kmanstudios

That is correct. But, since it does not make that sharp turn it does not require the filament guide in the first spool position. It also serves to help loosen or straighten the filament by not remaining so wound up at all points. If you look at the pics, you will find that it has plugable filament holes on top and bottom of the clear case, 3 positions of each. If you are using Ultimaker spools, then there is a work around. Put an empty spool on the spool holder to tell Ultimaker what it is using. However, since a lot of filaments are 3rd party (Colorfabb, Polymaker, etc) this can still be used as a work around. Especially if you print a lot of the same filament choices. Or, in that case, you would be selecting the filament manually. But, having the empty spool holders, you can hang empty filament spools anyway no matter what brand you are using. When I was looking at the Polybox, I had to evaluate my own designs or mods to existing designs. For instance, I wanted to use a bowden tube to bridge from the dry box to the filament guide. Just purchasing the bowden tube alone is almost 30% the cost of the Polybox, and even more as you can load 2 standard size (around 0.75 kg) and they give you enough for feeding two spools, so that ups the amount saved to 60% of the basic cost of the product. Then I added on the time to print, the cost of the plastics, factored in a failure or two and even the thermo-hygrometer and battery and it came out a lot cheaper. For me at least. And, I can keep printing the things I want to focus on.

The one you linked to is nice though. I got it just to save time and materials in making the same thing. But, it was the built in thermo-hygrometer that sold me. And, it comes with rechargeable desiccant. I just started using it with the PrintDry system and it has made a world of difference in how well it prints now with PVA. This is where I go in depth on both products and my experience so far. I am currently drying out some PC materials and will continue to dry out others. I just put them into the PrintDry and 'slow cook' them on lower than normal temps. It can also be mentioned that the PrintDry can be used as a filament spooler, but I want to be able to switch out filamenst for printing without disturbing the drying process.

I am on board with Space Mouse connections. I fell in love with mine because every danged program out there uses a different combination of mouse moves to navigate and I can set mine to a common set of actions. Does speed up the process on everything. And...now I will not be able to get that out of my head either

Ok, before I start, let me say that there are a gazillion great things out there to print that can do what I describe below. I purchased these products because: (A) Time considerations And (B) Would rather take the filament and use expensive stuff for other things. One item I purchased as the "Print Dry" setup. The second thing is that I got the Polybox from Polymaker. I just came off a huge job and just got around to setting things up today. I did get the Printdry setup a week ago and did put my PVA in there to 'slow cook' and just let it sit while the printer finished a 6 day print and I finished the job. The Polybox is super easy to put together. It is mostly all done, just putting the battery in the thermo-hygrometer, Dropping the desiccant into its compartment and slapping some bearings on the rollers for the spools. And it has made a huge difference. First off, no more crackling and popping on the PVA. The PVA is solid and not 'webby' like it used to be. So, the PrintDry took some really humidity absorbed PVA and rejuvenated it. That is very pleasing. Even with the low humidity we had over the last week, it still is an improvement. The Polybox feeds very well and solves one of the issues I had with oversized spools and that has made a difference. It comes with a bowden tube to feed from the box to the feeder and due to it being a straight feed from the spool out to the feeder on the UM3E, I do not get binding like I used to. I never really got that with low weight spools, but some that I buy are not configured to get on the UM3E's feeder arm properly and the filament guide. All in all, I have noticed a marked improvement on the PVA and think it may be helping the PLA not have humidity as well. So, if you have troubles with your PVA at least (or really any other hygroscopic filaments) I suggest you make a dry box or purchase one. The Print Dry has excellent temp controls and does not require killing hours from printer use just to heat the buildplate and dry out the filament. Not a review, but a referral to the need to dry out the filament and at least make your own. It really does make a difference. While I hang my head in maker shame for not making my own, now I do not have to kill a bit of time and filament and can go on with my own designs and ideas.

I just finished a crazy big animation job and ready to get back to 3D printing. I have the 3D Solex 0.6 Sapphire nozzle and matching size Brass for PVA from gr5. I just received the Colorfabb Bronze, Copper and Steel filaments. Will be getting the Brass soon just to test the looks and such. I am on a UM3E and was wondering if anybody had any tips they could share on printing this stuff. Any settings or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks Kman PapaK Grumpy Santa..... Take yer pick

Thank you. The modeling was not so hard. It is a collection of fractals that are put together for the scene. The dolphins were modeled in about 5 minutes. The tough part is the rendering. It is fragile and takes forever.

I just hadda go look it up and apparently that is NOT the number for google support LOL This is ------->1-866-2GOOGLE(1-866-246-6453) for United States So THEN I go look up the number and it seems it appears in a lot of places for Spotify and facebook and other services as well.......sigh....... All the internet has done, despite its massive promise, it seems to be is allow the con-artists to move quicker, with greater reach and be more bothersome than ever before.

I'm sure that was the intent, but I suspect the issue was that the filament would slip on the wheel causing the sensor to detect that the wheel is not rotating smoothly or as much as it should. This would then pause the printer thinking the filament jammed when in reality there is no problem other than the filament slipping on the wheel. Our z18's had this issue. We resolved it by adding and o-ring to the groove on the wheel that the filament rode in. This added much more grip onto the filament and prevented these false filament jam errors. That makes sense. But I also notice that my filament does not always move since I do a lot of dual printing. So, there would have to be cross talk between the two systems to know when to monitor movement as well as 'time periods' of active monitoring when the filament takes too long, i.e. grinding and not just backing up during retraction or waiting for heat up or some other op that causes it to sit idle for a short time..

If your filament was grinding to the point of stopping, would you not want to have it pause the printer anyway instead of air printing and cooking the filament?

It is no problem and you are most welcome. It is how we learn. Well, I learn that way at least. Just remember two major things at this juncture: 1. Try to model at the scale you want. Cura (Actually slicers in general) wants to work at millimeters and that is a good place to start at in your package of choice. 2. Always have a thickness. Good luck!!

I have greatly enjoyed the Polymaker and Colorfabb PLA's and PLA/PHA hybrida. I use a lot of the Matterhackers PVA too. I find the PLA and hybrids are pretty consistent across colors and solid to transparent/translucent.

I have noticed that there seem to be a lot of issues with Cura and third party printer setups. I keep hoping someone will try to install an Ultimaker to see if it has the same issue. It either seems to be third party printers or Intel video chips that are the bane of this go around.

STL may be flawed. Just had a similar issue with another file in a different thread.

OK, this site just ate my reply twice. This is getting really bad. fortunately I had copied the shortened version of my reply this time. But, twice in a row is setting a new record.

Dammit!!! Frikkin' site ate the reply GGRRrrrrrrrr.......And, no, back button did not work. OK. Here is the short version: 1. Not in scale. Had to scale it up almost 900% to sorta match the size based on your object to virtual grid. That is not good. 2. Object not manifold. It was a collection of 2D parts with no thickness to each surface. 3. No matter what settings it was set at, Cura would either not slice it or would cap it to create depth and what you got was a solid with nothing but infill. 4. Taking the object and applying a thickness to your walls establishes your actual thickness and defines 'inside' and 'outside'. These are each part with thickness and made manifold. This lets Cura slice and not have to worry about what it is trying to fix. Learning to model is important and this is lesson one. Here is the fixed file at the size you made it. I have no idea what size it really should be and based my slicing off your image above. http://www.kmanstudios.com/Object_Fixed_EK.stl

The " top surface skin layers at least to two" is a Cura setting in the slicer. You will probably have to unhide a lot of settings to get to it. It should be in the "Shell" section if I remember correctly. I'll download and take a quick look because well, I gotsta hop on a job But will definitely look.

"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" "Why...right here on Youmagine!!"

What printer were you trying to load?

If I am not mistaken, 90° is perpendicular to the plate, and 0° is parallel. That would be why 45° gives you more support and 65° less. When I tested my printer with all the test files for overhangs and angles, I found for my printer, 65° was about the point of the clean underside. While it could handle up to 85°, it would get really messy underneath. Not a problem in hidden areas though. This would not be the same as a bridging situation though. I have found it bridges pretty nicely as long as the gap is not too bad.

I will have to look at the brands you guys suggested. Thanks for all the info. I did forget to mention that she is expecting this late December, so actually a Groot and Baby Groot would be appropriate I did just get a series of nozzles for printing abrasives and also a variety of sizes so, I thank you for the suggestions Just getting through this freelance job (Thursday deadline) and my printer should be done about that time on my current print, so.....what to print...what to print.......

May I ask what you mean by "Just as bad?" I thought the woodfill filaments were ok. I have not tried them and have not really been interested, but I found out my daughter in law is a Groot fanatic and thought it would be cool to do a wood Groot for her. Any information would be appreciated.

I have not done any print over network with 3.0.3 yet, but, yeah, that would annoy me too.

That is the nature of PVA materials. It gets worse as the humidity goes up too.

There you go :)Too many people are depending on sloppy software these days and then get P.O.'d when the sophisticated/accurate software does not allow it. There are too many free and easy software solutions out there that can perform these checks and allow editing to create robust models. At the risk of sounding like the grumpy old man here, there is no excuse for not learning how things really work. Most of this stuff can be free and is easy to learn nowadays.

Using ooze shield can help. But I also started to play a lot with the temps and speeds to make things less of an issue. For instance, I print a lot of my PLA about 5°C lower than spec'ed. That helps a lot. You have to play with temps of the PVA to find out the same way as it will have a lot to do with humidity levels and such of your environment. PVA is just a pain to print with compared to other materials. I still have to clean off stuff on the z-seam where it drags a bit of filament onto the surface, but it is not so bad as having giant spaghetti threads attached or having the waste of time and filament of the prime tower.