Speedy

Hey Guys, When printing objects that require a lot of retractions, the extruder on my Ultimaker 2 Go grinds up the filament and this results in slipping of the filament and under extrusion. I am printing 0.2 mm layer height, 50 mms, 230 degrees C. My spring tension on the feeder is as loose as possible ( white clip at the top) and the printer prints fine on prints with little retraction. I am printing using Faberdashery Orange Fizz filament. Is there a fix for this or is it just the nature of prints with lots and lots of retractions? Thanks, Speedy

Hey Luke, What settings are you printing at; i.e print speed,temperature and layer height. I'm sure we can get to the bottom of this .

Hi Remy, The Technician said all goes have the offset, it is normal. For my case he changed the z-limit switch, I didn't even notice it was broken, recalibrated the printer and unclogged the nozzle. Speedy

HI Guys, I received my printer back from Ultimaker today. They did a fantastic job servicing it and everything came back lubricated and in perfect condition. They did apparently change they y,x and z axis limit switches. The offset printhead seems to still be there however. This makes mes believe it is a software 'quirk' that will hopefully be addressed in the near future. The printer prints beautifully right now so I am very pleased. The community and Ultimaker itself are fantastic for resolving problems and I will not hesitate to recommend them in the future. Thanks for all your help everyone. David-Speedy

Thanks for the reply, I am having the machine colllected for repair by ultimaker, they seem to not know what is wrong and we are clutching at straws. I tried factory reseting on various firmwares and it did not help. I did learn however that the printhead gets stuck in the front right corner sometimes . Thanks, David.

Thanks for the help so far guys, I homed the head multiple times and it homes normally, light taps and in the left back corner. I checked the stops with pronterface and they seem fine too. My um2go has 2 nozzle spots and it is positioned on the left. The glass is centred but the printhead moves past the edge of the build plate when printing the rectangle by clsoe to 1 cm. The issue Labern describes is what makes me think the printer does not know where the printhead exactly is. Thanks, David

Thanks for the reply, Unfortunately I have tried numerous firmwares and unfortunately none of them have solved the problem. Any further ideas would be much appreciated, Speedy

Sorry for the late reply myself, been very busy at work lately :( Thanks for the video. It sounds like when the filament retracts, something is rubbing on something else. I actually saw the material on the spool moving back during a retraction, could it be the spool catching on something? Else, it may be something inside the feeder. A lodged piece of filament stuck on the extruder gear? The beep-beep of the retraction sounds normal enough, but the scratchy sound would indicate that there is definitely something rubbing somewhere when that happens. Does the noise occur at any other time or strictly only during retraction? The noise occurs strictly at retraction. I will eventually find out why the noise is occurring but I currently have a bigger problem where the print head does not know where the centre of the build plate is so prints everything too far to the left. more details here: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/view/17131-print-head-not-centered?page=1&sort=#reply-116178 Thanks, Speedie

I am really baffled, after using pronterface to move around the axes everything seems fine except moving the printhead 60 mm to the right does not centre it( this is the value half the width of the print bed). I have ensured the cables attached to the motor and xy stops is not pinched anywhere. Any Ideas would be greatly appreciated.

I tried printing a 110mm wide rectangle and as expected the printer printed it too far to the left resulting in some of it printing off the build plate. It seems that the machine does not know exactly where the print head is. I have checked the plugs of all the sensors into the arduino. Thanks in Advance to the awesome community Speedy.

Hi Guys, Today I was changing filament on my Ultimaker 2 go and I forgot to remove the filament before taking out the boden tube. When I told the machine to retract the filament in moved the print head all the way to the right and bashed it into the right frame. After restarting the machine I selected change filament again and the print head moved to the centre of the build plate as usual, however, I noticed it is now not on centre but a few cm too far too the right. I have realigned the axles and they look fine and my x y stops have not moved so I'm out of ideas. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm feeling very worried atm. Thanks, Speedy.

