cloakfiend

Also, for the general user expecting anything of a decent shell quality don't even waste your time printing faster than 50mm/s. For speeds of 50+ for me is more for prototyping use as speed of realisation is more important than actual finish quality. 3D printing at the moment is like pouring a Guinness. Good things come to those that wait.... etc. Doing things as quickly as possible can result in many problems, one of which is the printhead knocking into the print potentially ruining it depending on the structure and solidity of it. My average speed of printing PLA is 35mm/s at 208c (depending on filament brand) BTW.

I like the blade more than the handle..... but.. whatever.

Lol, we've had this argument already....

no need to mess with the screw, put it back to how it was, and just do atomic pulls properly and print off the roll and your problem will vanish. atomic pulls: printing off the roll: your prints may look fine for a while if you dont do atomic pulls, but its only a matter of time before your prints suffer from a blocked nozzle or snagged filament. works for me everytime. Beeping is retraction that is something unrelated and it does that when its moving from one part to the other. sort out the annoying clicking first with atomic pulls and go from there.

Warhammer....lol. you read my mind... i just went digging in my cupboard and found a whole bunch of these. For those that remember now i gotta find my brushes, lol.

OK here is my last vid for my method of PLA smoothing, the Cloakfiend method, lol.

Remember it works only with 0.06 colorfabb PLA, or 0.1 (depending on the model) with UM PLA but by all means have a go. It always depends on the material and also sometimes in the way the model is printed. You will always get subtle banding, but I recommend sanding after the primer coat to remove them as sanding before doesn't really completely get rid of them for some reason, and the acetone just brings them right back....dont be afraid of a little sanding! but wear a mask when doing it as the dust is real fine. So basically a touch of sanding before and a touch after. you also dont need so much prime, even spot coating is fine.

This is the finished model sprayed gold, spraying video in next post below.

Dont get me wrong i love my Um2, and even with no knowledge what so ever like many people managed to get printing out of the box! Its just when things dont go the way you want or expect is what freaks some people out. but with this forum help and knowlegde at hand so as long as you dont mind a little tinkering the um is perfect for me. and as soon as i figured out acetone smoothing pla..to infinity and beyond, i recommend this printer to everyone interested in buying a 3d printer.

Lol, fair enough but I also am in exactly the same position as you, I don't actually own my printer, but they bought it for me to print things for them and I will also hand it over when i leave, but the next guy will need to tinker with it a bit when the coupler does eventually move or fail (as it will for sure) it never hurts to know how to get around these types of problems. Also I wouldn't call doing atomic pulls strictly plug n play. I found that I had to learn how parts of the printer works for it to get the result i wanted, and theres noway i would have known without tinkering. In my opinion 3D printers are not quite yet plug and play. I wish they were. That is were a lot of people get a wake up call. Just like print quality with no post production.

You can try to solve the problem but i gave up a long time ago, this is how i do it now (and have done for the past few months), save any headaches, all you have to do is just take the bowden out before each print, cut that crap off the end, sharpen it and follow what i do in the vid below i.e. move the material manually back into the bowden, plug it back in, heat up the bed, heat up the nozzle, move it into the head and quickly click print before it cools down. You will never have this jammed problem again until your coupler completely fails. Its quite easy and doesn't really take much longer than doing it normally so its not really that much of a hindrance.

Ok heres my acetone video. And in my opinion, you are not gonna get any smoother than this without a ton more work or money buying filler and resins. Sorry about my knee, lol.

Ok Acetone vid is done, uploading now, here are my results in the meantime. Ignore the scratch marks, you wont see them once painted, its like residue, but super smooth. Just looks kinda weird when you run your nails on it. And the back for those interested.

OK heres my latest Atomic Pull method, using much cooler temps, as suggested by GR5, works much better, and every time as well. Vid is only 2mins30 so super short, and no time wasting! Still use my pliers though!

You really should do atomic pulls after each material change in my opinion to save this kind of drama. but if you just load material see it coming out and then go to print and nothing comes out, it could be the coupler. Until you do the atomic pull, you wont know if there is still stuff left over in the head. Do a test, load some material wait a bit and click print. If nothing comes out, its the coupler....maybe, lol. If its prints fine and then you try another later, and it doesnt work, then perhaps its the coupler, especially if you didnt clean out the nozzle. try overiding it. worked for me when my second prints weren't printing. worth a shot if you have nothing else to try? Just heat up the build plate to 70, load the material into the head using move material at a high temp, and kick off the print before the head drops to 210.....

in my experience the coupler height may not be the only issue, mine has been that high for months if not higher, now its leaning over, lol. I always wandered if it should be flush, but i've seen many pics where its not.

