rachael7
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3D Prints
Posts posted by rachael7
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On 11/9/2022 at 2:36 AM, Hiabst said:
Edit: just found out that all my tags have the same serial Number(UID). But the original Tag from a Ultimaker spool should still work after i changed the GUID right ?
I assume that is the command line response, on which I can offer no advice since I use the GUI version of spoolmaker. But I can tell you that in addition to setting the GUID for the material, you also need to reset the weight and print time fields or the roll will read as empty.
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The new materials can be imported into the machine through the USB stick. Go into Cura, into the materials area of the settings menu, and find the “sync materials” button (I may have the name a little off, I’m working from memory). It will try to do it over the network and find no printers, but on that screen is an option to sync over USB. I haven’t used it, but I believe the procedure is Cura will write the materials file to the USB stick, you put that into the printer, then find the import materials from USB option in the printer menus. I may have the button names off a bit, but that’s the basic procedure, through the USB. You can’t import materials into the printer using the NFC tag, that’s only an identifier for the spool in hand.
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2 minutes ago, GoguyT3d said:
I hope that an app shows up to make this easier for people like me.
Further up-thread somewhere, there is a link to the SpoolMaker project on GitHub, which is just the easy-to-use app you’re looking for. There’s also info on what tags work. If you read most of the thread, you’ll get the info you need to make your own tags, it’s not hard.
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1 hour ago, GoguyT3d said:
I was originally searching for a topic related to extending the nfc reader to another location (my rubbermaid drybox) but I fell in here, I dont have a material station but I use just as many 3rd party filament as NFC ultimaker filaments. If the printer is what's holding all of the "remaining filament" data then why not add the option in firmware to manually enter filament length/weight so the printer can subtract it from the value you put in? All you would need to know is the filament density and weight and you could get length
The remaining filament weight is actually stored on the spool tag itself. It's in memory register 2F, to be specific. The tag also stores original weight (register 2E) and printing time in seconds (first three bytes of register 31).
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2 minutes ago, jirodriguez72 said:
Sure, this is the stuff we used URBEST Pipe Insulation Tubing 1/4" x 3/8"
Awesome, thanks again!
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2 hours ago, jirodriguez72 said:
So we purchased some round foam insulation and cut a length that covers the section of bowden tube that is inside of the print chamber. Ever since then we have not had break issues during the print!
This is fabulous information, thank you! I take it no problems with the insulation impeding movement of the head? Could you share a link to the insulation you used? I've never seen any that small and wouldn't even know where to start looking. Thanks!
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Recent firmware upgrades appear to have changed the air manager behavior. It will now report out the chamber temperature through the REST API and while I don't have any official confirmation, it appears they may have finally implemented closed loop chamber temperature control. 45C is about the highest chamber temperature I've been able to reliably maintain, without changing the hardware. With a supplemental heater, I've gone as high as 60C, but even at that point, things get challenging for the motors and the hotend fan (the one that cools the heat breaks). Heat creep became a very real problem at that temp and I was not able to get very good results. I've done better using 50C chamber temp settings (which again, produces more like 45C) and a draft shield to keep the heat around the model. I stopped using the UM PC though, since I couldn't get it to work with soluble support of any kind and the supplied profile was not very good anyway. I've had great luck with Polymax PC, along with AquaSys120 soluble support when needed.
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34 minutes ago, GregValiant said:
There was a poster here who prints custom ABS body parts for motorcycles. One of the issues he encountered was too much heat within the chamber as the part got taller.
Interesting. I've definitely gotten too hot a couple times, but mostly only when I was down near the very hot build plate. And it was easily remedied on the S5, since its passive chamber heating is not really meant to do much. I've actually gone the other way at times, starting with a slightly cooler bed to prevent the part turning into a puddle of mush, then heating up to get more chamber heat, once the print has progressed a safe distance from the build plate.
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1 minute ago, GregValiant said:
You are putting a lot of heat into it as well. Your layer cooling blower should be moving some of the hot air out of the center of the part but it's still a chimney that will keep the bed heat in and might effect the inside structure.
Now THAT is a very good point. I'm not using part cooling fans at all - ABS and polycarbonate both need the fans off, or very close to, in order to get decent layer adhesion. Both print on a very hot bed as well, so the chimney effect could be quite pronounced. Thanks for the insight!
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Thanks again. Yes, concentric infill is near useless... unless you are also using 100% infill, in which case it becomes more like additional walls and becomes the strongest pattern, in my experience. For most parts, a less than 100% infill is fine, but I'm really trying to squeeze every last bit of strength out of these parts, so I'm printing them solid. That does make flow rates much more critical though, so I'll have to have another look at that.
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1 minute ago, GregValiant said:
In regards to the "different quality exterior than interior" I don't see that on my prints. What I do see when the printer is working on islands is that the travel moves can leave marks on the interior as the nozzle moves from one island to the next. Sometimes there are the Cotton Candy type of strings stuck to the inside walls. Changing the combing doesn't help because there must be a crossing of the gap someplace.
Thanks for the feedback. I've seen the kind of issues you describe on certain filaments as well. I think that's pretty standard. This is something different. Walls that should be dead vertical with only fine hairs or little pimples come out wavy, with some layers sticking out further than others. It typically reduces the interior dimensions of the hole by about the amount of difference between the peaks and troughs, so it suggests it varies between correct and sticking out, rather than correct and sunken in. I'm beginning to think this may be due to the fact that I'm running 100% infill and if there is any error in flow rate, that excess material has nowhere to go except to bulge the walls. Do you do much printing at 100% infill?
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2 hours ago, Cuq said:
There are always some discussions about Infill density versus print time and part strength. Not sure that 100% give the best result, Layer Height , and Wall Number are also important. And one point I think : Linear Infill is any way a better choice for stress distribution and adhesion between layers.
100% infill nearly always yields the strongest result. It may not be the most efficient or cost-effective, but with rare exceptions, it is the strongest. More material equals more strength, just that simple. It is diminishing returns as you near 100%, but the work I’m doing is on parts that require strength which can barely be met by FDM, so I need every bit I can get.
As far as layer height, my results agree with the video and I almost always print at 0.10mm-0.20mm. Minimum cooling, maximum acceptable extrusion temp, and hot chamber all also improve strength with the materials I’m using and I push those as far as I can as well.
I disagree about the infill pattern though. You stated it correctly for low infill percentages - linear is indeed quite strong for infill percentages well under 100% and concentric quite weak in those cases. Grid is slightly better than lines, but both are good. As you near 100% infill though, the analysis changes and concentric just becomes more walls. So using concentric infill basically maximizes the number of walls for the geometry.
One variable I haven’t experimented much with yet is strength versus line width, for a given layer height. CNC Kitchen probably tested that too. Someone must have, so I’ll search that up next. It becomes more critical as we consider these new line width parameters!
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Good eye! Yes, I believe it is necessary in this case. This particular example is a highly stressed functional part, subject to both steady and impulse forces, so it needs a lot of strength. I've oriented the layers and infill to maximize strength in the most highly loaded directions. It is actually 100% infill though, I'm not sure why Cura renders it with gaps between the lines; I know Cura renders it that way when the flow rate is less than 100%, but I don't recall if that was the case in this particular profile or not. You do bring up a good point though, that I am running 100% infill, which is somewhat less common. Perhaps my infill flow rate is a touch high and areas with more infill, the excess material builds up and bulges out a wall. The bulge would end up on whichever side was printed last, I would think, since the material would more easily push to the warmer side. Interesting. Thanks for the feedback!
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I've had a recurring issue, that while fairly minor, is starting to affect the usability of a lot of my prints, and I'm stumped. I'm really hoping others will have some insight. Thanks in advance for any help. I am using Cura 5.1, with a variety of printers, but mainly an Ultimaker S5.
What I'm seeing is on roughly tubular shapes, printed vertically or close to, that the inside and outside of the tube have very different surface finish qualities. Most of the time, it is the outside of the tube that gets the better finish - very high quality, in general - while the inside of the tube has really pronounced layer lines and substantial variability in dimension. In other words, on the inside of the tube, the walls just are not stacked very well, leading to a rough surface that can also be wavy, while the outside surface comes out smooth and uniform. I have had a few parts where the nice side and rough side are reversed, but I rarely get parts with both sides equally good. It seems to mostly manifest as excess material on the inside of the part, which I have been able to clean up in post-processing most of the time. But I shouldn't have to do that, and on some shapes, that post-processing can be difficult and time-consuming.
To clarify, the parts in question are just vaguely tubular, in that they are a closed profile with a distinct inside and outside; they needn't be fully round or rectangular. I'm seeing this effect on parts in the 25mm-100mm size range, so nothing tiny or large, just basic mid-size parts, with reasonably robust walls (on the order 3-5mm). The roughness often seems to correspond to the presence of other features, such as holes or bosses, even if those features are only on one side. So on a vertical tube with a horizontal hole in it for example, there might be a band of layers at the height of the hole where the rough side is noticeably proud or below the rest of the surface.
I'm fairly sure it is a Cura issue, as it seems to occur with any printer for which I use Cura to slice, as well as with different materials. My main printer is an Ultimaker S5, so I can also rule out compatibility issues, and I use the Cura profiles for the machine, which while not always perfect, are generally quite good; so it's not like I'm out in left field with bad profiles or anything. The inside and outside of tubes both get "outside walls", from Cura's perspective (note red lines on attached screenshot), so I do not see any obvious profile-related reason for one side of the tube to come out different than the other. I have only two ideas about the mechanism of action involved: One possibility is that it depends on whether Cura starts the layer with the inside or outside of the tube. If there was a slight excess of material due to the flow settings, perhaps that extra material is getting pushed to one side or the other and causing the variability. The "Wall Order" setting should make it go the same way on each layer though, so that likely isn't the cause. The other thought I had was that it could be related to the variable line width - perhaps the wall position or "squish" of the wall extrusion varies a bit with width. That latter possibility really doesn't explain the difference between the inside and outside of the tube, but it could explain the change at layers where there is another feature (the other feature could change the line width calculations).
