howardsmith

I want to use some more abrasive filament to see whether I can generate stronger parts and it's recommending I upgrade the nozzle to stainless steel. The material in question is XT-CF20 which is 2.85mm so I'd need to upgrade my nozzle from the default one anyway since that's a smaller diameter than the material I'm buying. From what I understand the default nozzle on the UM2 is not detachable. So am I right in thinking I need to replace the whole thing with either the olsson block or the UM2+ addon? This is just what I can glean from the forums but it's a little confusing at a glance. If someone can point me in the right direction and to where I'd purchase these parts in the UK I'd be super grateful. Another, perhaps obvious, question; I need a 2.85mm stainless steel nozzle so if I found one would it be compatible with either system or are you locked in to certain types for each?

Using a black filament I've had to increase the nozzle temp compared to white filament to 220 degC, after quite a few successful prints I noticed it would occasionally jam and after many atomic methods to no avail I tried some of the white filament and tried pushing it trough manually and it worked a treat straight away. I figured it must be the temperature and so increasing it to around 250-255 degC with the black filament got it flowing how it was previously. The trouble I have now is that its leaving strings whilst moving the head - and clearly something is wrong. How do I troubleshoot this - I'm assuming the sensors are the things I have to check first?

Ah. Okay... that makes some sense I suppose - I guess my problem is that the indentations or scars as you are calling them are replicated almost exactly from print to print that you'd think it was intentional. When you say I should be able to see this in layer mode I'm assuming you mean the path of the head and not the indentations itself? The path it takes does match up so you must be correct in saying it's z-scarring, but I guess my question is why is it always at these points in the model and not consistently all the way up? I've taken the speed down to 25mm/sec from 30mm/sec but I'm already noticing it's started the indent on the base of the cylinder a quart of the way up as usual. Is there any documentation on this? Maybe the depth of the cylinders walls should be thicker/thinner? etc... Actually I've been reading a guide on getting better prints and the z-scarring there seems to suggest it results in excess material that blobs. I have the opposite problem, little indentations in the print? Same thing or different?

It's not a part of the model in so far as geometry goes. It can't be anyway since it's a perfectly circular cylinder with protrusions. I've attached an image. As I say it's odd because even at the base of the model where it should really just be a case of going round in circles it's making an indent in the same place every time. Layer mode and xray seem fine, normal - nothing jumping out at me.

I have a 3D model that prints out just fine but on each print it makes the same mistake(s)? whereby it leaves something of an indent in certain areas - there doesn't seem to be any reason why it should do that with regards the model - it's done using cad software and exported to .stl You can see here two instances of it repeating. I thought it might be that the rods needed oiling until it occurred identically. I've oiled them anyway. I considered whether it was the bevel around the edge of the spokes but you can just see (if you squint) that there's an indent coming from the base upwards so it can't be that. Any ideas? I printed these with default cura settings in PLA. If there any tips of advice in general also.

this is with 100% infil

Using colorfabbs red and white PLA variants I'm struggling to get even the first layer to stick to the bed, it seems to want to follow the hot end and drag along until eventually it clogs and then gets deposited elsewhere on the bed. I've increased the temperature to 225 degrees on the nozzle, and 75 degrees on the bed, and that seems to have helped some but the problem remains (particularly the first layer - the brim I have to sacrifice all to often) and I can't help but imagine there must be a problem as I was printing at default settings previously fine. I've re-seated and cleaned out the filament feeder, used the atomic method to clean the hot end, and tried so many failed prints I'm close to binning it.

As a quick update I've been printing with ABS so far and whilst I'd say the results are far from perfect they are acceptable (warping is very visible but it's not impacting the end result). However I've just set off another print and I'm concerned as there are small lumps of burnt abs appearing here and there. Why does this happen? There's nothing in the troubleshooter guide dealing with this so it's a new one on me.

Thanks for the response. Sorry I forgot to say but yes I'm printing on an Ultimaker 2 with a heated bed. I plan on doing a print using your suggestions, but as an aside is it worthwhile raising the main print up from the bed with the use of supports to help avoid the lifting issue? Thinking mainly about the large surface area which curls up - could that be avoided with supports do you think (even though the finish would be worse). Unfortunately the same thing happened, only this time I rotated the print and the side which usually stays stuck down now curled up. This is the edge that faces the opening of the UM2 so I'm guessing the air flow isn't helping much. I've tried a different print, after wrapping the front in cling film and this time they finished printing with a degree of success, unfortunately some of the prints with a larger height have warped ever so slightly towards the top. I think I'll give it one more go before heading back to PLA.

I'm having trouble printing a particular part with ABS, I've tried heating the bed at different temperatures (90,100,110), using all sorts of different glue sticks, and even trying to make some slurry (which I failed at), but each time the print lifts at a particular point. There are also occasionally certain bits on the piece that look burnt, I don't know if that's normal with ABS. I understand that abs shrinks, and that having a large surface area increases those chances, but is there anything that screams out at more experienced users as to why this isn't succeeding;

After switching it off and letting it cool down I tried again and it worked this time. Panicked for a minute there, but good to know you can pull on it a bit. I did try pulling at higher temperatures but what happened was I had to keep going higher until it got to the point it came out in a thin strand. I've not had it be this difficult before, and the blobs of PLA that exited from the nozzle came out quite waxy with a different finish to them. I've not used anything other than PLA so I thought that was odd.

I've previously used the atomic method with success but I'm coming into some problems this time around. When pushing material in at first a lump of molten plastic dropped out of the extruder head onto the plate but on cooling the nozzle to 90 degrees I can't pull the pla out like I have previously. It seems to be jammed pretty good and I'm worried pulling to sharp and hard will cause more problems than it solves. I've had to reheat to get out the plastic but looking through the nozzle at the top I can see it's still blocked (though pushing plastic through it does come out).

I think I'm just being dense as scaling the stl up solves the problem of missing layers, but for reference what I was referring to is below;

Importing the stl generated by autodesk inventor I'm finding that unless you have 'only follow mesh surface' enabled in settings that either certain parts of the model don't print, in particular vertical stretches, or depending on the initial object orientation the whole model itself (showing as 0 minutes, and having no layers present). What are the drawbacks, if any, to this and why would I be having this problem. There's is also the problem of the support structure not printing after a certain point, but in my googling I've noticed this pop up before so I'll check that out - not sure if it's related.