TheRealJoost

Ahw, nobody from ultimaker with a suggestion where i might buy a replacement gear?

The small gear on the feeder motor of my UM2+ keeps slipping off. It is loose enough for me to be able to put it on the motor shaft by hand without all too much force. The problem with it slipping off is that this affects extrusion negatively. Seems it is worn out to the point that it must be replaced? If so, where can I get a replacement?

Ahw, shocks... of course. I use Fusion 360 and completely forgot it has more than just the modelling part. Funny, I've been looking all over all the while sitting on top of what I need. Story of my life...

Given a STEP model and material parameters is there software that can model the stress points of the model? I mainly create enclosure prototypes with my UM2+, the target is a molded part eventually. I would like to get some insight by means of computational analysis (FEA?) to understand the weak points of the design when certain force parameters are applied. I know there is all sorts of FEA software but I am not too familiar with these additionally, many have their own specializations. Your recommendations pls...

Hey Alan, re-reading my post I can see how you took it negative, wasn't meant that way. You did answer my other questions indeed, my apologies. Now that you are here, would you mind answering the question about speed?

Thanks for your comments guys. Similar to what @geert_2 mentions to 'heater length', I did ask Thordsen what their max feed rate was to get good efficacy but got no answer on that question. I like the idea of inline heating but question it this can really work in a practical setup. So consensus seems to be; "move on, get a dry-box (of sorts)" 🙂

Does anyone has experience with the Thordsen 3D IFD-175 filament dryer? (https://thordsen3d.com) I find drying filament in an oven (of sorts) cumbersome and this inline filament dryer seems convenient. Can it indeed dry out filament effectively? Any other inline filament dryers you are familiar with?

@jpleaner; did you figure out your issues with clear PLA? I am frequently using the ColorFabb clear nGenn PLA and quite happy with it. But one has to experiment a bit to get things right. I have done a series of 'buttons' (with a high lumen LED behind) about 30mm circumference and perhaps 5mm high, printed at 200C, no fans and 0.8mm nozzle. Not a single brown smirk and nicely matches dimensions.

Bummer, I wish I knew, care to share your store's web link? Um. Are you kidding? You know that when something ends with ".com" it's probably a web link right? (grin) yep, I do understand the .com thing. My browser didn't show that .com nor did it look like a clickable link when hovering over so my bad I missed that. On another note; I installed my new heater and noticed that the temperature stays _a lot more_ constant. With the old heater element I had a swing of about 4-5 deg C around the set point. With the new it is pretty much spot on. (Using Simplify3D to monitor the temps). I wonder if that swing was a sign of failure or if it meant it wasn't screwed down well enough so it could not dissipate its heat properly and failed as a result. The good thing is I am printing again, yay!

Bummer, I wish I knew, care to share your store's web link?

@Torgeir; I did have a look at Robotdigg but they don't list the UM2+ cartridge (35Watt), only the UM2 (25Watt).

Like the title says, my heater cartridge died in my UM2+, about 6 months old. My Ohm meter reads 130k, so it is definitely done. Perhaps 250hours total printing done with it. Seems a little soon for a repair, no? Should I count on having a few in stock? Not knowing how warrantee and that sort of thing works out in the USA, I decided to purchase a replacement cartridge (57 bucks) and do the repair myself. btw, the cartridge and PT sensor just slid out ever so easily, no friction whatsoever. How do these things normally stay in place?

not sure if it is 'normal' but I'd say that the board's silk screen layer is discolored due to heat from the driver chips. Is it 'bad' i.e., is your board about to fail? Probably not.

@peggyb: What was the gcode optimization you were referring to?

@peggyb: yes I have seen these little brown sticky things hanging around. The print this time took over 30 hours. Although hanging around the printer with tweezers to catch them little boogers might be therapeutic, 30 hrs might be a bit too therapeutic. How would I go about optimizing the gcode? I take it you mean to go in and edit directly or set up a different regime from within Cura? @neotko: I've done a few atomics but also put a heat gun at 260C on it to let things drip out and scrap a bit with a tooth pick. I wasn't too impressed with the atomic method to clean the nozzle, heat gun worked much better as verified with a microscope/boroscope. Guess I will have to print at lower temps and hope the adhesion is sufficient.

