geert_2

Good. And yes, this technology will come with its own new learning curve. I also like the fine details. I can imagine that for juwelry or very small railroad models, etc., this is fantastic. In the beginning such resins tended to get brittle after exposure to the sun, because it was UV- or light-cured, and it kept curing further. Also in the beginning, freshly printed parts were subject to creep deformation on heavy loads. You had to let them post-cure first. This was years ago, and I don't know how things evolved since then. But it might be a good idea to test this on a couple of prints, before using parts in a critical design.

Have you checked if the nozzle cooling fan is working? If not, this would give this phenomena. On an UM2 this is the little fan behind the nozzles; but I am not sure where it is on an UM3. Occasionally this fan may suck up hairs and strings of filament, and get stuck.

Maybe from another computer you could recover a dedicated graphics card, and put that into your computer? Or use older Cura versions? Depending on what you want to print, on which machine (e.g. on older UM-printers), this might be sufficient?

I have heard that there should be absolutely no broken-off bits and pieces of previous models left in the vat, because that would ruin the next prints. Maybe that is why they empty and clean the vat? And sift the resin? But I have no personal experience, except for seeing it once. And yes, the "mess" and chemicals were some of the main reasons why we chose for FDM back then... But I think you would best search a dedicated resin-printing forum for this, they are going to have way more experience and tips.

Looks good. The "cold" metal suits this model. Instead of plating, have you ever tried automobile "chrome" painting sprays? Not the "metalic" sort with little flakes, but the real "chrome" look spray-cans? The sort that is used on car bumpers, wheels, and decorative chrome stripings? I have seen it on model cars, but I have never used it myself, so I don't know what preparation is required, nor how well it withstands bending, temperature, weather, etc. Migth be worth trying on a scrap piece.

Als de "verbrande stukjes" eruit zien als kleine zwarte schilfertjes, dan komen ze wellicht uit de nozzle: dan is die van binnen aangekoekt en moet je die reinigen met "atomic pulls". Zoek hier ergens op de Ultimaker-site. Of kijk even naar mijn soortgelijke maar veel zachtere methode hier (en dan een beetje omlaag scrollen): https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/personeel/geert-keteleer/manuals/ Als de verbrande dingen eruit zien als lichtbruine smurrie, in een blob op de print, dan komt dat waarschijnlijk van de buitenkant van de nozzle: soms blijft daar materiaal tegenaan kleven, en na een tijdje gaat dat verbranden en zakt het af, tot het op de print valt. Die blob wordt dan door de nozzle een beetje uitgesmeerd bij volgende passages. Vooral bij kleverige materialen zoals PET gebeurt dit gemakkelijker. In mijn UM2 (non-plus) heb ik dit verminderd door de nozzle te behandelen met teflon-olie en siliconen-olie. De nozzle opwarmen tot 200°C (zonder filament erin!), en dan een beetje van die olie op een stukje zeemvel spuiten, en dat zeemvel tegen de nozzle drukken. Zodat de olie en teflon tegen die nozzle gebakken worden. Dit elimineert het probleem niet, maar het wordt wel minder. Dit zijn geen officiële methodes, ik ben geen Ultimaker-personeelslid, maar voor mij werken ze wel.

Or maybe try the opposite, reduce the current to let's say 900mA? Then the problem should get way worse if friction is the cause. But I think this would give less risk of damaging the electronics? But anyway, if it is friction, you should be able to feel it by hand, by moving around the head manually with the printer off. Further, if I remember well, there was an old UM2-series that had wrong resistors, causing a too high current, which in turn caused the drivers to get too hot, and temporarily shutting the chip down? I had this effect a couple of times on the Z-axis of one of my UM2: the driver would shut down, the bed would drop about 5mm, but it would keep printing. After the Z-chip cooling down the bed would continue moving down normally as if nothing had happened. Except for the 5mm-gap in the print, of course. After reducing the current to 900mA this never occured again. I am still not totally sure this was the cause, and if reducing the current did solve it, or if there was something else going on in parallel.

I don't have dual-nozzle printers, so I can't help with your question. However, another thing: if you want the vase to be water-tight, be sure to print it slow and in very thin layers. In thick layers of 0.3mm this filter housing had lots of tiny holes, through which the water jetted out. In 0.06mm layers, it was perfectly water-tight. I printed this in a single material (PLA); but dual materials is even more difficult to get watertight.

Thanks. Yes, this already gives a good understanding of the orientation.

Thanks, this is a good idea. My current activator is not a spray, but a pen with felt tip, like a fluo marker pen. But I could probably apply it to the outer edge only, where glue would ooze out indeed, to get the same effect. I will try next time.

Thanks, that answers my questions indeed.

Long ago I made a font for my 3D-texts. But this was in DesignSpark Mechanical's RSDOC-format only, as I didn't know how to make a real font-file. Recently a guy by the name Jason Chall has turned part of this character set into *real font-files*. Thanks! See here on Github or Thingiverse: - https://github.com/pbz/geert-font - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4160261/files My originals in DesignSpark Mechanical format "RSDOC" are still here (sroll down a bit): - https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/personeel/geert-keteleer/manuals/ I have looked at his version of the font in Windows' font viewer, and the characters seem very close to the original. But I haven't tried it in a 3D-editor yet, so I can't comment on stability, character spacing, or bugfree-ness. Feel free to use this font. It can be helpfull if you use another 3D-editor than DesignSpark Mechanical. You may also modify it, as long as you keep it free when reposting it (Creative Commens - Attribution - Share-Alike License; CC BY-SA). Originally I designed it on a 0.25mm grid, fontsize 3.5mm caps height, and 0.5mm wide legs, thus well suited for a standard 0.4mm nozzle. Don't go too much smaller than 3.5mm, because then the slicer might drop legs that become thinner than 0.4mm. Unless you use a smaller nozzle. This pic shows the original set (not all characters and images are converted into the font-file): Printed as watermark text (=hollow) in transparent PET: Screendump showing the real font TTF-font file in Windows font viewer: PS: in older versions of DesignSpark Mechanical there is no real text function. But you can insert text by abusing the Dimensioning tool. Place dimensioning arrows and text on a model, and then edit that text: delete the measurement numbers (e.g.: "<-- 5.23 mm -->") and replace them by your own text (e.g.: "Copyright Geert"). This text is now still floating text in a black font. It is not yet 3D. Now select that text, move it to the desired place, and *project it down onto a model surface*, using the "Projection" tool. This projecting creates editable outlines onto that model. Now you can select and raise or lower these outlines into real 3D text. This method was originally developed by a user named "Jacant" on the DesignSpark Mechanical forum.

Could it be that you selected the wrong printer in Cura, or whatever slicer you used? Or its bed dimensions in Cura got corrupted? Or else: defective SD-card, corrupt gcode files, hairs or dust in the SD-slot causing bad contacts (try blowing it out with compressed air)? Or something else along this line...?

Yes, I would welcome videos on your techniques. Thanks.

You would need to sit next to the printer and keep watching. My guess is that the bed is not perfectly clean, and/or the glue (if you use glue for bonding) is not spread equally. So the printed sausage does not stick perfectly. In such cases, I have seen these printed lines lifting a little bit on the outer edge. And then, on the next pass of the nozzle in the opposite direction, they would be melted again and be pushed against the bed again. If the bed-adhesion is not identical everywhere, this could cause similar irregular patterns. Filament with silver or glossy particles makes this much more visible, since the orientation of the filler particles changes, and thus their reflection. Mostly the fillers are flakes, little mirrors. Printing thinner first layer lines might help. But then your bed leveling and bed flatness need to be very good. You can see this effect to some degree in these photos too:

Wow, print quality and smoothness is impressive, especially the teeth. Did you use supports for the fins? I was trying to see in which orientation you printed it, but I can't see the layer lines. :-) The color, is that colorFabb's translucent orange?

Is this also present Cura's layer view? If yes, it is most likely a Cura software-issue. If no, it is most likely a printer hardware-issue (which I think it is): or the motor is missing steps due to too much friction, or some pulley is sliding over its shaft instead of gripping it, as gr5 said. The "too much friction" can be identified by moving the head with your hands: this should go smoothly and evenly in both directions. If you almost can't move it by hand in one direction, then the motors can't either. I had this once when a new oil I used for lubricating the rods, dried into a sticky, thick gum in a couple of days. For a pulley sliding over its drive shaft: also check the ones on the stepper motor: they see twice as much load as the others. Further, I have no idea how likely a dying stepper motor or printed circuit board are?

Hoi Sander, a question: what are the "cover photo" and "member title" fields in our profile? Is that the profile photo or avatar on each post? Or where do these show up if we add them?

