CCA1

From Technolazy "6. The cable of the feeder stepper motor that came with my UM2+ extrusion upgrade kit was just too short to route it properly to the main board. I cut the wires and soldered some extra 20 cm from another similar cable in between. Perhaps it would be nice to include an extension cable for the stepper in the mark 2 kit. (as a side note: could soldering the stepper cable and/or adding an extension cable cause electromagnetic issues? just wondering)" I have the same issue. Only I do not have any extra wire like this laying around, or know if this question has been answered in terms of affecting the performance if cutting and splicing happens? I payed for the upgrade kit and expansion board with all the wiring ready to go, only to find myself sitting here not able to go any further. Any ideas if I'm doing something wrong? I followed the instructions to a "T". The wire is many inches short for routing through the machine properly, and even if I try to run it DIRECTLY to the board from the motor, it still doesn't reach. Is this because it is the "Extended" plus and nobody thought to add anything for the extra height of the extended machines? That's the only thing I can think of. And if that's the case, where do I go from here? Do I need to go out and spend more money and buy more wire, cut, splice, solder, (which I do not do very well) ? If so, can I use any old speaker wire I have laying around? Does it need to be specific wire type, size? Thank you, Jason

GR5 - Thanks!!

"TheFox" Thank you for the response. I did email "mark2essentials (at) magnetic-tool-changer.com" but have not gotten a response as of yet. Looks like (from Dim3nsioneers post) I need to contact GR5 for the Americas? I will try that next. I will print out the BOM and see where that gets me in terms of pricing. (Which is all I need for right now, but seems to be so hard to get, except for the extrusion upgrade kit. $395)

OK, I made it through 4 of the 14 pages and just thought it would be SOOO much faster to just ask...... Where can you see the details, cost, shipping info, etc. for the Mark 2 Extension Board? I have been all over the "Mark 2" website with no mention of where or how to get it there. Nor is there a way to "contact us" or anything like that on that website. So I'm here, much like EricksonM and his post with the same question, which, in 4 pages, I still haven't seen an answer to. Is it just me, or is that particular information just that hard to find? I'm trying to find my "end cost" to justify this upgrade to my CFO. (wife) Update - I found that it looks like you actually have to email out a request for any of this information. (actually called the Mark2 "Essentials kit" in case your looking for "extension board". It is not made available on the website. (I think)

Thank you. This helps. Visuals are so awesome. I agree, a tab system with parameter pages would be nice. But I'm used to Mastercam and so I wouldn't have a problem with it. Some may think it clunky and more cumbersome, if they're used to everything they need on the screen with them. (but then again, everything I needed wasn't on the screen, was it )

Nope. No "perimeter lines" setting in my Cura. (2.3.0) I have "Wall line count"? Sounds similar. Is this what your referring to? It was set to 5 by default, but not visible. Does it mean it was not used if it wasn't visible? Or everything is used, but not visible unless you check it to be visible in the list? I guess that would make the most sense since it sais "visible" and not "activate parameter" or something like that. Thank you.

I don't have a "perimeter lines" setting. Maybe that's one of the 264 setting possibilities that's turned off by default? How in the world are you supposed to know what to turn on and use and what to leave off? I assumed what was turned on by default was what was needed?

This should be an easy one for most hopefully. I tried printing a small nameplate and there seems to be a problem with getting it to "fill out" completely without any of these weird empty spaces or gaps. I was thinking it was a line width problem but not sure. Can any of you look at the image and determine what the case might be? I'm using a .4mm nozzle with a Line width of .35 (initial layer height is .27) 100% infill top and bottom thickness of 1 (pattern is concentric but I've used others as well) PLA Thougths? Thank you. Jason

Me as well. I am anxious to be able to print like these videos and images. (mainly with soluble support structures) I am not as tech savvy as some, so I am hoping for a relatively painless install. And a price point that won't be too painful.

Windows updates have been known to produce bad results in good working systems. At least that's my experience with Windows. (and many others if you read online) So much so, that I made sure to turn my automatic updates off once I have a good stable system going. If I have to update it, so be it, but right now my current Cura does what I need it to do successfully. I can't do much with my printer since support structures leave such a bad finish anyway. So it's just kind of become an expensive "toy" for me. So it's not worth taking the chance of upsetting my computer and workflow for the rest of my business. Thanks all for the information. Jason

Ooooh...... Looks like they want me to install all the Windows updates. Yea, that's not happening. Guess I'll wait till the next version of Cura. :(

OK thanks. I will give it a look see.

OK So... Nallath, is this something that is being fixed and I should wait for the patch? or do I need to do what DaHai8 suggests and look online for some sort of fix myself? I did do a short search before I initially posted to here initially and found some "solutions" but all of them seemed to have people who say "don't do this" for this reason or that and so I'm unsure how to approach this. If it's up to me, I'll probably wait till the next release, just because I'm sure if I try and do anything with my system myself I'll crash it and lose important things.

