Rossboss

Just yesterday I tested out the ABS filament I baked for 5 hours at 150F and it worked perfectly with the 0.8mm core.

ABS seems to print fine with the 0.4mm core. However even with the larger layer thickness (0.4mm) ABS still prints very poorly. PLA Seems to print just fine with the same setup though. I noticed when I was switching filaments the ABS was bubbling heavily as it was freely extruded from the print head. @Tomhe Could this be the root of my poor prints with ABS? Should I bake the ABS prior to printing with it?

AHH! Thank you that makes sense!

I ran a couple prints last week with the new 0.8mm core and UM ABS and was not very happy with the print quality. It left large amounts of excess material at most stop/start positions, a bunch of stringing, and in some areas poor layer adhesion. I ran the builds with the default profile for 0.8mm cores. Now it strikes me as odd that the one and only option for default UM profiles has a layer thickness of 0.2mm. I would think that if that layer thickness is achievable with the 0.4mm core then the 0.8mm core should print layers at least double that. And when I observed the layers it looked as though each line was frayed at the edges as it was deposited due to not having enough room to extrude causing a squishing and curling of excess filament out to the sides. Does anyone have some better settings to try out with the 0.8mm core and specifically the combo of that core and ABS filament? Also I have not yet tried printing with the 0.8mm core and PLA so I'm not sure if these problems would persist across materials or not.

Is there any hope for an option to selectively apply adhesion settings to parts or supports? This would come in handy for large prints that just barely fit within the build plate and the brim on supports make it too large. Also when I have a large part that is flat on the bottom but has high overhangs extending over the base it would be nice if I didn't have to brim the part but could have the option to only brim supports.

It was in fact something with the firewall. Thanks!

I tried to update the firmware today and when I finished establishing the wifi connection and downloading the firmware on my UM3 it displayed the entire firmware code on the user interface which forces me to scroll through the entire thing on the click wheel (this took 20 minutes) until I could select "INSTALL". After selecting install it immediately gave me a "failed to verify firmware update" error message. I gave up on updating it and was just going to start my print but it would not let me out of the "Ignore/Install" prompt. I restarted the printer several times and upon reboot the "Print/Materials/System" page comes up for one second then immediately takes me to the Firmware update prompt again which forces me to scroll through the entire code. How do I get out of this loop!?

Precisely, but still excited to try the 0.8 for something soon.

@SandervG any updates on cores with the smaller diameter nozzles?

So my current build is going quite well. I changed two main things, one being I am now using PLA supports and no PVA at all. This was not preferable but well see how easy support removal is once its done as well as surface finish. The other thing was that I set the XY spacing to 5 mm giving the wall excess space for air flow. I'm not sure which of these two, or if both of them are contributing to the better print quality of the wall but it seems to be working...

I have been trying for days now to prevent the walls of this build from caving in. The model is IP sensitive but in essence it is a 1.05mm shell with four inlets that encases an internal lattice structure. I've experimented with different temperature, speed, plate adhesion settings as well as varying the size and orientations of this model and nothing has worked so far. I have PVA supports on the inside and outside of the vertical wall that sits on the plate to support the shell overhangs as well as the internal lattice that sits within the shell center. The most recent attempt with the settings below seemed to make things worse :( The relevant settings/settings I have changed based on what I've seen online are: - 0.1mm layer height - PLA raft - print speed of 40mm/s - 196* PLA print temperature - 225* PVA print temperature - built plate temp of 55* - 100% fan for PLA - 0% fan for PVA My best guess as to whats happening is that the PVA supports are somehow insulating the PLA wall, maybe the hotter PVA nozzle is also adding heat, and preventing the wall from cooling fast enough and it warps. One of my several issues with this guess is that the PVA layer time is at least 5 minutes so I would think that it would have plenty of time to cool before laying down the next layer of PLA. Anyone have a fix for this? Thanks!

So is Selective Build Plate Adhesion a thing yet or no? I cant seem to find it anywhere.

And the cracks actually dont show up and arent just concealed by the black color? haha

So I just noticed that both of these Axle Belt Boxes (I'm not sure what the proper name for them is) in the picture are cracked. Is this a potential issue now or in the future and if so how to I fix/replace them? Thanks!

@peetersm did you ever determine a fix for this?

I posted this last week: https://ultimaker.com/en/community/39012-lattice-printing-and-shell-gap In short, I am trying to print this tubular shell with an integrated lattice. The build featured in the link was done on a 0.2mm layer height and it resulted in periodic layers missing from the outer shell as seen in the pictures. After changing the layer height to 0.1mm, this latest print in the picture below looks better but clearly still has a periodic layer issue. I'm guessing the smaller layer height did not eliminate the problem but the z increment was small enough that it no longer results in a gap, just a slight inset of the layer. I'm 100% positive it is nothing purely mechanical wrong with the UM3 (z screw, belts, axels) as this only occurs on models that have the integrated lattice similar to this one but once the lattice section is finished the shell resumes printing as it normally should. Notice in the picture below where the periodic layer issue stops in the picture and the tube starts to get thinner; this is where the lattice ends inside the tube. While this is obviously an issue brought upon by the file, the file itself does not include any errors resembling this anomaly whatsoever and X-ray/Layer View does not reveal any holes or missing layers. This leads me to believe that this is either a software issue or a material/mechanical process issue exposed by some characteristic of the file.

Hello, I'm trying to diagnose a problem I am having with what appears to be periodic layer gaps in my outer shell of certain parts so I have been trying to look into the setting definitions both on Cura and on the UM online manual. Is it just me, or are the definitions on Cura and the online manual for the "Ignore Small Z Gaps" setting opposing each other? CURA DEFINITION: When the model has small vertical gaps, about 5% extra computation time can be spent on generating top and bottom skin in these narrow spaces. In such case, disable the setting. Take Away: If the model has small vertical gaps (that you want to fix), disable the setting. ONLINE MANUAL DEFINITION: Small gaps between the layers in the Z-direction of a model can be “fixed” by using the ignore small Z gaps setting. This setting - enabled by default - will make sure the layers will fuse by printing infill in between the bottom and top of the gap. If you would disable this setting, it won’t fill the gap and will simply print the bottom and top as they are in the model. Take Away: (Pretty clearly) If you want to "fix" z-gaps, enable the setting. "If you would disable this setting, it wont fill the gap..." So.... which is it?

Or does the fact that the wall thickness is not a multiple of the line width perhaps cause problems? I wouldn't think so because its only on some layers and not others but perhaps the lattice converges at certain points on the wall and changes the effective wall thickness?

Could this potentially be a problem with the Compensate Wall Overlaps or related settings?

The two pictures below are representative of the extremes in the lattice geometry; straight parallel sections and crossed sections. The crossed sections are where the looping problem is obviously but it is unclear if there is a correlation to the issue with the outer shell at these layers as well. The tube diameter is 2 inches and wall thickness is 1.25mm. The lattice XY wall thickness is hard to say because it morphs as it goes up the z direction but it is very thin in the straight parallel sections. There are clear holes in the lattice wall but those I am less concerned about those since we perform an epoxy process on the parts after to seal holes. Several softwares are used including Solidthinking-Evolve, Blender, and Materialise-Magics. The STL goes through polygon fixing process in Magics to fix bad edges and noise shells, overlaps and intersections.

I have not made any changes and it looks fine in layer view but the last two prints have come up with the same problems. The common denominator is the smaller period lattice integrated into the tube so that says to me it is something with the file but there are no signs of anything wrong.

So I have thoroughly gone through the X-ray and layer view (single layer at a time) and have seen absolutely no gaps in the layers or other errors. You said you recommend disabling all mesh fix options? Even the ones that seem irrelevant to this scenario?

Hello, I have a UM3 and lately I've been printing components that consist of a tubular shell with a small period lattice structure inside of it. I've been running into a couple problems with them. As these components are for my work I cannot share the file but I have small sections of the current print below that should illustrate my problems. As these are multiple day prints I hope to fix these problems before the next iteration of the component without much more trial and error. For one, the shell itself contains layers that did not seem to print. After running through the setting descriptions, it sounds to me like the fix for this not checking the 'Ignore Small Z Gaps'. From what the picture shows, does this seem like the correct course of action? The other issue is that on the periodic layers where the lattice converges on itself resulting in many discontinuous vertices (the layer in the picture), there seems to be an extremely high degree of filament looping (not sure on nomenclature there) and vertical stringing. I think part of the problem could be that I have exceeded the Maximum Retraction Count threshold so the extruder lifts and moves to the next vertex without retracting the filament after a certain number of vertices have been printed. But even when it is under that threshold and it is clearly retracting the filament, I'm getting a lot of thin upward stringing still. So if my assumptions are correct I guess my questions are 1) how far can I push the Maximum Retraction Count threshold without grinding up the filament? and 2) how do I reduce that stringing in general? (I've seen the Ultimaker/Cura guide on reducing stringing but some of it seems outdated for the UM3. What are the UM3 setting thresholds that can reduce it?).

Using the Special Modes has not been immediately obvious to me. I have the settings checked but they do not show up in the short list. Specifically, how do I use the support mesh? Do I have to have the right objects loaded into Cura to activate the setting capabilities?

@gr5 so what i'm hearing you say is add your own stl model that will act as a prime tower and then upload it first so that the tower is printed first each layer. Is that true 100% of the time? First model uploaded is printed first? seems like it could be inefficient depending on your layout.