Any thoughts? Has anyone else observed this phenomenon? Has anyone seen it and managed to overcome it? If anyone is inclined to try printing to verify my results, I've attached a sample file which has shown the issue for me in both ABS and Polycarbonate. Thanks!
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On 9/3/2022 at 9:50 AM, Smithy said:
But, this workflow has some disadvantages when you are using a material station and that's why @rachael7 recommended the way to use your own nfc tags which should work better with a material station.
This really is the bottom line. There's honestly no point trying to spoof a material in software, with all the inherent risks and effort, when it is dead easy to just make your own RFID spool tags or respool your filament onto empty UM spools and reprogram the existing tag. Using SpoolMaker to effect this method, you have complete control and can make non-UM materials behave just like UM materials, as far as the Material Station is concerned. I use it extensively, since I make heavy use of non-UM materials, and there is absolutely no difference in the workflow, regardless of the filament manufacturer. It also only takes moments to program/reprogram an RFID tag, so it is convenient as well as reliable. The single drawback I have noticed, after using this method for close to a year, is that if you use your own RFID tags, they will only read when the tag is within the antenna of the material station (the little divider between material spools, at the bottom of the Material Station). So you have to rotate your spools to get the tag in the right position to get them to read. That is not a problem with reprogrammed UM spools, of course, and it is barely even an inconvenience with new tags.
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Try looking up SpoolMaker on GitHub. You can make your own RFID tags, change the contents of existing tags, etc. Should do everything you want.
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1 hour ago, Smithy said:
Thanks for investigation!
Do you think it would be helpful when I change the clearbed command to automatically send it twice?
I would say no. There is the case where one can use clearbed to skip the cooldown, but want to say yes to the retry question. It’s not hard to send the command twice manually.
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10 hours ago, dxp said:
When using clearbed, the printer sends happily an "available again" message. But i have to clear the message "Retry Yes/No" on the printer. At least after a manual print abort. Any ideas?
Have you tried sending the clearbed command twice in a row? I can't remember if it was this issue, but I know there was one situation where that worked for me, so I kinda just made it standard procedure.
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That’s for damn sure. Strangest directory structure I’ve ever seen, honestly.
Thanks for the tip. I wasn’t planning to store in the program directory though, only going there to copy some of the files to my user directory to use as base files for a new material.
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EDIT: Solved. Found them in Program Files/Ultimaker Cura 5.0.0/share/cura/resources/
Does anyone know where the default profiles are stored in version 5.0? They used to be under Program Files/Ultimaker Cura x.xx/resources/, but the directory structure is totally different under 5.0 and I could not find the default profiles anywhere. I was looking for them in order to copy quality profiles to the user directory for a new material I was creating, but just couldn't find them anywhere. Thanks for any assistance.
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10 hours ago, TimonR said:
@glx Best to reach out to the material supplier themselves with those requests, they make the profiles for their materials on Ultimaker printers. Maybe also specify which printer, printcore and layer height.
See here for contact information: https://marketplace.ultimaker.com/app/cura/materials/InfiniteMaterialSolutions/AquaSys120Hope this helps!
I second this advice. I don't know if they'll have the answer or not, but when I finally got through to the right person, Sam Dickenson, she was very helpful and willing to discuss things with me. She seems to do most of the profile work there, they do test on UM machines, and she knows her stuff. You might start by asking for her.
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1 minute ago, ahoeben said:
AFAIK, the marlin fork in the S5 has supports a very old implementation of G2/G3 arcs. You are going to have to try to see if the results are beneficial.
Thank you very much!
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2 minutes ago, ahoeben said:
Cura comes with properly optimised and thoroughly tested profiles for the S-series of printers, ...
That's the idea, anyway. In my experience, only a few of the most popular filaments are well-optimized and most of the profiles leave a lot to be desired. In any case, I'm working with other filaments and developing my own profiles, so that isn't a factor for me.
Setting the profile aside, smoother curves has a positive effect on speed, surface finish, and dimensional accuracy, and that's the case even if the profile is perfect, so it's well worth pursuing if the firmware supports G2/G3 commands.
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On 3/15/2021 at 5:25 AM, ahoeben said:
A word of warning: Not all printers (or actually firmware versions) support G2/G3 commands.
Do you know which printers/firmwares do work? Or where/how I could find that information? I'm running an S5 with the latest firmware (7.03 maybe?). Thanks!
Read/Write NFC Tags
in UltiMaker 3D printers
Posted
There is the full weight, which lives in data register 2E, the remaining weight, which lives in register 2F, and the elapsed printing time in seconds (it's shown in hours in the GUI, but stored in seconds), which uses the first three bytes of register 31.
If you used the GUI to make the tag, and after writing, it is showing the same weight for total, remaining, and "new", along with 0.0 for the printing time, you should be correctly set up as a fresh roll. The GUI doesn't let you change the remaining weight or the printing time, only the "new" weight number, so if you want to make it a partial roll, you can make the tag with SpoolMaker, then manually edit the data registers using nfctoolsgui or something similar.
Here's what mine looks like after making a tag for one of my materials: