BrayChristopher

Update (for those that care). Cleaned off the Z axis screw and reapplied a little of the green grease that came with the printer. Did a few Atomic Pulls. When I pulled the fan shroud off to check the PTFE coupler, I found this beauty. The heater block is encased in a blob of ColorFab XT. A little surprise left over from this failed print several weeks back. I didn't realized it had gotten up inside the fan shroud. [print=4285][/print] Heated up the print head and pulled it off with needle nose pliers. Pulled out the old PTFE coupler. The PTFE coupler looked pretty good to me. The OD was a little brown, but the ID was pure white. Filament easily passes through the PTFE coupler. I think the PTFE coupler was still good. Since I already had everything opened up, I put a new PTFE coupler in anyway. Printed a new Benchy. The layers seem to be much more consistent than last time. Its hard to tell which of the things I fiddled with made it better. Maybe a little of each. What ever the case, I think the Ultimaker2 is back on the straight and narrow. Thanks all.

That one was printed at 42mm/sec. I printed it again at 33mm/sec and got similar results. My coworker and I then decided it was finally time to level the bed (it has been about 6 months), since the problem areas "seem" to be at the back of the bed. Leveled the bed and printed a Benchy (with no supports). . Looked pretty good to me. Printed my part again towards the front of the bed with rectilinear infill (gave up on the honeycomb). The first layers look great, but now I am seeing gaps in the layers along the perimeter. ARGH. Also, I am fiddling with the machine which makes me nervous. The feeder is skipping as well. I am now thinking that this all might be my old friend (queue the dramatic music) the PTFE coupler.

Video Any idea why the honeycomb infill on the left looks so horrible and the infill on the right looks fine? Do I need to slow things down? Slicer: Simplify 3D Quality Level: "Fast" Printing Speed: 41.67mm/sec (2500mm/min) Infill Pattern: Full Honeycomb Infill Percentage: 25% Material: PLA Layer Thickness: 0.25mm Thanks.

Screw dimensional accuracy on the first layer. It's over rated. Trim it off with a knife. I agree that you need good "squish" on the first layer. If it is important to me, I put a small champfer around the bottom of my part in the CAD software to compensate for the squish. I set to nozzle about a post-it note from the glass and I print straight onto the glass (I do use some glue stick for XT). I haven't had to level or adjust the bed in probably 6 months. I attribute that to the fact that I have stopped wrestling prints off the glass. I point a desk fan at the part and let everything cool down. The parts just "pop" off. You can hear little noises as the surface tension between the part and the glass breaks. No more wrestling. No more paint scraper. No more bed leveling. I haven't had to level or adjust the bed in probably 6 months.

There are a TON of cool spool holders out there on Thingiverse and Youmagine. I also agree that the friction is too high. The spool holder needs to be free spinning as far as I am concerned. Probably the cheapest and fastest thing to do would be to go get a lazy susan from a kitchen store. Put it on the ground next to the printer. Put the spool on it. Put something "heavy" on it to keep it from lifting up off of the lazy susan. This gives the filament a long distance to straighten out gradually and enter the feeder at a gentle angle. Here is what I ended up with (not the lazy susan). https://www.youmagine.com/designs/magnetic-mount-spool-holder

I've read that too, but I have never had to try it. The PTFE coupler bit me in the @ss for a while. It is hard to inspect and replace, so you end up spending a lot of time chasing other "ghost" problems. I also feel like there is too much resistance on the stock spool holder. You could make something fancy, or you could get a lazy susan and put the roll of filament on the floor next to your machine. This will give the filament a lot of space to straighten out naturally and ease into the feeder. https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/173-the-feeder I keep my feeder tension loose. Just like the link above shows. No clicking. No grinding. At least since I changed my spool holder set up. I have even printed semi-flex material with this set up. But nothing is a single variable issue. And of course you have the +kit, so the feeder is different. Since you have the +kit, you should be able to easily swap out the nozzle. It might be a good idea to put in a fresh nozzle just to rule that out of the equation. Then you can take a hard look at the nozzle clean it up nice. One problem that I had several times, was that something happened that made the feeder slip and grind the filament put a little. It might have been too much resistance on the spool holder, it might have been a dirty nozzle, maybe I was too close to the bed, the PTFE was degraded, or what ever. Anyway, that little extra grind mark won't cause a problem until it makes its way to the print head. Then it gets stuck. Done. Dead print. Tear a part the feeder to clean up the mess. Clean up the knurled part of the feeder. You don't want that caked full of past problems. I also botched the job one time when I set the temperature wrong. I left it set to ABS temps. Well that just caramelizes the PLA and caused all sorts of problems, because the printer doesn't know something is wrong. It just keep chugging away and making things worse. Its like a person that can't feel pain. Try this. Remove the filament from the machine entirely. Go to the advanced maintenance menu on the machine and choose Move Material. This gives you control of the feeder motor by spinning the wheel. (Make a replacement for that annoying thing). Manually feed the material in and see if it grips it. Run is up and down a little in the bowden tube. Don't run it all the way up to the print head. Maybe apply a little resistance to see how much it takes to make it slip. Does the motor click when there is no resistance? When you are done with the experiment, run the material all the way out. Then go back through the standard material loading sequence to make sure that the machine "knows" where and what the filament is. And again. I would stick with the OEM filament (Ultimaker brand) until you are having consistent success with that. Then start playing around with other filaments. For the record, I don't use Ultimaker brand PLA. I use PLA from 3D Universe and love it. But I think it is important to limit your variables.

Sorry, I missed the part when you said that your filament is breaking. Make sure you store it in a big zip lock bag with some dissecant when you aren't using it for a long period of time.

Here are some links you might find helpful. Might. https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17005-makergeek-filament-versus-ultimaker-brand-filament https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17420-looking-for-a-reliable-low-cost-filament-supplier?page=2&sort=#reply-120349 https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17794-detailed-documentation-of-our-hardware-and-software-mods-for-reliable-printing?page=1&sort=#reply-121577 https://www.youmagine.com/designs/magnetic-mount-spool-holder https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/250-disassembly https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17279-i2k-insulator-duptef-couplers http://gr5.org/store/index.php/um/i2k-insulator.html http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:217725 Are the prints dying at the start? Or half way through? Are you getting nozzle clogs?I Is the filament breaking? Is the feeder chewing up the filament? I know it is hard to diagnose these problems the next morning. Often one problem can cause another and you don't know which happened first. Good luck.

I had a bit of a "learning curve" when I started too. We don't have the + kit, but here is some advice. Filament matters, but you have tried a bunch already. I would recommend going back to Ultimaker brand filament until you get things figured out. I also moved the filament spool and added bearings. I put the spool below the printer so that the filament goes into the feeder at a more gentle angle. As straight as possible. I made a spool holder with ball bearings in it so that the spool free spins. Oh yeah! Check the d@mn PTFE coupler thing. The white thing in the print head. It is a consumable and wears out at higher temps. It can cause extra resistance just before the hot end. It is a pain to inspect and replace. Buy the I2K insulator from GR5.org. It's worth it. Bed leveling is also important. (Maybe everything is important...) Anyway, don't yank prints off the bed. Don't use a scraper. Don't wrestle with it. The print should just "pop" off the bed at the slightest touch. When the print is done, position a desk fan directly in front of the printer (pointing at the printer), set it on high, and WAIT. The glass and the plastic will cool at different rates and eventually the print will easily come off the bed. Be patient. It will take longer than you want it to. If need be gently remove the glass and then wrestle with it, but waiting is better. This is important because it means you won't have to re-level the bed every other print. I haven't leveled my bed in about 6 months. We print something every couple days. I set the nozzle to bed distance to one or two post-it notes. Sorry, I don't remember which. For PLA set the bed temp to 60c. Print straight on the glass. The geometry of the part matters too. Put helper discs at the corners. I don't use rafts.

I like the PLA from 3D Universe (and the price). They ship out of Chicagoland. https://ultimaker.com/reply/forward/120349 https://ultimaker.com/en/community/prints/3440-random-shroud I like bigger spools because the color is not that important to me and it reduces the "dead ends" of filament at the end of a spool.