I haven't printed with nylon yet, thus no personal experience. So I can't say if the improved flexibility and toughness of nylon would outweight the disadvantages of poorer bed-adhesion, warping, and layer-bonding? This might greatly depend on the model and application. You will have to try. If it was for myself, I think I would start with PET and see if that works well enough. Or I might even start with PLA to get the model and fit right, and then switch to PET for the "production version" that has to survive.

For snap-fit locking mechanisms, or for carabiner hooks, I use PET. This is flexible enough to survive multiple slight bendings, and it does not easily deform permanently. PET is less susceptible to creep deformation due to permanent loads than PLA, although just like any plastics, there is creep. PET is still relatively easy to print. PLA is not suitable: at first it may survive such snap-fits. But after a while it gets harder and more brittle, and then it will start to crack, or it might just break. And it has too much permanent creep deformation under load. If you would like to use PLA because of the ease of printing, an option would be to make the fixture into a rock-solid model that does not have to flex at all. And then provide the locking by a thumbwheel screw. See the pictures below for the concept. Carabiner hooks: cream ones are PLA, green is PET. PLA deforms and cracks after some time. Easy locking mechanisms with M4-size nuts and thumbwheel nylon screws. The nut is clamped by the cage where it is sitting in, so no tools are required to keep the nut in place when rotating the thumbwheel. If the cage is a tight fit, the nut won't fall out, even not if the screw is totally removed. These are standard M4 nylon screws, cheap and easily available. Variation on the same concept, to clamp the slider.

I always do remove the old end, yes. And then I use those remains for atomic pulls to clean the nozzle, so they are not wasted. But I use a more gentle atomic pull method than the official, without brutal pulling. See the manual here: https://www.uantwerpen.be/nl/personeel/geert-keteleer/manuals/ I have tried welding new and old filaments together. Technically this works, but it is so much hassle that it is not worth the effort for me. Unless you would have a long and complex print that you don't want to restart, or you would waste way too much material. But I don't have these issues: my prints usually take ca. 2...3 hours, and 2...3 meters of filament. Maybe you could push the new filament behind the old one? But then, first you would have to cut off the deformed end of the old one. And then stay with the printer while pushing on the new filament: this may be a little hard to insert. But during the transition time when there is old and new filament in the tube, retractions won't work.

Thanks for your answer. I was not thinking of the voltage drop in the measuring wires (you are right, that will not be a problem indeed), but if the drop would be in the controller board, or already before that in the power supply? Then you could find out if it is the supply that is at fault (eg. too weak), or just the thin copper traces in the board itself? If it were too thin copper traces, maybe they could have been bridged by soldering a thick wire over it. That was why I asked. I am still an old-school guy with the desire to make all wiring armoured, and able to survive a lightning strike, or an airplane crash, without too much damage. So I find these modern thin and fragile copper traces on printed circuit boards kind of scary. :-)

I use cyanoacrylate glue for PLA, just the standard one. Usually after sanding or roughening the surface with a file. This works well. I also tried using an activator but that makes the glue cure too fast for good alignment. Thin glue tends to soak itself into tiny openings, so that helps covering the whole bonding area.

Some filaments of silver, gold, pearl,... have glitter flakes in them to create that shiny effect. I think it is the orientation of the flakes, and thus differences in reflection, that cause this problem. You see this too in injection moulded shampoo bottles with such particles. Maybe the new "silk" filament colors could be an alternative? They also have a sort of metalic look. I haven't tried them, nor seen them in real life, but at least on photo they look great. Search for: "shiny silk 3d printing filament", or similar, and they view images.

A question: where exactly did you measure this voltage drop? Was that directly on the connectors coming from the supply? Or further down in the circuit board? In the latter case, too thin wires on the board, or too excessive resistance in for example fuses or protection circuits on the board (if any?) could also contribute to the voltage drop. While in the first case, obviously, it is the power supply and/or its wiring itself that is causing the trouble. Since it seems that the bed-heater draws too much current, do you think people could solve this by keeping all current circuitry and sensors intact, but just connecting the bed-heater wiring to a relay (mechanical or solid-state), and add a separate power supply for the bed connected to that relay? So that the main current now goes via the relay and separate supply, but the rest of the controls are intact? Maybe this could be a solution for people who are less skilled in electronics than you are? See this quick and primitive scheme: