brentwerder

Hey there! I've been hoping to laser cut a custom Ultimaker Original Plus frame with the dimensions of an UM2 Extended, but I'm having issues sourcing the right materials. I'm in the US, and finding the right metric stuff is difficult. I think I may be able to get away with 1/4" thickness instead of 6mm, but I can't seem to find anything that's the right quality. The closest that I can find is some MDF, and I'd really prefer not to go down that route (moisture, not structurally great, etc). I'd also like to avoid acrylic, though I am making the side panels in frosted acrylic to look somewhat like newer Ultimakers. Here are the files that I'm basing this project on: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2275125 So far, I have checked Lowe's, Home Depot, ACE Hardware, various local laser cutters, laser suppliers online, Amazon, and Michaels. None of these places have the right grade of birch plywood I'm after. I emailed Ultimaker support, and they just linked me back to the Github page which only lists "Birch plywood" at 6mm thickness as the material. Further digging has led me to find that this type of material is Baltic birch - that's about all I know. I checked out a few more forum posts to see if anyone is in a similar situation as me, but didn't find them to be that helpful. I did see that someone used "dibond aluminum" which could be an interesting choice. So, long story short: Does anyone know of a US supplier of the material used to make the Ultimaker Original Plus frame? If I have to import from overseas, that's not ideal, but possible. P.S.: I am also considering modifying the front panel of the Original Plus to use the UM2 screen. No real reason, just for aesthetics and maybe quicker response time. Thought I'd throw this in to see if anyone has suggestions. Thank you so much! -Brent

Just tried hooking up the fans in series. I tried all the fans I have, but they all have the same problem. One fan (an old one) starts up at around ~80 PWM and the new ones all start at ~235 PWM. It doesn't look like any of them are dead, but they have very high startup voltages. Strange considering they are the same brand and model that I bought from Amazon before. It looks like I either need to settle with very fast fans or purchase some new ones on Amazon. Any recommendations for better quality ones?

Well, there's a few problems out of the way! Not sure how it happened but those two jumpers were missing. I added them back and power returned to the always-on fan and heaters. Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, my dual fan problem persists. Not certain how to fix that.

Hello again, Just spent a few hours trying to get my UMO+ up and running again with no success. My problems all stem from the main board, which is giving me a ton of trouble. My machine has an E3D v6 with two 12v fans wired in parallel, which had worked for a few months before a transistor blew (see my last post). After this happened, one fan wouldn't start and the other worked fine, so I replaced the faulty one with a new one. The replacement didn't work unless I turned the PWM to >240. I just got in some new fans and the same applies with these. Additionally, both heater outputs (heater block and bed) aren't giving me any outputs. The thermistors work fine, but the heaters themselves don't heat up at all. Checked the board and there is no voltage at either output when heating. I can't home the axes or move motors. Those seem to be dead too. No voltage output from board there. Finally, the 24v always-on fan on the E3D isn't turning on. No voltage from any 24v output, but the PSU is giving me 24v. Strangely enough, there's a 5v fan out in the middle of the board that does give me 5v. From my standpoint, I would guess that a fuse (or something similar) is dead somewhere. The only thing that seems to be "alive" on the machine is the screen, which is perfectly fine, and the fan output--which is half fine. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Fingers crossed I don't have to shell out the cash for another board...

Just replaced the board with a spare I had sitting around, and the Fan PWM on that board was working fine, although one of my fans wouldn't start up until I hit 255 PWM. Weird, since I bought a new set of the exact same fan from Amazon. Any clue what's going on with that? Unfortunately, there's another problem: the 24V J19 output (next to the power supply) is busted. It reads 0V, so my always-on fan won't work. Is there another spot on the board I can grab a constant 24V from? Or would it be possible (sorry, not an EE) to use the GPIO outputs to do that when the temp is above 50C or something? My Prusa does something similar to that.

Thanks for the reference. I picked up 10 of those diodes from Digikey (in case I screw up soldering a few times). In the meantime, so I can get back up and running, I think I'll try to reroute my fans to the LED PWM. How exactly did you do that? Thanks.

Just got back to work on my Ultimaker Original Plus: my dual 40mm 12V fans have stopped working. One of the fans had seized up, and I bought replacements to fix the issue. However, after soldering the new one in place, they wouldn't run. They're wired in parallel. The wire going from the board to the fans is OK, just tested that. I'm not sure if the Fan PWM output on the board isn't good anymore, or what. I tried testing the voltage of it when the fans are on at 255, but I'm not sure what the normal voltage is. -Brent

Recently I've had quite a bit of trouble getting technical prints (especially very small ones with tight tolerances) to print right on my UMO+. It looks like my printer isn't printing circles right at all. As you can see, the tolerances here are off by about a millimeter. The irregular circles are very repeatable, too - the odd oval shape is the same through the part. Even just looking at the part, it's obvious that it's not completely circular: I've tried every suggestion I could find on 3DVerkstan, which helped the problem a bit, but it's still there and it's enough to keep very small parts from printing correctly. I turned my acceleration down to 1800mm/s^2, and I printed the part pictured at 15mm/s just to make sure my speed wasn't a factor. My Ultimaker has an E3D V6 with a mount that holds it pretty tightly. I don't think that's likely to be the issue. I might just want to order some new timing belts for the motors, but those seem pretty tight to me. Any other suggestions?

Alright, the PT100 is dead. It's reading about 3 megaohms whenever I test it, and it looks like the wire is frayed. I'll order a new one ASAP.

Okay... bad news. I played around with resistances and different configurations of the bed thermistor and the hotend thermistor, and nothing worked. I found that the E3D Semitec thermistor is in very good condition. The resistance instantly went down from its starting 121.7 kilo ohm resistance at room temperature when I held onto it. I pulled the PT100 out of the old hotend and tested its resistance, which was around 3 megaohms. I really have no idea if that's normal. It doesn't seem like it, but then again, the thermistor was working perfectly before disassembly. Possibly a bad reading? It was very hard to get contact when measuring. I unplugged the bed and first tried the hotend PT100, which read 11000C, the same as the hotend readout. It read 11000C if I had either of the hotend thermistors in either TEMP1 or TEMP3. However, it read 20C when I plugged the bed into TEMP1 or TEMP3 - meaning the connection is still good on TEMP1! Hooray! I believe this means one of three things: Option A is that the firmware is somehow not accounting for either hotend thermistor and is instead not reading anything at all. This means that I only have to make a good firmware build and the issue should be resolved. This is my favorite option. Option B is that the hotend PT100 is busted (it had a weird reading, which I think I'll redo later since it fluctuated so much). That would explain why another PT100 in the bed read correctly, but that one wouldn't. It also means that if I change the firmware the E3D should work correctly. Option C is my least favorite. The hotend PT100 is broken, AND the E3D is either broken or not supported by the Arduino Mega. I really don't know much about electronics, so I have no idea whether or not a 121.7 kilo ohm thermistor will work correctly on this board. I'm now able to perform tests again on my machine, so if you have any ideas as to what I should try next, I'm all ears.

Good idea! I didnt know I could use TEMP2. I'll try that ASAP, which might be in a few days.

Hey all, Finally getting around to making those E3D mods I said I would a few months back... oops Kit assembly is now easier than ever - seems like they've modified the electronics to be easier to work. It comes with a neat little 100k ohm Semitec 104GT thermistor which is held in the heater block with a grub screw. The thermistor and fan now come with detachable Molex terminals which make modifications and maintenance 10x easier than dealing with the mess of wires with the old hotend. However, before assembling the heater block, I tested the thermistor resistance and got some crazy number waaay off from what it should be. I did some testing with it in the printer (modified firmware) and got a constant 9 degrees from it at room temperature , which didn't change no matter what I tried - even when unplugged. Definitely dead - currently working with E3D to get a replacement going. I had my buddy print me a nice little mount (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1742018) for the hotend, and it seems to be holding very well. Almost more solid to the touch than the old assembly - even though I accidentally used an Ultimaker 2 mount. The only difference there was the reversed axes, so now the print head is in the back right corner instead of front right. Oh well. Here's the real issue - the firmware. Since the old thermistor didn't work, I plugged my old PT100 into the slot where the Semitek should go; they're the same diameter and the PT100 is about a millimeter shorter. I know the PT100 works fine, since I hadn't had any issues with it when it was installed in the Original + hotend assembly. However, when using the same firmware, which should account for the PT100, I got the Err: MAXTEMP popup. When connected to my computer, the hotend showed a 11000C readout at room temperature. The readout remains the same when unplugging the thermistor. I'm afraid to say the motherboard might be the issue here, but I'm not sure. Both thermistors did not change the temperature readout when being plugged/unplugged from the board. Lucky for me, I happen to have a flawless extra board which I can do some testing on, but I'd rather not plug anything into it before getting some feedback from you. Thanks! -Brent

I think I found a culprit. It's kinda funny how small it is, but I think it might be the problem! Boop! Completely stripped nut in the tensioner part of the feeder. This is the nut that held in the spring. I can't upload the photo I found in the assembly guide for some reason, but hopefully you understand which one I'm talking about. I'll try replacing it and I'll update later!!

Okay, I lied. Tried another cube with a lower temperature material. Failed within a minute of starting it. what's going on?!

