. Now, the machine is closer to how it was printing before, it seems fine but leaves layers of under extrusion. http://imgur.com/TE32dwG http://imgur.com/EgWBwk0 It has been a huge pain in the butt and a huge waste of material. When I do the atomic method hardly anything pulls out anymore and I can see straight through the print nozzle hole. http://imgur.com/NRk4dMr I have yet to stick a pin in from the outside but I dont think it will help that much. Even when I print something small at .2mm and 25mm/s it left a layer of under extrusion. http://imgur.com/YJqzkIo Something has to be wrong, that print took 5 min longer than the makerbot set at equivalent settings and it didn't even print correctly. From what I have read it also seems like the ultimaker2 should be able to go faster than 50mm/s anyways. Please let me know if anyone knows what may be the problem. All help would be much appreciated .