The increased printing temp is moving filament more quickly through the nozzle, so less time for the gear to grind away at it. Also a rule of thumb is the faster you print, the hotter your nozzle temp needs to be and vice versa (cooler temps, slower print speeds). Good to hear you resolved the grinding at least. However I'd be very interested to see a video of this faint clicking noise. :OIs there anything moving about on the print head when the filament retracts? Sometimes the white collet that the Bowden tube slides into can jump with the tube when the filament is retracting if the blue horseshoe clip doesn't have a good grip on it, or if the collet has worn away. Sorry for the late reply :(, I was away on holiday. This video shows the clicking noise. It is best heard nearer the end of the video and occurs with the beeping sound on retraction. If you have any idea what it could be caused by please let me know and thank you again for your previous help. https://youtu.be/1XTzEett9t4 Speedy

Thanks for the reply. The sound is not the motor noise and it is not the tock,. It is a faint tick or click. The increased temperature from 210-230 seems to have helped with the chewing of filament however. Just curious what the click sound is. Speedy

Um - a video would help. Are you sure the click isn't *causing* the retraction? Are you sure it's an intentional retraction? Because what you describe sounds like the kind of click that you hear when you lose some steps. It happens all the time when there is too much pressure. 210C, 50mm/sec is fine as long as you are doing .1mm layers. At .2mm layers that's too much and so you need to increase the temp (pla is more like honey at 230C and more like toothpaste at 190C). here are my recommended top speeds for .2mm layers (twice as fast for .1mm layers): 20mm/sec at 200C 30mm/sec at 210C 40mm/sec at 225C 50mm/sec at 240C The printer can do double these speeds but with huge difficulty and usually with a loss in part quality due to underextrusion. Different colors print best at quite different temperatures and due to imperfect temp sensors, some printers print 10C cool so use these values as an initial starting guideline and if you are still underextruding try raising the temp. But don't go over 240C with PLA. Thanks gr5, Will try to get a video of the retraction when I am printing something that utilises it, currently printing a one piece spring so the feature is not being used. The retraction of filament is definitely on purpose as it is when the print head jumps from 1 side of a print to another. The filament retracts fine as well, there is just a subtle click as this happens. Thanks for your help so far, it is much appreciated . Speedy

When the feeder kicks back (says "tock"), it indicates that the filament is unable to forward for some reason. This can be due to either a clog in the nozzle, some pressure/excess material in the Bowden tube or feeder, or just trying to print too fast. If it's happening on retractions, it could be caused by the change in pressure in the Bowden tube when the retraction is over and the filament is pushed back up to the nozzle. What are the retraction settings you're using? And have you changed filament other than unloading to cut the ends off, or done the Atomic method yet? Are you using the filament guide that came with the printer? I can't remember if they stopped shipping those with the UM2Go or not, but if you are it's not necessary and could be generating undue friction on the filament as it feeds. This could contribute to the grinding issue as well. Thanks for the reply Remy, My retraction settings are the stock ones (min travel 1.5mm). The UM2Go did not ship with the filament guide so there cant be any problems from there. I have done the Atomic Method many times and it has not changed the click in the feeder on retraction. The click only occurs when filament is moving backwards and not forwards which is the baffling thing here. Any further help would be much appreciated, Thanks, Speedy

Thanks for the response guys, The heating issue sounds likely so I may buy a desk fan and sit it next to the feeder to solve that problem. Is there anything I should check for with regards to the motor connected to the grinder wheel? I've noticed that on retraction the motor clicks but not on extrusion. Any ideas as to what that could be? Thanks for the help so far. Speedy

Hey Guys, I have an Ultimaker 2 go and have noticed that on long print it chews up filament constantly. I have to sit and watch it print and when i notice under extrusion I remove the filament, cut off the flattened part, reload it and the print continues very well. I have tried messing with the adjustment on the feeder tension but it hasn't really made a difference. I am printing ultimaker pla at 210 degrees at 50mm/s. Any help would be much appreciated, Thanks, Speedy

Hey Guys, My extruder seems to be excessively digging into the filament after a while. I start a print and everything is fine but as time goes on i start getting under extrusion and stringing. After I remove the filament, I notice it has a lot of marks in it. After changing it for some fresh filament the print is fine. Any ideas on what I can do? Thanks in Advance

Hey Guys, The hitting seems to have just been my pessimism and bad eye sight. The printer is performing exceptionally well. I have just completed a 7 hour print of this Batman Budah and it looks freaking amazing. Thanks for all your help .

Thanks for the replies guys, this community is making this product even more awesome.

Hi Guys, I have just done the test print of the Ultimaker Robot and it came out great! However, whilst printing I think the nozzle is just hitting the tip of the plastic as it prints a new layer. Is this normal or should I calibrate it with the nozzle slightly higher? Thanks in advance.

Hey Guys, I just ordered an Ultimaker 2 GO to help with my design and prototyping work (I'm an industrial design university student). I was hoping that someone could give me some tips to get the best possible print quality. There also isn't a lot of information on the Ultimaker 2 go which makes me slightly concerned if I have a problem. It looks like the parts are the same as the Ultimaker 2 so are the repairs carried out in the same way? Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks.