Wisar

Test Print with Dimensions Printed with two perimeter shells. Expectation was that break would occur on single column! Only did test of layer shearing as that was the aspect of cooling versus not cooling that I wanted to explore.

I was pulling the leg off my desk as it was! How much stronger do you want it to be? :-) I designed that part to be reasonably fragile but was surprised by how tough the PLA was...and the test that I did with the Ngen was actually a part that was under-extruded so I was not expecting much and was planning on a re-do. I may still do another test with and without the fan.

Another result to add to the above. Just got a reel of ColorFabb Ngen. Expensive. Nice. Ngen w/ 100% Cooling ==> 14!

Scales r Here! Bed was at 110 and I have a full enclosure from the German guy (3DPrinterStore24) that makes them. Chamber temperature was 61c. I think I am good to go though as the models that I want to print don't need much strength...details are more important. Printer Cover is Here

Does PLA really have twice the layer bonding strength as ABS or have I screwed something up? 3D Print Filament - Strength Tests PLA w/ 100% Cooling ==> 14.3 ABS w/ No Fan (215c) ==> 7.1 ABS w/ No Fan (245c) ==> 6.6 ABS w/ 40% Fan (245c) - My Mod ==> 4.8 ABS w/ 60% Fan (215) - My Mod ==> 4.6 ABS w/ 60% Fan (245) - UM Standard ==> 2.6 My test was pretty simple. I printed a little test piece as shown below (two of each). Little hole at each end to secure it to a leg of my desk and a baggage scale. Pull and record the point where it breaks. Recorded results on iPhone so as not to miss anything! The results were interesting. PLA was twice as strong as the strongest ABS which had been printed at 215c with no fan. Strangely ABS printed at a higher temperature was a little weaker? Using a fan did indeed weaken the ABS print but my mod caused less weakening than did the standard UM cooling solution. I may do a little more testing but I like what I see from the results relative to my directed fan causing less weakening than the standard UM fans ... and from my other tests I know that it improves print quality when it comes to fine details.

izzy: I like your design, good idea on the swing and being able to adjust it. Instead of a swing out I went with a slide out...though I have not put in a retainer yet. The goal of my cooling design is a little different to yours though. I actually have two different fan outlets though I only show the ABS one above. The other one is more akin to what is on the UM now in that it has a pretty wide aperture. My design goal with the one pictured above is to direct the air flow as much as possible to just the extrusion area. I got this idea from an add-on that I had installed on a Wanhao Duplicator 4s that allowed it to print ABS with amazing precision: Uber Cool Active Cooling for Makerbot Clones Here is a sample of the quality that I was able to print with the above cooling solution on my old printer. I want my much more expensive UM2 to be able to do the same quality (in ABS)! Cheers, Will

Thanks gr5, I will give it a shot. In the meantime I am also trying a couple more materials that might also get the same test. I have a reel of PET that I am liking and have some Colorfabb co-polyester on the way as well. Chasing the promised land of a material with the advantages of both PLA and ABS but without the disadvantages of PLA or ABS! Will

Thanks GR5. I am printing my PLA at 195-200 and in the range of 20-30mm/sec depending on the quality that I am looking for. With PLA, and a 250 micron nozzle, the quality and detail is amazing. Except for the top layers if there is some small detail sticking up and I am not printing multiple parts (or have a sacrifice out there). I want the directed fan to help there and it seems to do so. I will keep the speed versus layer height guide in mind but I had sort of stumbled onto that anyway, going faster with the thinner layers. With ABS I am printing at what seems like crazy low temperatures of 215 (starting at 245 and winding down after the first layer). The idea behind the directed fan is that I can cool the extrusion area with the lowest possible fan setting and not have that same fan on the rest of the print...helping to prevent the print popping off. The same kind of setup worked brilliantly on my Wanhoa Duplicator 4S and it seems to be working pretty well here too. I think you are confirming the direction that I have been taking so thanks. I am particularly glad that I don't have to enclose the rest of the Olson block as that was going to be tricky! What surprises me is that no one else seems to have been done this? Thanks again, Will