I downloaded and installed Cura 2.4 just like my other versions but when I go to open it it gives me an error message that says... "The program can't start because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem." So I re-installed the program but it says the same thing. It wouln't even put the shortcut icon on the desktop. All my other programs still run fine and nothing else has been downloaded or removed from my system. Not a lot of help online except some talk about Windows 10 which I do not have, and will never have. ; ) I am running Win 7 Home Premium 16 Gig RAM 64 bit Thank you, Jason

Thank you AreDigg. I will consider that as well on some of my smaller prints. (otherwise it takes too long sometimes)

Geert_2, Awesome information! Thanks for taking the time to do that extensive response with images. This will help a lot in my future attempts. I have run short of funds and short of filament so my testing days have been over for a while. Hopefully work picks up soon and I can get back into the swing of things. Thanks for everyone's responses. JB

Good advice. And yes, I have considered this. It would be fairly easy in most cases for me to do this. The only thing missing is "what do I draw?" As you know, Sander, I have been printing many of the same parts with different settings to try and find that "ideal" setting for most of the supports. (I say most because we all know "one size fits all" doesn't apply here ) I think once I find those settings, I may have to resort to designing my own supports, using them, to obtain the best results. Excellent idea. I will incorporate that when I do manual supports. Unfortunately, most of my problem areas are from "trapped" supports under the part with no way to extend them. Don't you find that this leaves an unacceptable surface? (I'm curious becaus in my experience, anything over .1 or .15 leaves a surface I can not send to my customer.) I love the image explanation and am anxious to try just that. Thank you! Also liked the method suggested in the "Forgot to mention" post. I will be trying that too. Thanks for all the help guys!

Thanks for the link. Nice video. It is interesting to see direct modeling coming into what's normally a parametric modeling software. I think Solidworks even tried, or is trying, their hand at direct modeling kernels inside there existing design structure? I imagine most, if not all, design software is going to be transferring over to direct modeling at some point. (just my own opinion) Keycreator has been doing it since day 1, but with Solidworks flooding the educational market very early on in there existence, by giving there software away to every school that would take it, they managed to position themselves as the "go-to" design software because all of the younger users were familiar with it. (great marketing strategy. have to hand it to them) But now people are realizing the benefits of non-parametric design capabilities, as well as the ability to take on anybody else's design and continue on from anywhere they left off. (huge in my world)

Thank you for the responses so far. "what about investing in a dual nozzle printer and use soluable material" I would LOVE to be able to do that. Unfortunately my resources have fizzled out. I spent what I had on the 2+Extended before the 3 came out. (April 2016) Even if I could sell the 2+ Extended for say $2000.00 ($999 less than new) I would still need another $1500 for the 3 and $2300 for the 3 Extended. Since I have had very little work in the last quarter, this is an unattainable solution. Plus, I really don't want to take a thousand dollar bath on this thing. :angry: "I usually use the distance of one layer" This is the solution I found makes the best finish under the support structure. (Usually) However, it also makes the supports extremely hard to remove. And impossible in small areas or where it is surrounded by "good" plastic.

I have been working with the experts at Ultimaker to find the best settings for the support structures when printing PLA (or anything for that matter) with the Ultimaker. I have yet to find an acceptable solution. (sigh) I design parts for a living and decided that instead of sending all these parts out to Protolabs or places like that, I should buy a 3D printer and do them myself, thereby retaining that lost revenue. After much research, I settled on the Ultimaker based on the information available at that time. Since then I have been able to fine tune my prints so that anything that does not need support structures will print very nicely and be very presentable for the customer. However, anything that needs support structures will not turn out very nice. I have found that .7 for X and Y distance works very nice. No problem there. My issue is the Z distance. If I use .1 for that distance, the support is so hard to remove from the part that I end up destroying some of the part in the process of removal. I have had minimum success with this distance if I have a part that has supports that are easily reachable and not surrounded by the rest of the part. Problem is, I do mostly parts that are shelled out in the back and surrounded by material around the supports. If I go any further with the support structure in the Z than the material that is supposed to be supported by the support structure has too much room for creating a bad surface. And I mean bad enough surface to the point where it becomes un-presentable to my customer. I have tried different densities, patterns, support roof thicknesses, etc. The suggestion from Ultimaker (who is still helping me with this by the way. They haven't given up on me) was to pick the brain of the community. The problem is I can not share most of my projects because of NDA agreements. So I am just asking if there is anyone else out there that has gone through this and found something that gives them a good starting point most of the time with changes here and there based on the part of course. (I realize one setting will never work for ALL parts) Thank you, Jason O yea, I have the Ultimaker 2 Extended Plus. Cura 2.3.0