Yeah, that is what I thought. I've done a few initial prints that did not have this though that was with lower temps, layer adhesion seemed ok but i did not closely inspect. What surprises me is that I get this little poop-lets instead of a sort of continuous stream of dark material. It is as if some part circulates in the block/nozzle a bit, gets burned and then comes out. I am no expert in plastics but wonder if the nozzle's internal structure is not optimal. Oh well, I will need to experiment a bit more to see if prints can be made with good adhesion and no burning.

While printing Taulman t-glase clear I am starting to see this dark spots and stripes (see picture). Can't quite figure out what is going on. I am printing with 255C/60C - am I perhaps too hot and burning the material as it prints? If so I would have expected a more continuous stream of carbonized material. Thoughts anyone?

Great insight! This applies to many things in life (ear to ear grin)

Het kaartje what bij de printer zit is 0.12mm dik. Kalibreren met een beetje weerstand, schat ik in dat de afstand zo'n 0.15mm in werkelijkheid is. Kaartje moet er makkelijk onder/tussen komen maar je moet iets voelen. Te strak en e.e.a. ploegt door het plastic. Kaatje-Calibratie werkt goed met mijn printer. Als jouw business is een beetje aan de dunne kant ... voor een business card dat is... ;-)

Going from $1000 to $2499 (current ultimaker 2+ price in USA) is quite a step change. But... when you to make that change and enjoy the printing qualities of something that seems worth it, that expense is quickly forgotten. On the other hand if you spend 1000 bucks on something that constantly gives you grief, that is a 1000 bucks lost every time you print (or rather; try to print). So is the Ultimaker 1500 bucks much better - hard to say. I worked with a MakerBot 2 for a while, cost 2900 at the time (2-3 years ago). Not a bad machine but the Ultimaker is better IMHO.

So I have given this stuff some play time. Took me a while to get an actual print out, it seemed that 210C is not quite high enough; no PLA came out of the nozzle. However, at 230C the print stuck to the bed and printed out ok although I was a bit alarmed at first seeing the (very) squirelly blob that came out when priming. It seemed it was blowing bubbles in the first strand of PLA that showed up, I could hear it making little popping sounds. But the model came out quite nicely (a simple button) and showed 1.5 Ohm across its 1 inch surface - perfect. However, when I changed material to Taulman t-glase afterwards, not a single print worked. The primer turns into a big blob of stuff and is dragged around by the print head pretty much destroying the first layer - which means you're done. I also noticed that the material still seemed to have some blackish coloring even though I had given it quite a bit of material to squirt out during the change. I don't have many printing hours on the Utlimaker yet so I cannot think this was some carbonization but rather some of the proto pasta was still in the nozzle. I tried an atomic clean but this had no effect. I decided to heat up the nozzle, take it out the head and have a look. The entrance showed a mix of Taulman and Proto-pasta and it seemed some of the Proto-Pasta may have squirted out sideways. Perhaps the nozzle wasn't as tied as much as needed. So I fired up my hot air station (for soldering) set to 265C, a pair of tweezers to hold the nozzle and another pair to clean it. I was able to fish out a big blob of mixed material. Using a boro-scope to inspect the insides of the nozzle, i could see no more plugs of any kind. The head is now printing nicely again, the primer is a nice couple of loops, not a blob (though I still don't like how the printer deals with the primer, there always is a chance it drags it around the print). So the conductive proto pasta is neat but messy in my experience. Perhaps the results of my inexperience (entirely possible) and incorrect temp settings (which I find awkward to set on the Ultimaker) and may deserve its own nozzle.

Oh thanks for that reference - you state in there it was simple to print, which was the question I was after. Conductivity is less than what i expected/hoped for but workable.

How does thr colorfabb stuff stack up against Taulman t-glase clear?

I am pretty close to getting a spool of this stuff. Yes the resistance is a bit high to jack a high amp current through but thats not what i am after. I just want to make some simple capacitively coupled buttons for data entry/selection - much more modern then an old throw or push switch. Also good for perhaps powering up LEDs and then use Clear PLA to print a light pipe. Should be fun :-)

Does anyone have experience with Proto-pasta's conductive PLA? linked here: https://www.proto-pasta.com/pages/conductive-pla How well does it print, how is the conductivity in practice?