skewcrap

Hi Community I have an Ultimaker Original and I have been using it for 3 years now. The printer can produce very nice prints in PLA, but the printhead (especially the hotend) are a pain. Maintenance is very intense and time consuming. I already changed all belts in the past, and of course I switched to the heated bed. Now, I'm looking for an option to completely change the printhead. The teflon coupler is almost $20 and has to be changed just too often, even though I only print PLA. What options do I have to change the printhead? Basically I just want to reduce maintenance. If it's possible to print even ABS after the upgrade, its welcome, but it's not mandatory. For example, E3d V6 hotend: Has anyone made the switch from the original printhead to this one? What are advantages / disadvantages? What modifications have to be done? Are there any other options out there? Beside this intended upgrade, I also consider buying another printer due to two reasons: -dual printhead; I would like to be able to print water soluble support material as this would remove many constraints I often had print volume; the UMO print volume is often limiting, and I would like to increase it. Raise3D seems an option to me. Buying another printer is another topic, and I would first like to upgrade my UMO. Any advice would be appreciated.

With PLA there should be no need to use hair spray to increase bed adhesion. If bed levelling is fine and the amount of extrusion as well, adhesion should be fine. If I have trouble, I wash the glass plate with water and soap and then it's fine.

Hi I print a self made cover of a cable duct with PLA with my UMO. Printing basically works fine, but there is one feature I would like to optimize. I think the problem is that the slicing of cura is not ideal for the geometry. See the feature marked in yellow in the attached image. First, I printed without the inner whole in the corner. Since I had overextrusion in that part, i made the whole because i thaught that printing without infill would be possible. But now, the print quality in the corner suffers. Are there advanced settigns in cura to change the way this feature is printed? Do I have to try another slicer? Maybe the feature of veriable extrusion offered by simply3D could help? Thanks for any advice.

Lubicration of the filament did the trick! Thanks for this hint. It's printing just fine now!

Retraction is off, infill speed is the same as the walls. When I try the oil, isn't it bad when I print PLA again? Maybe silicon spray would be a better option?

Ok, i will give it a try with an even higher temp and layer height 0.2mm. When I tried printing ninjaflex the first time 2 years a go, I just wanted to try. The results were pretty good, which of course increased the expectations. What I just don't understand is that the walls basically don't suffer from underextrusion but primarily the infill. So, how do you print flex material reliable?

Hi I'm struggling printing Ninjaflex with my Ultimaker Original. I tried printing with the following settings: Nozzle: 0.4mm (3dsolex) Print speed: I tried 10 - 30 mm/s Temp: I tried 230-250°C Bed: 50 °C Layer height: I tried 0.15 and 0.1mm I tried with different values for flow and filament diameter, seems to have no impact at all. I often have underextrusion, especially in the infill. At the moment I try printing a cylinder with D=20mm, H=20mm, so basically a really easy geometry. I print with 100% infill, but it ends being rather 40% because of underextrusion. The walls seem quite ok, but the infill is crap. I have a bondtech extruder and normally I don't have any issues with extrusion. I already changed all wear parts of the print head including the nozzle and the teflon part. Could it be bad material? The ninjaflex is approximately 2 years old. Do I have to try a larger nozzle? I don't know what else might be the issue. Any help would be highly appreciated. Regards

Update: After >100h printing time, situation improved a lot. Basically I did not change anything, but the print head moves easy now.

They are. I mean, the position of the belts is basically determined by the XY blocks. You have to position the pulleys the way, that the two pulleys and the xy block are in one line right? I don't have a toold, I aligned everything by eye.

no, I'm not using belt tensioners at all...

I have GT2 Belts, 303 teeth, 606mm long, 6mm wide, closed-loop. Those belts should be fine?

@ jhertzberg I don't quite understand what you said, the length of the belts should be ok, I'm not the first one who tried the ones from robotdigg.com. The old probably were in use several 1000 hours, so I would assume it is normal that the new ones are a bit tighter than the old ones? @ neotko I will check that. But I can hardly imagine that this is the single reason having to apply that much force to move the print head.

Thanks, sounds great, I will try immediately. I mostly print PLA and sometimes PET, I always use 30 brim lines, but often it is still not enough and corners are lifting. It's always disappointing if the print is affected like this.

Hi everyone I have an Ultimaker Original and 2 days ago I performed the upgrade from XML to GT2 which means: - I changed from the original XY Blocks to Lars ones (https://www.youmagine.com/designs/lars-ultralight-ultimaker-xy-blocks). This includes also new 12mm bushings from robotdigg.com - I changed all belts and pulleys from XML to GT2 (ordered as well from robotdigg.com). Basically, everything worked out in terms of assembling it. I changed the step values in the Ulticontroller, and it prints. - Pullyes are no longer wobbling. - The belts are no longer loose, but tight. But I'm quite worried, because: - Print quality did not improve, at least I could not find any improvements in the parts I printed so far. - The print head is quite unmovable by hand. There is a huge force required to move it by hand. I have to hold the printer with one hand, otherwise I move the printer and not the print head when applying force to the print head. I did the axis alignment with the axis suqare tool (https://www.youmagine.com/designs/ultimaker-xy-axis-square), the axis are well aligned. When I loosen the screw which holds the XY bushing, the situation is improved, same for the two screws which hold the 6mm rod. If I move one XY block instead of the print head, less force is required, but it's still way to much. Do you have any reccomendations? I mean, I have to thighten the screws right? Mechanically, the reason for the problem is quite simple. But I just don't know how to practically improve the situation? At long sight, it is not a good idea to have a print head which can't be moved by hand? Thanks for your help.

@ gr5 I know that bed levelling is very important. I have done it as good as possible. Sometimes there are some spots, where the filament is actually squished to much, but I have just 3 screws to adjust it. If the glass plate itself is uneven, I can't correct it. The problems I encountered did certainly not come from a bed levelling issue. The filament just did not stick at all. Well, I have to admit that this particular filament is quite cheap, but after I bought the first roll, I made some tests which were fine. From my experience so far I conclude, that there must be quite big differences for the very same PLA (which means with the same colour). So how do you evaluate which type of PLA to buy? Well, you might get some tendencies, but finally you have to make your own tests.