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 .