keukpa

This wasn't a case of the PTFE 'degrading' from use, it was a result of a poor PTFE coupler from the start, the day I got my printer it never worked, until I replaced the PTFE coupler. All good now! Keukpa

Thanks for the input guys, see my new post: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/view/17016-its-all-in-the-ptfe-coupler This has solved ALL my problems! Cheers, Keukpa

OK, (Stick with it, it ends well!) So I've had my Ultimaker 2 for about 6 months now, and I've never really been that happy with it. Skipping on extrusion, so I make it hotter, stringing on extrusion, so I make it cooler, skipping, and on and on.... Then I kind of get this sorted and the next problem is that after a successful print, in order to be able to print again, I need to remove the filament and CLEAR the entire hot end, which means taking it apart.... about 50% of prints would fail 1/2 way through.... not going good, my other printers are far better, yet I've seen people print with this and I think why can't I? So, I'm the kind of person that likes spares of EVERYTHING, you know, just-in-case... so when I got my printer I bought a full hot end replacement kit.... Playing about with the printer a few days ago, I thought I've had enough....and I was THOROUGHLY cleaning the head and thought, hmmm the isocoupler thing looks a little crap, so I got out my new spare, and looking at the shaft of the two PTFE Couplers, my current one was much wider than the new one... which also looked 'better quality' so I thought I'd swap that over... Well..... OMG! What a difference this has made, I have printed and printed and printed since this simple swap, and not had ANY problems, this is now a FANTASTIC printer... I'm just sad that the initial PTFE that came with my UM2 was so poor. So, the point of this post, don't give up, if you are having similar problems as me, get a spare PTFE and swap it over.... £11 'upgrade' and my printer is sweet! Cheers, Keukpa

Hi All, I'm having some issues with my UM2. The problem is with the printer doing a rather large retraction at the end of the print. I understand 'why' this happens, but is there a way to disable it as it's causing serious issues. Basically a the end of the print the UM2 does a large retraction and pulls the filament a fair way back, as this cools and when I come to do the next print (say the following day) the printer can't get the filament to get back in the hot end and as such I need to remove it all and manually re-feed it. Any help would be appreciated. Regards, Keukpa

Thanks for all your help with this.... I've looked at that part, and there IS a lip inside, I've used a hand drill to remove it, and now it is very smooth, I will rebuild the hot end and see how I get on.... I will report back here, thanks again! Keukpa

OK, I'll give that a go, I guess I can get new ones direct from Ultimaker?? Thanks for your help! Is this the part I need? - http://3dgbire.com/collections/spare-parts/products/ultimaker-2-ptfe-coupler Keukpa

Thanks for this, I've tried the 'Move Material' and it comes out of the feeder and down the tube with a LOT of force, so I guess it is something on the hot end side.... Any further tips / ideas?? Thanks! Keukpa

I'll check the Teflon spacer and see how it looks. I've cleaned (using cold pull) the hot end and yes, comes out clean. How can I check the feeder? What would I need to look for? Thanks, Keukpa

I've tried that, they aren't very tight. It still skips backwards. I've taken the bowden tube off and manually tried to push the filament through, there seems to be a fair bit of friction.... how can I reduce this? Keukpa

Printer is about 6 months old. I've not tried ABS yet, just PLA. Using Cura, nozzle size is 0.4mm, layer height, I've tried 0.1, 0.06, 0.15 and 0.2 Yes, nozzle gets hot, at 230C it starts dripping a lot. Keukpa

OK, I'm getting totally fed up of trying to fix this problem, it seems that ALL the failures with my prints are down to the extruder motor skipping backwards, this is causing under extrusion, failed layers, and first layers not sticking to the bed. I've tried LOADS of solutions and none of them work, I've tried cleaning the head using the atomic method, and printing at higher temperatures, if I print at a much high temperature this helps but then causes all sorts of other problems. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can someone help me here.... I'm printing in PLA (faberdasherry and Ultimaker) @ 210C Thanks, Keukpa

Thanks for the tips DidierKlein, I tried the 'atomic' method and managed to remove the bits of plastic, however, my extruder motor is still skipping backwards....how do I solve this? Printing PLA @ 240C stops it, but this drastically increases stringing.... Do I 'tighten' the extruder motor grip to stop this? Currently it's a 'lose' as possible. Regards, Keukpa

I've been having some problems with my Ultimaker 2 still, I'm trying to stick with this printer and get it working, I've had some good successful prints, and some not so.... I have a few issues and hope people can provide some tips... 1) I've head people saying to put the filament on the floor....what does this do? Do you remove it from the spool? Or just put the spool on the floor? 2) My feeder keeps skipping, this happens when the printer is about the start printing, and happens a lot meaning the start of the print has no material...and it happens in places throughout the print. How can I reduce this? 3) I'm getting a LOT of stringing, when the head moves to the next spot it leaves a line right across the print.... my settings are: PLA (direct from Ultimaker) black. Printing at 210C and 220C and 230C, 230C reduces the skipping the most Speed: REALLY slow, I can't get it to work faster than 40mm/s so everything is 40 or less. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Keukpa

But doesn't ABS print at about 260C anyway? So I'm not overly fussed, I might buy a stock of spare parts anyways just so I have them....so long as it's printing, I'm happy Keukpa

Hi gr5, Thanks for the tips, so I'm getting sooooooo much better prints now, this is what I've done (some photos attached).... 1) I started the print, and adjusted the screws on the bed for parts where the feeder motor would skip, this reduced the skipping but didn't stop it.... 2) So it got to the part of the print where it kept failing, so I went into the Tune menu and upped the temperature, I changed it from 210 to 240 and now it doesn't skip at all and the prints are looking sooo much better!! Some pics attached! Cheers, Keukpa Showing distance of head from bed Failing the print, this is all done at 210C These prints are now much better at I changed the temp to 240C This is now printing the 2nd layer and looks great!