I don't use an enclosure when I print PLA. Using the enclosure is a must when I print XT or NGEN. Otherwise they warp too much. I just use a large "turkey bag" that I cut open on two sides and then binder clipped it to the frame. It's pretty ugly. It really annoys my boss. But it is so cheap and so quick. https://ultimaker.com/reply/forward/120753

Yeah, I wish more people made 2.85mm filament. I am in Illinois. After trying a couple different cheap PLA's, I have settled on the PLA from 3D Universe. It is not $20 a spool, but it is less than Ultimaker brand filament. I am super happy with the 3D Universe PLA. I am sure there are other great suppliers out there, but I have found one that I like. https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17420-looking-for-a-reliable-low-cost-filament-supplier?page=1&sort= https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17005-makergeek-filament-versus-ultimaker-brand-filament

Why did you install the 1.75mm kit? Was there something about the 2.85mm filament that you didn't like? Just curious. My biggest issue with the 2.85mm filament is that there doesn't seem to be as many supplier options. And I can't find anyone that sells BIG spools of 2.85mm filament.

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/um2-bowden-clip-and-guide I use one similar to that. I don't know if it is really doing anything. If I forget to put it on, nothing really changes. There are so many variables that could be causing Giogiogio4's problems. The frustrating part is that he got good prints for a while and then all of a sudden... crap. I use a roller bearing spool holder positioned below my machine to make sure that there is the least amount of resistance on the filament before it goes into the feeder. And it goes into the feeder rather straight. Stock Ultimaker 2 feeder. I think I might be the only person still using the stock feeder. PTFE Coupler with I2K insulator. Stock Ultimaker 2 hot end (heater and nozzle) and stock fan shroud. Again, I am probably one of the very few that haven't changed those parts. I am using 2.85mm filament. Any chance you would switch back? Giogiogio4, did you ever address the loose wires attached to you fans? If the fan that cools the "heat sink" above the nozzle is ON sometimes and OFF sometimes that could cause your intermittent results. Same goes for the part cooling fans, but those should only affect the quality of the print, not the jamming.

You know what... try running with NO retractions. That is an interesting idea. Maybe the filament gets wider in the hot end and the when it retracts up into the PTFE coupler it is getting jammed. Try no retractions as a test. When you modified it for 1.75mm, what all did you change? Is there a special PTFE couple for 1.75mm? Is there a special hot end / nozzle for 1.75mm? Is there a special bowden tube for 1.75mm?

It sound like it is the PTFE coupler... How hot are you printing? Or there is too much friction in the bowden tube... https://ultimaker.com/en/community/17279-i2k-insulator-duptef-couplers

So the feeder motor is still moving, but the filament isn't? Maybe there just isn't enough pressure on the filament. Did you adjust the pressure on the feeder when you switched to 1.75mm filament? I'm all out of ideas past that.

Have you checked the PTFE coupler? https://ultimaker.com/en/tips-tricks/19619-ulti-evening-maintenance https://ultimaker.com/en/manuals/250-disassembly Is the feeder grinding the filament? Or is the feeder stopping?

I have had maybe one PLA break int the tube. Keep your PLA in a big zip lock bag with desiccant when you aren't using it. And of course it matters where you are getting the PLA from. I have tried a few brands that just didn't work well. Sometimes they would print great, sometimes it would crap out. I think the Ultimaker brand PLA is pretty good. Right now I am sticking with PLA from 3D Universe, but they are in the USA. There is a ridiculous number of materials out there now. Good luck with your search. It is worth it to pay a little more for something that doesn't cause problems.

I double support the idea of putting the filament on the floor (or below the machine). Using good filament, moving my spool below the printer, using ball bearings in the spool holder solved all of my feeder issues. https://www.youmagine.com/designs/magnetic-mount-spool-holder http://www.iliketomakestuff.com/make-spinning-3d-printer-workstation/

.... Wait. What. I don't mean to be negative, but I wouldn't put that in anybody's mouth. I mean, maybe if you used a different printing process, like titanium SLS or something. http://roedentallab.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html And for super small detail like this, I would highly recommend looking at SLA or DLP printers. This is what they are good at. I have no personal experience with them (yet). https://all3dp.com/best-sla-3d-printers/ http://www.iboxprinters.com/ http://www.miicraft.com/applications/dental/ https://peachyprinterks.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders http://www.instructables.com/id/Little-Dipper-SLADLP-3D-printer-for-under-500-proj/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Chimera-60-DLP-resin-3d-printer/ You could also take a casting of the original part that you scanned and duplicate it. This way the material would be solid and there would be no layer lines. Smooth On

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/prints/925-i-think-it-is-a-tooth I used Simplified 3D to slice it. 3D Universe brand PLA filament 210C nozzle / 60C bed Cooling fans on after the first layer. 0.100mm layer height