Alright. I dont know what to make of this next print, but I think it's better than nothing!! The entire print is underextruded, but the good thing is it's constant underextrusion - which means it was feeding (at least kind of) the whole way through! I'll tweak a few more settings, since I was printing with a high-temp filament. Hopefully this means the next print will work great!

Don't worry - I know how the feeder should be when it's ready to print! Otherwise I'd have quite a bit of trouble getting it to work at all

I checked all of the above - it seems like its all in working order. No friction on the feeder, and the bowden is held firmly in place. Here's the picture you wanted: I tried tightening the bolt that held the bearing, and that seemed to help the push strength. Hopefully that will help in another test.

Seems like a very interesting test, and it seems like it needs quite a bit of setup! I think I'll leave that test until later because, as I've mentioned, I don't exactly think thats the issue. Neotko - interesting idea! The 2 PTFE couplers I own are both from Ultimaker, and they both are still round. I've seen a coupler thats warped like you're saying. I'll make sure the length is correct anyways!

Well. I made this post a few hours ago and apparently it didn't post. Well, I'll try again. I tried everything both gr5 and neotko suggested with no success. I'll try to elaborate: Cleaned the knurled bolt and tested the feeder by hand with the bowden tube out of the hotend, seemed to work just as well as always. I put a bit of pressure on the filament coming out to ensure that it was working fine: definitely (probably) not the culprit. Cleared out the nozzle with a few atomic pulls: Worked very well - pushing filament through the hotend by hand worked very well. Nice, thick, even extrusion by hand. However, attaching the bowden to it and trying to feed with the feeder didn't work at all. I was able to get a bit of extrusion and tried the 40mm cube test that I usually use (10C higher than usual @225C, as per neotko's request) and not surprisingly it failed horribly. gr5 - I swapped the standard Ultimaker nozzle with my spare, and it didn't work. Tried one of my 5 Chinese nozzles (that has surprisingly printed very well in the past) and it failed too. I tried the test you recommended and found no obstructions. How do I test the pull strength? I'm judging the strength off of the assembly guide which stated that the tensioner spring should be about 10mm long, and in the past that has given the right amount of compression. Thank you both for your help - and hopefully I can get up and running soon!

Fail. I kind of expected that, but I dont know where to look next. I can post a pic of the feeder later, but I find it hard to believe that its the culprit. I feel quite a bit of resistance when pushing filament to the nozzle.

No goo anywhere, so thats good (I had to replace my old brass tube for that reason exactly). I tried taking the PTFE couplet out and it seems to move fine around the filament with a small gap. I tried swapping it with my backup and started a test print maybe 20 minutes ago - still working OK. I dont have high hopes that itll finish, though. Another update coming later. Thank you for the suggestions neotko!

My Ultimaker won't extrude anything during prints unless I help it through the extruder with pliers. I tried to troubleshoot a bit myself by testing for any obstructions in the bowden tube, but there were none until the filament hit the hotend. It felt like it had just stopped, then it began extruding when I pushed on the filament really hard. This is all with the hotend at 210C, as I always print. I did multiple atomic pulls to make sure it wasn't clogging, and I tested the filament running through the hotend with the tube out. I still don't know what is obstructing the filament. It isn't the PTFE coupler - I made sure of that. The printer prints a decent first layer (actually a phenomenal first layer because I leveled the bed maybe 5 times in an attempt to fix the issue), then begins underextruding or clogging. Someone help!

Yikes. About halfway through the print now, with all the settings listed above: Some crazy layering issues. Any ideas on what I should change? I used the LCD monitor to turn the heat up by 5 degrees so it's now at 200C. UPDATE: I had to stop the print. It wasn't getting any better.

Alright - I'm going to try another print at 0.15mm layers (just for speed) at 195 degrees, 30mm/s, and 2200mm/s acceleration. I'll post the results later.

I've been printing quite a bit recently, and I'm beggining to notice some ghosting I just can't get rid of. The most recent model I've printed is a little model I sketched up of a UFO crashing into the ground. I've printed it twice now, changing the settings a bit after the first one failed, but if anything the second print looks worse. Some intense stringing on the second model I printed. The model on the right is the first one I printed. It was printed at 205 degrees, at 50mm/s, and with 0.1mm layers. Retractions were 50mm/s and retracted 4.5mm. Travel speed was 250mm. I used 3000mm/s acceleration. The model on the left is the second print. I printed at 210 degrees, at 20mm/s, and with 0.05mm layers. All retraction/travel settings were left the same. This time, though, I used 1500mm/s acceleration. I'm really confused as to what's going on here. I had been printing fine until last week when the problems started coming up. Thanks, -Brent