Yes. Well, I heat to 180C, when it gets there push the material in using my fingers just under the feeder, then lower to 90C and leave for 5 minutes. Come back and pull it out - hard. If it's easy then it was too warm and I don't get a good "pull". The tip should be perfectly shaped like the inside of the nozzle including the thin .4mm channel. Then if I change color there is zero mixing of colors. Just tried putting the filament in as i did before but rather than 260 like i normally do i did it at 190 and dropped it to 90 for the pull and it worked great so thanks for that! Ill be doing that from now on. much quicker and 90 doenst seem to break the filament as 85 does. Seems like even one pull is enough. i did two just to see what the second would look like.

The feeder is the main issue with 3D printers, and in my experience i have just given up on it completely and cut the measured filament off the roll, its the only way of stopping filament/spool snags and completely removing friction from the spool to the feeder. Printing like this solved EVERY clicking feeder based issue, along with correct atomic pulls. Feel fre to print roberts feeder but it wont prevent random filament spool snags. It wont hurt if you just try it once....you said you tried everything did you try this? and check my tut for printing with a deformed coupler. If after you have loaded it correctly and see a bit come out of the end, and click print, then nothing comes out as it tries to print, thats more than likely the reason!

Fair enough but I'd like to keep tinkering to a minimum as I think its all working nicely now apart from the coupler. Its coming up to a year soon with no replacement parts, so I'm happy with that result considering how many objects I have printed, as I print high res, I have the printer on for much longer, but lower temps (208-210) due to exclusively printing with my two favourite PLA brands. I dont bother printing 70mm/s at 230 anymore as the shell quality does not smooth well in acetone compared to 35mm/s at 210.

Interesting? but unfortunately not an option at the moment, lol. Moving material past the coupler is just impossible at the moment as bits would keep on separating from the head and break off in the bowden tube or the area near the print head. I will try to go to 90 and leave it before I pull instead of 85, as if I leave it at 85 for more than a few seconds, when I pull it, it just snaps and I have to start over and that gets VERY annoying as i often tire of waiting for it to cool and end up walking away momentarily only to find when I come back its already reached 85 and has cooled too much. major bummer!

I have no idea what the thumb screws are to be honest, i haven't touched anything on the printer other than the feeder which I unscrewed once and put on backward by mistake, but thats back on ok now. I guess when I have some serious print issues, i'll come here for help, but it appears to still be chugging along at the moment. P.S. can i damage any other parts of the printer by continuing to print with my failing coupler? Are the thumb screws going to warp or get damaged in any way.

Ok all done and looking good, some weird little artifacts here and there but next stage is cleanup and then.......yep........NEW PLA ACETONE BATH TUTORIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY! Heres the finished model on the printer. And i also got my new PTFE coupler which i may be installing soon as i have seen a few weird artifacts, but ill do more prints to be sure! my old one here for comparison sake.

What do you mean? the feeder is miles away. hmmm... so then you heat up the nozzle, move material in and then lower the temps, and then pull it out from all the way at the back? Interesting, I admit i do like looking down into the nozzle to check if its clear, but print regardless of whether its clear or not, as once the main block is gone, then it doesn't really matter. I don't mind doing the direct method. I kind of enjoy it and have no other option at the moment. Besides there is a certain satisfaction in cleaning the nozzle, however retarded it may seem, lol.

Thanks for the pic, but unfortunately my printer is in an office so i cant put the filament on the floor for health and safety reasons, and im contantly being told to keep the area tidy which is a bit of a pain but hey ho, rules are rules. I guess ill just carry on cutting the filament off the roll then.

I received my new PFTE coupler yesterday! Yay! ( lucky you though! It would have been nice if i got a whole nozzle kit though!) but to tell you the truth, i will carry on using my method to print for the following reasons: 1: I do an atomic pull before each print anyway so the bowden tube is already off. 2: If the prints are still looking good, then why replace what is not causing visible problems to my print. (i.e. if its not broken why fix it even though its on its way to being broken) 3: It doesn't take any longer doing it my way time wise as opposed to everything working as it should as the bed and head have to heat up anyway. 4: I can get more prints out of my printer without replaceing parts so often compared to swapping something out when it has not yet completely failed. (save a few bucks that coud be spend on a roll of filament or a few pints, lol. 5: Its not that big a deal (not difficult at all to do once you've done it a few times) and Its probably actually quicker and as you are in control of the temps you are likely to get the result you want as opposed to hoping filament will come out of the nozzle. As the nozzle is too hot at the start it will mean the first layer will be stuck nicely to the base. 6: This method works flawlessly even with the damaged PFTE coupler so why not get the most out of it as long as I am not causing damage to other parts? This is in my opinion the beauty of open source, feel free to disagree though....