I'll go ahead and fill you in much like Ravenmaker did. (nice job on that by the way) With Keycreator all your requests are very simple. It has what's called "create primitives" which will give you options for block, cylinder, torus, pyramid, sphere, and CONE. " /> The 2D design capabilities are second to none in the industry. (After all, that's how Cadkey made history) you simply design what ever shape you want that odd looking block to look like and extrude to whatever distance you want it to be. (or to another face, or to a point, or dynamic, etc.) Much like RavenMakers images show. There are many ways to move an object, including the way you are asking about. You can give it a direct valued distance from where it is, from the coordinate system, (X0Y0Z0) or from a given position. You can also move it Dynamically from where it is and watch it move as you go and change it as you go. " /> The shell command is very easy to use. You simply give it a direction to shell (inward or outward or both) an amount to shell, and which faces you want to leave open. (if any. It will do no face open if you want a hollow Easter bunny " /> Modifying the keyboard commands (and the mouse commands for that matter) is very easy and versatile as well. They have made it so that the user can basically set up the "platform" how ever they want. I myself have several different "workplaces" for the different design iterations I am working on. I have one for my normal 3D modeling, one for my tooling layout designing, and the default. (which I do not use) I have even heard of people creating the workplace to resemble Solidworks as that was the platform they just came off off at a different place. I hope this gives you some more arsenal to put into your thinking cap for making this decision. It is not one that should be taken lightly if your going to be trying anything other than the free ones. A lot (if not all) of the more expensive CAD programs out there have free trial versions for you to download and try. I would highly recommend you take advantage of these if you are seriously thinking of buying one. My 2 cents.

Sander, Your understanding of the history tree is correct. The problem, so often, is that it just doesn't always work. For just a few operations, and simple geometry, it isn't really a problem. But so often you need to go way back in the geometry and make a change, or the geometry has gotten so complex, that it just wont let you do it, and you end up starting over. The old running joke with us non-parametric designers (which isn't very nice) is that if you ask a Solidworks designer to make revisions to a complex finished part, tears would well up in his\her eyes. Hopefully the Solidworks users don't climb all over me for this. I would be happy to help with your modeling questions as you get into them whenever I can. I'm not always on here so you may have to wait a while or just message me in email.

Just for consideration, be sure to understand the differences in "Parametric modeling" and "Non-Parametric modeling" When thinking about an engineerign CAD software purchase. I use Kubotek's Keycreator which is essentially the reincarnation of Cadkey. (Cadkey was THE CAD software for the longest time when CAD was born) I have been using Cadkey and Keycreator since 1992 and can't tell you enough, the importance of "free form" modeling. Something Solidworks can not do. (or any parametric modeling software) With parametric software you need a definite "plan of attack" in order to build your CAD recipe (i.e. history tree) so that when changes arrive (and they WILL arrive) you might be able to make the necessary changes. More often than not, you will be resorting to a complete re-design. With non-parametric software, free-form modeling allows you to do anything at anytime to your model. As a product designer for the last 11 years, I can tell you that this capability is very important. I'm not bashing Solidworks. Just pointing out some important information some may overlook.

And yet inches is STILL called standard. (Google it. you'll see) Just having fun. Don't beat me up.

Rasputin, You make for a very interesting read. Thank you for sharing. You hit the nail on the head with my printer being a "tool". Not a hobby. I have been designing products on my own, with my small business for about 11 years now and have sent so many CAD files off to the prototyping houses in that time. I had been looking for some time, and had initially decided on the Form 2+. But as I compared it to the claims of the Ultimaker, I changed over to the Ultimaker 2+ Extended. I had hopes of reclaiming some of the revenue I had been sending out. It wasn't a quick decision, as my small company does just enough to keep us going. To date, I have close to 650 hours of run time on my machine and only have two models I was able to send out to customers. One of which they declined full payment on, based on the quality of the prototype. (I had so many support structures to get it to print that it was impossible to clean off well) Some of the print time is now generated from things I have printed for myself around the house and such. I design complex models that almost always require lots of support structures, and the idea of printing them in the same material has proven to be extremely time consuming and my customers would be better off going back to the prototyping houses than paying me for all the time I have to put into cleaning off the prototypes I make. I have resigned my machine to a toy and gadget maker that just can't do what I had hoped. I would never recommend this machine to anyone who wants it for more than simple, no overhang type of prints. No way could you ever use it in a business atmosphere and make any money with it, unless you were strictly making items that need zero support structure all the time. Sure you could break your design up into several pieces and glue them together. (Well, only sometimes can you do that, as I found out) But then you are back to many man hours on the part and what happens when the glue fails while the customer is messing with it? LePaul, Thank you for the more personal look into the people of Ultimaker. We don't always get that perspective and it's nice to have. That being said, unfortunately it doesn't change the fact that I have a very expensive machine sitting here that can't do what I thought it was supposed to be able to do and they have the one that will. But I can't do anything about it because I spent all my money on this one.