rhoogenboom

Hi, The printer: UM3 extended, latest stable firmware, Cura 4.3 and 5.9 confirmed issue. I have the following problem: printing using extruder 1 results is very thin not connecting lines. See the picture, left is extruder 1, right is extruder 2. Same settings, initial layer height etc. Just switch model from left to right. I’m not 100% sure, but I think this started around the time I replaced the bowden tubes about a few weeks back. Was long overdue as the inside was worn out. First I thought it was a levelling issue and first layer height but intermittedly throughout the print it goes wrong too. As if the fillament is struggling to come out. But the initial prime before a print goes ok. I’ve re-levelled the bed, switched the printcores around, cleaned the feeders by opening them up, new bowden tube's and those connectors to the print head and feeder on the tubes, switched the fillament around, done a hot pull of the nozzle to see if there is blocking, increased the print temp a lot to see if there is better flow, tried different Cura versions as I thought it might be a print setting. No special gcode added for the left (nor the right extruder), no starting code and pretty sure all cure settings are identical between left and right. Also happens for both fast 0.2 height as fine 0.1 height profiles. I’m about to test if it happens for a 0.8 nozzle too. Other 2 pics show printing as a much increased print temp, where the first layer of the model seems ok (brim was still marginal ok) but a top layer in the model is still bad again. I am printing on a PEX bed too, don’t think that matters as printing from extruder 2 works fine with that. I’m at a loss and don’t know what to try next. All suggestions are welcome! Update: I can confirm now there is no problem with the Fast 0.2 profile and the 0.8 nozzle and also the 0.25 nozzle and fine profile seem to be printing without issues. That rules out that filament, extruder, bowden or spool. I recon the only thing which can cause this now are the left extruder profile settings for a 0.4 nozzle. I will confirm to print with the right extruder set in the left side if it really isn’t something with that nozzle. Cheers, Richard

printed, seems to fit, haven't put the nozzle in, but I recon that will be fine too. at best a bit of rework to make sure it fits snug in the print head.

Aha the whole repo might be it, it was complaining about references/names so probably it couldn't find it. Downloaded the STL, cheers for that! Printing as I type this! 🙂

I hope the youmagine link will come to life, the step file is a dead end. I can't get solidworks to import it succesfully and I tried 3 online converters, only 1 actually produced an stl and not an error and when I try to open that stl in cura its not liking it. Do you know of an STL (or any other sources)? cheers, Richard

Hi, I noticed one of my nozzles had a broken clip. Since I have pretty much every nozzle possible twice, I sure hope no others will develop the same problem. (or someone dropped it and didn't say anything) Is this an available spare part? Can you print it yourself? is there an STL? Cheers, Richard

Yes, that's probably the way,.. 😞 Not the easiest way though, I will try if the .gz might be it. That would be a quick fix. Just out curiosity, did you try any of files. Just wondering if it is firmware related. Hope I can just downgrade to something old and get this to work. The darn machine should just open gcode without me having the edit a file,... I'll try to dump the logs too, that's a good idea, maybe I can see it bail out for some reason, although again, that is in the printer firmware as these file did print previously from USB on this printer,... thanks!

I cannot find the edit button of the post, so here are the files,.... There is one which will print from USB, the others just don't, neither can you send them to the cura connect queue via Cura. If anyone can shed some light on this, much appreciated as it is darn annoying not able to print with an UM3 and a USB stick with generated models,... Cheers, Richard Velg - original - v3.gcode Bottom Pad-v3-1x-0.4-L.gcode flat hoekstuk - v4.gcode Raincap-v2.gcode

Hi, I think I stuck some kind of bug in loading gcode and printing from USB. When I try to print from USB and the gcode is generated by Simplify3D, the screen shows the name on the screen. It cannot show any details (just shows ‘loading’. When I select it to print. The screen jumps back to main and then back to the usb file view. And that is it. When I select a cura generated (compressed) gcode gz file, it starts to print. When I select an old gcode file which I am sure I printed in the past, same is happening, it does not work. Is this a bug introduced when we started using that compressed gcode stuff? Is anybody experiencing this too? Is anybody aware of this? Gcode attached, one prints and one does not from USB. I tried the latest firmware but already at latest stable. Another pointer: This might have started around the introduction of Cura connect. Pretty sure I tried to load the gcode into Cura and then sending it off. That doesnt work either for gcode generated by anything else than Cura. Files will be attached shortly. Need my laptop for that.

