LesHall

Gotcha Sander, I will experiment with temperature and measure the filament's actual diameter to make sure the extrusion is ok, plus double check the Bowden tube. The cracks happened when I used my putty knife to lift the print off of the bed, not waiting for the glass bed to cool. Actually I think the infill of 20% is the culprit here. It is a thin-walled shape but with 20% infill it becomes two outer walls of 0.6mm and an inner space that is mostly void. To fix that I have bumped up the infill to 100%, though I wonder if bumping up the wall thickness would be better? either way, there will be more than twice the thickness of wall so the cracks will not occur so much when i remove the part from the bed.

I'm gonna sit this one out, looking forward to seeing the awesome work that y'all do though! Les Make history!

Here are top and bottom views of the first print after all the fixing. Kind of stringy, eh

Thank You All for your kind and patient responses! I have slept (twice!) and had a moment of reflection. Thinking out loud I truly was negligent in not reaching out to the community for support. It's kind of like a slippery slope. You want to fix it right away, then one goofup leads to another thingamafuzzle and next thing you know you have learned something the hard way instead of relying on the true experts. Ah well. In the photo posted, notice how the black netting wraps to the left, down, and tucks in the bottom? Well when I looked at my printer just after the clog, it was covering the upper left screw, and the bottom of it must have pinched off the flow of filament. I have gremlins around here, people who should know better than to play practical jokes on me, and that is always a possibility but really it probably just came loose during shipping and was an accident waiting to happen. The fact that there is no fastener there is in my mind a design flaw. Do you see what happened now? I will check that the Bowded tube is perfectly flat and recut with scissors if it is not. Also I will take the extruder apart and reassemble it so that the tension adjuster works again. Today I finish repairing this thing! Also will check linked references before continuing. Thanks again, I just gotta learn to lean on my community better!!! Les

Actually now that I got that off my chest, I feel better. Maybe I'll keep the Ultimaker 2+ after all, maybe I have no choice, not sure of return policy for a printer I've so modified. It really is a thing of art and beauty, delicate, fast, nimble in executing it's precise and controlled extrusion. I feel better now... Next to see how to fix that extruder and then test it. Les Make history!

Yesterday morning I received my Ultimaker 2+ brand spanking new out of the box. My friend Ryan Beltran, founder of elequa, helped with the unpacking and it felt like Christmas morning. The printer gently crafted the test robot print with finesse, delicate and precise were it's movements, and I was one happy camper. Fast forward to the second print, a two hour job that would have produced a water purification device of my own design. While on a Skype call and watching the printer run I noticed something was wrong. I paused the printer, then started it again and the problem continued. My Skype friend, a new business partner (possibly), noticed I was preoccupied and scheduled a routine of calls in the future. Fast forward to now. Its nearly 3 AM the next day and I'm just so very disappointed with how very badly this printer just literally destroyed itself all because of a simple extruder clog. It seems that the webbing around the wires that goes to the print head, well it had gotten tangled with the filament and the printer's Hobbed Bolt (or equivalent drive mechanism) dug into the filament, making it ever so slightly wider than it originally was, such that it got stuck in the Bowden tube. The filament then proceeded to travel up the length of the tube to nearly fully at the end but stopped at about three quarters of the way there. That's when it built up enough friction to clog the Bowden tube. Not realizing the source of the problem, and unable to pull or push the filament, I felt that there must be an extruder clog (though it was really a Bowden tube clog), so I looked through the sparse Troubleshooting Help and to my dismay found nothing about clogs in the feed path. Disappointed with no help on such an obvious problem, I proceeded to remove the backing plate of the extruder. Then for some reason I decided to put the plate back on and did so. The upper right screw would not tighten all the way. Next I removed the whole extruder and watched the "captive" nut for the upper right screw fall out. No problem, I just put it back into place on the extruder. Next I dealt with the clog which of course was extremely difficult. I ended up using the end of the Bowden tube to pry out the filament just a smidgen of length at a time (prying with my flush cutters), and in the process decided to open up the other end of the tube to push on the rope with some loose filament that I cut from the spool for this purpose. Between the pushing and the prying I managed to clear the tube. That's when I saw the clog was due to the Hobbed bolt or gear had dug into the filament. What cause that? Oh yes, as I mentioned before it was the cable netting getting caught in the filament feed. So next I had to disassemble the hot end to find the little blue clip that had fallen into it, then I reassembled the hot end. Next I went to go put the extruder back on and I noticed the adjustor with the five little marks on it, that is supposed to be left in the middle, was at the top position. No amount of torquing the adjustment screw would fix it, so I presume that my blunder of taking the backing plate off of the extruder to get a look at it must have let loose a key little piece of that assembly. Next I plan to disassemble the extruder and put it back together to fix that adjustment device, and also in the process of prying out the filament the Bowden tube got ugly, so I cut off 1/4" (6mm) or so from the end so that it is nice and clean looking now. I will reassemble, check for proper operation of all pieces, level the bed, and then I have a decision to make. Do I want to keep such a maintenance nightmare or send it back in exchange for a Lulzbot Taz 5 if I can, or just give up any notion of having a printer at all. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was to do this on my own without any help from a search of the forum or the documentation, for a simple Bowden tube clog. I think now I see the wisdom of the direct drive approach, you don't have that damn tube clogging up on you. This, coming from a guy with 2.5 years experience in 3D printing, is really quite disappointing. My new printer, the object of joy, is no longer new. I just cannot keep riding the emotional roller coaster of printer repair. I want to use the funds to pay Shapeways and 3D Hubs to make my prints at this point. So upsetting! I'm very disillusioned at this point. Sigh. Les Make history!