When I first got my Ultimaker I struggled to print ABS. This is a little ironic as I had printed nothing but ABS on my previous printer, a Wanhao Duplicator 4S, as I struggled to print PLA on it! I have since been able to get past my issues of build plate adhesion and warping and print ABS quite successfully for many things. I now have an enclosure for the printer and have decided that Klapton tape is my printing surface of choice. I still struggle with fine details and in particular when printing at high resolution (<100 microns). Speaking of fine detail at high resolution...I have similar issues with PLA but only when printing the final layers. This first picture shows two tanks with the top printed in PLA and the bottom in ABS. They are 1:100 scale models and are about 2.5 inches long so there is quite a bit of detail there. It is not a completely fair comparison, however, since the PLA print was done with a 250 micron nozzle and the ABS print with a 400 micron nozzle. The PLA print is 60 micron resolution and the ABS print is 80 or 100. Ok, not a great apples to apples test but what is clear on both prints is the problem that I am trying to solve. On the lower, ABS, print you can see the poor quality on the small dots on the engine compartment, on the periscopes forward of the turret hole, and on the top of the fuel tank. The lines are not as sharp either (corners you would expect to be better on the PLA due to the nozzle). On the top print, the PLA one, the issue is the top of the fuel tank and the periscopes at the bow of the vehicle. In both cases they are somewhat smudged. My solution to the PLA problem has been to either print multiple parts or to print a "sacrificial" part or two that accomplish the same thing. I have already slowed down the print using the S3D feature that allows one to adjust speed for layers below some number of seconds. I use 15 seconds as the threshold and 20% as the factor. I have not had a good solution for ABS but I know from my Wanhoa Duplicator 4S that cooling is the key. On that printer I had installed a highly directed ducted fan and it made a huge difference. So enter the below hack: This is not the first of these experiments that I have tried in the cooling space. My first attempt, which had limited success, was a piece of plastic that clipped onto the print head assembly and focused the cooling flow onto the area below the nozzle. I talk about it elsewhere but it was not the cat's meow. Below is a test print done in PLA that shows the same g-code printed on a printer with standard cooling and the other with my directed fan. It is obvious which is which. My first test with ABS shows a significant improvement as well but as I do not have an apples to apples comparison that will have to wait (yes, I know, under extrusion). I would be interested in knowing what people think of this idea. I would also like to hear any feedback into whether my printer is going to explode from running with the Olson block exposed! I am doing a two hour long print in PLA as we speak and will then try an even longer one later.

Will the + upgrades improve the UM's ability to print ABS? I love my UM's, have two, but have never been able to duplicate the quality and ease of printing ABS on my old Wanhao Duplicator 4S. In particular I am talking about fine details at 80-100 micron resolution. The Wanhao is an enclosed printer, which is critical in my environment for ABS given that it can be cool and drafty, so I bought an enclosure for my UM2's. I had also installed a ducted fan with highly directed cooling on the Wanhao and I think this is was the difference. On both printers I run the hot end at the lowest temperatures possible where I still get clean extrusion (210-215). Will the upgrade to cooling be a significant improvement for ABS? I normally print in PLA and can do brilliant quality to 40 microns ... and 40 microns of resolution with a 25 micron nozzle is really something to see! But I occasionally need to be printing in ABS though never at the PLA levels of resolution or detail. Just better than I can do now.

Here are my profiles and sample Marvins...100 micron resolution. Printed on Klapton tape. Profiles are for S3D but are human readable for settings. http://raspberrypirobot.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/tale-of-two-marvins.html Will

Regular! Ultimaker 2. That is good news...except that I already have the Olson Block installed. Is the cooling assembly independent of the new nozzle...and is the new nozzle the same as what I already have from 3DSolex? How much will we be spending?

That is great...it sounds like that might include the cooling upgrade? ...and will the same work with a regular UM2?

