rowiac

Indeed, Cura being free is a huge benefit. In my opinion, it's easier to set up for your printer, although once you have S3D set up, it's pretty easy to use as well. In my experience, S3D is a bit better with support in that it's easier to remove and leaves a cleaner surface. I haven't tried all the settings in Cura, however. I am just talking about the default support settings. Cura does better brims, although I think the latest version of S3D has improved that. One big advantage of S3D is the ability to customize support. I hope Cura gets this feature someday, and then I probably would just use Cura all the time. I recommend you use Cura and become familiar with 3D printing first, and if you want to try more complicated settings later you can try S3D.

@TheSeend Nice print! Can you give some more details about your modification to the print head? Are the extra nuts and washers to allow you to adjust the vetical positions of the two nozzles separately?

This is a slicer-specific behavior. By default, Cura starts quite a way above the bed (maybe 20mm?) in the home position and extrudes a blob to prime the nozzle. Then it moves in x, y and z simultaneously to get to the bed and start printing. By doing this it is stretching the filament out to a fine string and essentially getting the prime blob out of the way. Personally, I like this behavior of Cura and have tried to replicate it in Simplify3D, but haven't spent enough time to get the starting gcode right.

I use an old version of Cura (v15.04.6) to do bed leveling. I haven't tried the newest version for leveling, but I like how the old version draws a large square on the plate to check the leveling after you have set the 3 points. Assuming you are using PLA, try increasing your nozzle temperature to 200°C and set your initial layer height to 0.3mm, which is the default for Cura. Thicker initial layers are more forgiving of sub-optimal bed leveling. Once I have the bed leveled properly, I try not to manhandle the build plate too much removing prints, etc. just to make sure I don't disturb the setting. Usually I can go a long time before I need to level it again, although eventually the nozzle tip wears or something else will cause it to need re-leveling.

@gr5 It seems as though PETG is missing from these charts, unless it's there with some other name. I recently purchased a spool of it to try and was wondering how it stacked up against other materials. Great job on this by the way.

Look here for all of the parts information for the UMO+: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker-Original-Plus Once you find the part you need, look at the drawing (PDF) for the material. Do a Google search if the material spec is not obvious. For the dimensions, open the STEP file in any CAD program (SolidWorks, Inventor, Fusion360, OnShape, etc.) and you can measure all of the features. The part you are looking for is B1818-B Print Table Base Plate.

Try this for the teflon coupler (be sure to select 3mm), although again, I don't about the quality and longevity of these parts. Here's another example of a PEEK isolator:

You can get pretty much any part for the Ultimakers on AliExpress. I don't know about the quality, however, and shipping can take a long time, at least to the US. The PEEK isolator is on there, but delivery time is up to 20 days.

You can find the drawing and CAD model for this part on GitHub in the Ultimaker section. The Ultimaker part number for this part is B 1048-A2P-A "Print Head Hot End Holder". The material listed on the drawing is aluminum alloy EN AW-6060 T66 which is similar to 6061-T6. If you open the STEP file with any CAD program, you will be able to measure all of the part's dimensions. The holes you are referring to are 14.0mm in diameter with 0.5mm x 45° chamfers on both sides.

I did have one problem with my UMO+ feeder that I just remembered. The black plastic roller that press-fits over the ball bearing became deformed and wasn't feeding the filament evenly. I replaced the plastic part with a ball bearing that fit over the existing bearing and the problem was gone. Since the ball bearing is made of metal, it should last a very long time.

You'll need to design an adapter for it, something like this but for that particular feeder. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2723124 There would also be a firmware change needed to account for the different motor steps/mm on the new feeder. What is your actual problem with the UMO+ feeder? Mine works well--it's just a little noisy.

@mrfunk You can get a knock-off of the sheet metal UM2 fan shroud on Aliexpress for pretty cheap. If you really want to print one, look for one that doesn't blow a lot of air directly on the nozzle, but evenly distributes airflow around it, pretty much like what @andywalter has described above.

I looked around in the Cura 3.1 settings for my UMO+, and I couldn't find a nozzle size setting anywhere either. I could have sworn it was there in an earlier version, but I haven't had a reason to use it yet. I have changed line width while using the standard 0.4mm nozzle, but that's a completely different thing.

I happened to have my UMO+ box handy and measured it. It is 42.5cm x 42.5cm x 27.3cm [16.75" x 16.75" x 10.75"].

The enclosure would be more useful for printing ABS and other materials that print at relatively high temperature and tend to warp if cooled too much during printing. With PLA, which prints at a relatively low temperature, if the build area temperature is too high, you could get heat buildup in the print head beyond the teflon heat break to the point where the filament softens and deforms, resulting in a clog and/or underextrusion. Many retractions would exacerbate this effect because of the constant pushing and pulling of the softened filament. Maybe someone else can explain it better, but that is basically my understanding of the effect.

If the UM2+ is too expensive for you, you should consider the Ultimaker Original+ (UMO+). It's less than half the cost of the UM2+ and I would say it will give you 95%+ of the performance. A disadvantage might be that it's a kit, but it's a very complete one with excellent assembly instructions. This was actually an advantage for me, because in building it I became familiar with the guts of it, and was not afraid to repair and maintain it. The UMO+ is very good as it comes, but there are many modifications available to make it perform even better. Just do a search for UMO on this forum.

I first checked your file with Meshmixer using the Inspector function in the Analysis menu. Many times you can fix the errors in Meshmixer, but in this case the errors were quite severe. So I opened it in Sketchup, checked it with the SolidInspector2 plugin, which showed me the bad areas highlighted in red, but it was not able to fix them automatically. Using the pencil tool, I drew one line to fill in a open face on the gear, ran SolidInspector2 again and this time it was able to fix it. I then re-exported the STL, and that's what I uploaded for you. The link that gr5 provided is very helpful to understand what needs to be fixed in Sketchup files for 3D printing. Like you, I had previous experience with Sketchup and I still use it for some things if they aren't too complex. Even though almost everyone here will recommend against using Sketchup (including me), it is useful sometimes.

@6maker I am also interested in the details of how your "Dual Balance" system works. How do you achieve the special Z level for the non-active nozzle? Also am I correct in assuming you are using the extra fans to cool the non-active nozzle to avoid oozing?

This has been posted before, but there is also this decision tree that might help decide which 3D design software is appropriate for a particular situation: https://go.gliffy.com/go/publish/5271448 It pretty much rejects Sketchup right away, but at least it shows a number of other tools that are available.

Small needle nose pliers or maybe a 3-4mm drill bit?

@Curor If you really must use Sketchup, add the SolidInspector2 plugin to check your model for errors prior to exporting it as an STL file. Many times even that will not be able to correct the model automatically, and you will have to edit the messed up vertices manually. In any case, I was able to correct your gear model in Sketchup with a couple of minutes of editing, and I've attached it here. You may want to look at different modeling tools for 3D printing, such as Fusion360, DesignSpark Mechanical or others. Sketchup can be made to work, but you need to know what you're doing. gear_fixed.stl

@zephirl, It seems like nobody answered your original question. Here's my bit of advice for printing flexible filament: Use a slower print speed. Try 25mm/s Turn off retraction Print at a relatively large layer height, such as 0.2mm You might also try increasing the print head temperature a bit, just to get the material flowing well.

Assuming you are using an SD card, did you check if the write-protect switch on the SanDisk card accidentally got switched to the protect position? This can happen sometimes without realizing it.

I found it in the UM2+ files on Github here: https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2Plus/tree/master/1546-A/1546%20ultimainboard%20V2.1.4%20electronics It looks like you will need Altium Designer Viewer to read the schematic files.

I have access to SolidWorks at work, so that's what I use for mechanical designs, but if I didn't, I would use Fusion360 as @DidierKlein mentions. It's fully featured, but takes some getting used to even for an experienced SolidWorks user. OnShape, on the other hand, started out great, but no longer being able to have private (non-shared) projects in the free version killed it for me. It's also missing some features, but that will change over time as they update the app. Sketchup is tricky to use for objects that will be 3D printed, but it's my go-to app for some projects. For organic models, try Meshmixer. It's free, easy to use and oriented toward 3D printing, including having the ability to create custom support structures.