Organic forms escape me too, though I was able to make pretty good wyrms using low poly spheres spaced along sinusoidal position paths. It you point the axis of the sphere in line with the direction of the path, then the low poly of the spheres makes them looks like segments with scales (somewhat, YMMV). Also you can use a for() loop or if you can figure out recursion, that is another way to go. I just a while ago learned how to do this in OpenSCAD using recursion and it makes you feel like a math wizard, even if you're not lol... Les p.s. but so far that's all i can do thought I did make some interesting things with the hull() feature. Hull and recursion? Worth a try!

Oh, and the 3D printing tie-in is that a 3D print will be needed to hold the electrodes in place just so! Les

Here is an interesting video that teaches some powerful lessons: This shows two things: first that more than one cell (0.6V each or so I recall?) can be connected in series within a single electrolyte, and second that enough current can be coaxed from a lemon to create a spark sufficient to make fire in tissue paper. The tie-in here to water purification has to do with some experiments that I'm doing in the context of elequa, which is a small startup non-profit that i am helping to get off the ground. I hope that I am within forum rules to mention the company, am I Sander? Anyway, elequa is getting it's start by applying electricity to water to accomplish electrocoagulation / impurity clumping of some sort and as a side project (bear with me, it's a bit complex this roadmap) I am planning to explore the Baghdad Battery. The long and short of this is that I believe that we can create water purifiers with dissimilar metals arranged properly and a solution of impure water plus fruit juice poured into a container with the electrodes in place. Is it practical and possible that the cell will provide it's own energy source so that external electricity is not necessary? if so, there are a lot of people who would like to learn how to do this type of thing in the third world! Les

Les - great idea ad nice and simple! It triggers a few thoughts - so I will think aloud when I get a chance! James good to hear James, although i know that |Robert| is correct in his practicality assessment, and I thank him for his assessment, the design does also serve to spark creativity and inventiveness in others. Hey, if i was trapped on Gilligan's Island with nothing but trash on the beach, I'd build these things and do whatever other McGyvering I could figure out to survive! Haha! At least in my imagination it's possible! Les p.s. looking forward to whatever you have to share.

Today was victorious! Haha, I got the software working for the new MQTT cloud at e-NABLE. This means that the beginnings of web based hand / server communications of small data chunks (i like my data chunky!) is now tested and working int he hand to server path. Next we need to do server to hand and hand to hand, but not before adding a 9DOF sensor and maybe even a camera. That's a lot of acronyms and I'm deep into the project ATM, just know that it works! It works! It works! And just in time for Friday! Les

James! I cannot thank you enough for this offer! Together we can save humanity from itself. Here is the link to the latest design, unprinted and unproven: new design And here is the link to the 2014 stuff with the video and the magazine article: old design with media links The new design is more of a mold for the aluminum foil, so that one 3D print makes many devices. Please contact me by email or here with any questions or comments: deltamodulator(at)gmail(dot)com. Supposedly and hopefully I'll get my new printer around the end of next week and I can catch up with you. Les

Yeah, the yield is an issue, so I expect that this may prove to be more of a teaching tool than a sustainable provider of clean water. Then once the concept of solar distillation is taught, people are then free to create all manner of more productive devices. Plus if you were stuck in the path of a hurricane's aftermath, you could survive on the low yield of a dozen or so bottles. It's very simple: we have to do something about the horrible conditions that the majority of humanity survives under. Here we sit in our air conditioned houses with our 3D printers and our diamonds and gold and devices and entertainment while every five seconds a child dies of poor conditions. Its sickening and I intend to do something about it. I also work for elequa but that's a whole other story. And I know that I'm preaching to the choir, that you are likely just as compassionate as I am. Let's team up and do something! Les

I'm not a researcher, just an enthusiast, and I am wondering if the small scale of this work can be used to make fluidic circuits. If so, a 3D printed calculalting machine could possibly be created, perhaps? Les

Sander, no problem about mixups, you are not a machine! Actually it's people like you that make a forum even lively or existing. You are key / core to it's very being so thanks for that! I don't have an idea what the yield per bottle will be but certainly you would need more than one bottle per person. I just had a look at techfortrade - wow amazing, exactly who i've been seeking. I sent them a message with a link to the Thingiverse listing. Hopefully this will help! Les

It was in the contest as an entry. Well, I can certainly understand the misunderstanding, as everyone seems to not "get it" right away. All it does is turn a soda or glass bottle into a little water distillation device, solar powered by the heat of the sun's rays. You see, if you take an ordinary soda bottle and put some water in the bottom of it, then put it out in the sun, and wait long enough you will notice evaporation occur which rises and collects on the upper part of the bottle as droplets, right? Well this gizmo uses that phenomenon, providing a way to collect the water droplets and thus harvesting cleaner water from the dirty water. A lot of work remains to be done to figure out exactly how well it does it's job. What is the yield? Does it kill bacteria? Does it filter bacteria? How does it affect all these other impurities that may exist? What about related technologies? So I gotta start somewhere. I went to Thingiverse but there is no forum (or wasn't hmm there is now isn't there?), I'm trying here next. Basically I want to introduce this simple technology to like-minded individuals who also want to help out. Maybe someone can point me to an existing forum on the topic also? Les

Yay \o/ congrats to the winner, an assistive device deserves first place for sure! And it's all in fun! Plus the prize goes to a good cause. Cheeers! Les

HI all, I'm into water these days, specifically water purification. I combine that with my goal to help minimize human suffering from a global perspective, and what percolates is simple water purifiers. I am writing to see if this topic takes root here, as 3D printing is one helpful part of the solution. I have come up with a gizmo that can be 3D printed and solves water purity problems for hopefully many people. I also work for free helping a small startup non-profit get off the ground. Well that's all for now, please feel free to ask questions and I'll answer accordingly! Les

Alright, this one is a doozie in that it requires some explanation so bear with me and put on yer ole reading glasses! Let's take a ride on the wayback machine and travel to San Antonio Texas in September 2014 when I had the spark of imagination to use a 3D printed ring to turn a 2 liter soda bottle into a water purifier (read how it works in the following link). Solar Water Purifier - original MK2, not the entry - just the background That is the idea, to turn trash into a life given supply of clean water. There was just one problem though - people who need clean water often don't have 3D printer lol! So just recently on April 6 or slightly earlier like April 5 or so, I made this design: Solar Water Purifier - the entry (unprinted) However I have no working printer to print it out (My brand spanking new Ultimaker 2+ will be here in a week yay \o/), So It's just an idea at the moment. So if the idea pans out, what it will be is a fixture onto which one wraps aluminum foil. After fitting and trimming, the foil is removed from the fixture and used to purify the water. Of additional coolness is the fact that you don't need a 3D printer to make the fixture. You can use any workable substance like wood or plastic or metal. Even in the aftermath of a natural disaster, you can Macgyver this thing and have clean water! Think about that for a sec. Thing A is that it reduces the design to a concept, not a physical object, in the sense that essentially (almost) any human being on Earth need not go without clean water! All you have to do is have a dirty water supply and the know how to make this thing, plus some time and some sunshine. So there you are, the hurricane or tornado has done it's damage and left you in its path. People around you are crying out for water. You step into action and, just like the Professor of Gilligan's Island (or MacGyver if you prefer), you save the day with the trash strewn around you. What? It could happen! hahahhah Well anyway, there is my contest entry. What do you think? Les

OK I added some crude weaponry! Les

Well we made a collaborative thing, that's one step forward. It's just us two so far though. Lets call it a small step forward. Lemme see if I can Import it into OpenSCAD... Les

Here's what you want: http://www.mosaicmanufacturing.com/ A recent sucessful kickstarter, they executed an effective and well documented (transparent) engineering process and are now shipping the first few prototypes. Get in like for under $1k. 1.75mm only at this time :( I have been following them for a while, somewhat. I think the idea rocks - 4 filaments sliced and diced into a single filament which goes into your existing printer! Crazy but apperently it works. Les p.s. I have no association with mosaic or this product at all, except that I want one!

So in 2014 I did this: Solar Water Purifier Mark 1 and the project went inactive for a while. Just recently I revived it with an improvement, here: Solar Water Purifier Mark 2 which is awesome because the Mark 2 does not even require a 3D printer at all... it can be reduced to just an idea of how it works. Let's say tragedy struck you and you were suddenly in the path of a hurricane. You survived, but there's no water anywhere and you are thirsty. There's trash strewn all over the place, though, and you're smart. You are aware of this device so you build a few of them and you survive the crisis. Knowledge is power! Shift to an impoverished family living in a small shack near a garbage dump. Your water supply is tainted with oil and chemicals and nasty critters. You need water so you drink it. Then you hear about this gadget that you can make out of wood or really any workable material plus 2 liter bottles. You put it together and your quality and duration of life for you and your loved ones just took a huge leap forward! Now I don't have the test data to back up my claims that this thing really works, so I need to do more testing, but the one test I did perform was successful. I'll be printing more parts when I get my Ultimaker in a week or so. I'm just writing about this simple yet potentially valuable little gem of technology to see how the Ultimaker community likes the idea. Maybe you will even improve upon it. It is my mission in life to reduce human suffering globally as much as I possibly can, and this is my latest effort. Enjoy! Les Make history!

Ah, I see you found that the item is marked with the collaboration feature of YouMagine, which is just perfect for this! Here is the link for anyone following who wishes to see Sander's work and possibly modify it: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/cycle-print-v2 I like the mod you made too btw! smile! Les

sure SandervG, I might write something like this to get the cycle story going: "It was a dark and stormy night. No, it was even more corny than that. It was so corny you needed butter to chew your way out. Pop went the weasel and the chaos began!" That's my silly opener. Then I pass the typewriter to my friend sitting next to me and they write: "The weasel; a slippery butter weasel it was, had a plan. In it's weasel mind, it spoke weasel to itself and planned to wiggle it's way to the eject button on the other side of the room. One more PoP! and the weasel was there pressing the button. Of course we all know what that meant!" And that friend passes the typewriter to the next friend in order of a circle. So that is a cycle story, full of silliness and fun. What I am suggesting is that we can do the same with 3d prints. I began by providing a base with a text label in OpenSCAD The next person can add a goofy face or a hand or a fire engine, etc. I'm not really sure if the Cycle print will pan out well but it seemed like a creative idea that the free-thinkers and artists of this realm could chew on and make it pop not like a weasel but more like bubblegum lol. If youget my drift.... Les