And I switched active levelling back on 🙂

Hi, Now that was what I was looking for! Thanks for pointing it out! 🙂 Cheers, Richard

Hi Johnse, Thank you for the answer, I assumed a similar thing that it does some Z-axis adjustment, but what specifically wonders me how it would deal with the 3 point measurement. On my UM3 you do the manual levelling mid point, right front, left front and the dual nozzle midpoint by adjusting the screws underneath. This should put the build plate level. Assuming I messed this up and right forward is way too low. How would my UM3 auto-levelling deal with that? It cannot adjust the right forward screw to make the plate level, so the only thing it can do is figure out mid point is 0, right forward is too low and left forward is at 0 too. Would it then constantly adjust the Z-axis during printing while the printhead moves from right forward towards left behind? It would have to be otherwise taking all those measurements doesn't make sense. If it only adjusts the initial layer height, taking a measurement mid-point would have been sufficient. Which is why I'm thinking the auto-levelling sequence is just a double check if you have levelled the bed not completely tilted and bails out of the print if you have and otherwise starts because it's 'within acceptable bounds'. Anyway, maybe one of the UM people can give some insight is what it does or try to figure out during that process. Cheers, Richard

I only occasionally read through posts on the board here and saw a big discussion on auto-levelling which made my curious on what auto-levelling actually does. Does auto-levelling actually adjust any setting/layer height or print condition or is it only a safety check to see if the build plate isn't complete mounted sideways? Just curious to know the inner workings,..

Hi, I'm wondering if other people have some experience with this. I have an UM3 extended and print 99.9% of my things sliced by Cura (4.2.1 at the moment) I do some CAD drawing and pretty much always, my printed parts never fit. Despite my putting some margins in the drawings, I usually end up doing print-try-adjust-drawing and start all over again. Since for me this is all hobby and I have by no means any knowledge or experience how you should take fitting tolerences into account, I figured it is the best I can do. But recently it just annoyed the heck out of me, because I had to adjust and reprint so many times, that it just didn't make sense anymore. So I had look on the forum on dimensional accuracy and calibration and I printed the 20x20x10 calibration cube. Now reading the posts here, I only seem to find people that have a consistent X and Y calibration error. I have a different problem: my Y size is off, my Y size is pretty much spot on. So my test cubes (just a few of them but they seem pretty consistent): 1 - X(20.01) Y(20.18) 2 - X(20.00) Y(20.21) 3 - X (19.94) Y (20.06) - I played with horizontal expansion on this one, however that also impacts my X size too and decreases that too much. So how do you calibrate only the Y? I need X horizontal expansion and a separate Y horizontal expansion,.. Or is there another trick? I also did a print at the advice low 30mm/sec print speed, I measure in the middle, not the elephant foot first layer. It's a PLA print, this filament might be more susceptible to shrinkage, as the bottom and top layers seem to come out a bit, but with the current infill pattern and print form (equally sized cube), such shrinkage should be the same in both directions. One thing which might be the cause: I had this with my previous UM3 also: one of the slider bearings in the head is probably worn out. Now with my previous, I could really hear the head click when I would change direction. If I feel the head of my UM3 ext now, it does have a very very little bit of play. Meaning I can move the tip of my nozzle sightly from forward to backwards make the whole head move ever so slightly on the axle. I have ordered a new set of bearings, so when they are mounted next week, it should exclude that as a cause. Any ideas or pointers are welcome. Cheers, Richard

I’m trying now to increase the bottom top layer width to 0.45 from 0.35. Lets see if that makes a difference.

Hi, I'm looking for some pointers as what to check/adjust to get this issue resolved on my prints. These prints are done in PLA, but aren't material specific. Cura versions: this happens with 3.5.0 and the previous 3.4.1. I don't think it's Cura version specific, I've had this issue for a while. This is printed at the default 'fine' setting of 0.1mm and a modified fine setting where initial layer height was decreased and print speed reduced to 35mm/s When I print, the bottom/100% infill layers seem to be dimensionally smaller than the layers higher up which are printed with infill. I even aborted a print, as you can see in the pictures where it shows the dimensional wideness changes at the infill printed layers. Any thoughts or ideas of things I could change to fix this issue? Picture 1 through 4 some examples where the first layers are smaller than the subsequent ones. Picture 5 through 7 you can see it starts when printing infills. Upload of pictures will be after posting as I need to do that from my phone. Cheers, Richard