Good news that it is going to be available at all so will be interested in the answer as to when ... but wondered if this also pertained to the change in the fans configuration that resulted in "optimized airflow"?

I would be surprised if a different filament makes a huge difference but will be interested to hear your result. I have struggled with ABS adhering as well and my solution has been the following: 1st. Enclose the printer. My environment is drafty and somewhat cool and ABS hates this. Here is the cover that I now have. 2nd. I bought an extra piece of glass for the build platform and keep it covered with Klapton tape. I know this is a pain but it is part of the solution. You can get 150mm wide rolls from China and once you have done it a couple of times application is actually pretty easy. 3rd. Very (very) light layer of abs goop. 4th. Finally, and a lot of people hate this as well, but if the bottom surface of the print it non critical, I will use a raft. I find that without the raft the next step is essential but can lead to damage to the tape. 5th. If you are not using a raft then you have to lay down the first layer of plastic with enough pressure to make a good adhesive! I tune the platform using the piece of paper method and with the nozzle pressing enough on the paper that I can feel a little resistance. I then watch the first layer extrude and make some adjustment then if needed. Use extra startup loops a little ways from the part to give your self time. 6th. I keep the build platform at 110c the entire time and I print both ABS and PLA at the very lowest temperatures that I can...this takes experimentation and can vary from filament to filament. This actually does not help with adhesion but I mention it more as an ABS technique that seems to be different than what I read above. Good luck!

And I confirmed that is the case here. Obviously they can get it from HQ but they have them in stock as it happens. I guess I expected everything to be on the web!

Fair point. Neither they nor UM2 across the channel show it in their store but there is a place in the US that does. I guess I asked thinking there might be a "special" place to go for parts that are usually not needed by the average Joe.............will reach out to 3dgbire

I can find them in the US but not in the UK?

I have never had a problem printing PLA and my office / Man Cave is pretty drafty. My need for an enclosure was purely around the printing of ABS. What problems are you experiencing? In my case the more airflow the better in general for PLA!

My cover and door arrived yesterday in a very securely packed box. The instructions were all in German but the pictures made it pretty clear what needed to be done. I would recommend that anyone building this cover insert all the nuts before the parts are assembled. Some will be tight enough to stay in place but others might require a small piece of masking tape. Once the sides start to be put in place I found it a lot harder to insert the securing nuts but this could just be me and my coordination! The cover and the door look really good mounted on the machine. They look like the were sold by Ultimaker though I suspect that Ultimaker would have used frosted plexi for the side panels! I am very pleased with the cover though. My only complaint, or suggestion for improvement, would be to either ship the door unassembled but still wrapped in the protective plastic. Or strip the protective plastic before assembling the door. I found it to be a real pain to get the plastic off cleanly and had to partially disassemble the door to do so.

Tightening all of the set screws on the gears for the x-axis pulleys seems to have corrected this issue. Wisar

When I measure actual versus commanded movement it seems my Ultimaker 2 is NOT obeying me on the x-axis though it seems to be on the y-axis. A movement command of 100mm on the x-axis yields me an actual movement of around 98.9mm. Command of 60mm yielded 59.7. Command of 10mm yielded 9.9. Similar commands on the y-axis were accurate. Measured using a mechanical pencil tied to the printhead so I am pretty confident of my measurement accuracy. All of the belts feel the same...the y-axis and x-axis short belts and long (though frankly this is really tough to measure)! Should I try to further tension the short x-axis belt or is the something else that could be the cause? Thanks, Wisar

Eldrick, Even with a cover and door I still struggle with adhesion. I have another printer, a Makerbot clone, that I use for ABS and have no issues there, but the UM2 is fighting me. Do you have a profile that you can share, what surface are you printing on, and how do you prep that surface? I think that cooling is my issue as that is the major diff' between the UM2 and the clone as I have a directed cooling highly ducted fan on the clone. Thanks, Will

My experiments indicate that I need the top. My office can be tres breezy as it is also my wifes path to the garden!