JohnInOttawa

Yes, it is a long way from the plywood Ultimaker Original (one of which sits next to my UM3) that started this community. It's tough to be all things to all people, but it does seem to me as if there is a shift occurring here. As the angst over the Cura upgrade and S5 reliability attest to though, with a new market comes new expectations. We will all see how this plays out. J

Ha! I feel better already - while still feeling too poor.... ? J

I see the announcement that the CC Red is now shipping. This was my first chance to see the price. With great respect for all of the work your team has put into this product, I have to say I can't afford a $385 (CDN) print core. That's more than double the price of the other AA cores. I may feel differently after some longer term experience with the hardcore/everlast combinations, we'll see, John

Good suggestion! Done. J

Thank you @P3D. I see it the same way. That adds some clarity to the capital plan. The entry barrier for the continuous fibre machines like the Mark Two or X7 is high enough that either there is a clear business case for keeping those machines operating effectively at the price of their consumables, or there isn't. As the printer costs drop (not to say Onyx is cheap, because it's not), the issue gets murkier, especially when one starts saying no to work. Would there have been enough to justify the lower cost printer? Maybe is the answer more and more often. If this test works as I hope, that question, at least, will have an answer. Thanks again! John

Thank you Adam! And a direct thanks to the Owens Corning team for these samples! The tech data is very helpful. What I'd like to propose as a plan, once we have some candidate designs, will be to circle back to you guys to optimise the print settings and strategy. Thanks for your offer of support! Cheers John

That helps tremendously! For sure, the addition of continuous fibre reinforcement is a game changer and Markforged has the success to show for it. Your commentary on Onyx alone speaks directly to this comparison though and adds an important consideration - how long will the part retain the properties it held at the time of printing? If XSTRAND produces better results than straight up Onyx, then it means the holder of a (modified) UM3 or an S5, or for that matter any printer that can handle the Owens-Corning product, should, in many cases, be able to produce the same results, or better than the MarkForged Onyx One printer (which cannot incorporate continuous fibre). I say 'many cases' because there are additional features like the ability to remove and replace the table while embedding parts, etc that are still rather unique and might be required for a given print. For a small shop like mine that gets request for Onyx parts more and more these days, being able to offer a truly equal or better result without the capital cost means being able to compete in a new market with a printer that, unlike the Onyx One, can print with dissolvable or breakaway support, or alternatively, mixed materials (as @SteveCox3D illustrated in one of his excellent posts). Much appreciated! John

I hope I'm not practising bleeding here, but I got the hardcores to print the nylforce with is also nylon/cf,so they should hold up. If I wear out something, it should just be the nozzle, which in my case is replaceable. Yeah, I hear you on cost. That was the main reason for my request for a sample. If it makes the difference and I can justify flowing the cost to a client, then it's great to see the advance. I'll look forward to seeing how you make out with the Zytel. It sounds like getting the printer to play nice has been a challenge. J

Good warning on the wear factor. I'll go with a 3dSolex HardCore with an Everlast (Ruby or Sapphire) nozzle, and the feeders are upgraded, so I am told that should avoid any issues. That said, it likely won't be a dead on match for the CC. John

Well, true to their word, the Owens-Corning folks sent me two 50g samples of XSTRAND GF30, and PA6. And fast! Thank you! Now, I believe I was asked on this forum to post results. I intend to do more than that if I can. As this is an open community I'd like to leverage your smarts to help me compare this material properly. Here is what I have on hand to compare - PLA (I think that will be not be a contender but will be used for a mockups and test prints) -Ultimaker Nylon -Taulman T-glase -Nylforce CF Keeping in mind that I only have 50g of the XSTRAND to work with, I'd like to get this right on the first try if I can. Owens-Corning has a UM3 so I'll apply their print setup recommendations for the XSTRAND. My own UM3 will be modified with BondTech DDG feeders and 3dSolex Hardcore with everlast nozzles. So a bit different than the S5 with CC Red, but I hope close enough. Sadly, I don't have access to anyone printing Onyx on a Markforged at present, but if I'm able to make that connection, I will try and see about getting the same shape printed and used for the trial. Timing - this will take a few weeks, just due to other demands. All that to say, there's no rush. I'd also welcome thoughts on testing strategies. I can apply a force gauge, but the range is the thing. How much force am I expecting this part to withstand? So, thanks in advance for your help! John

Clearly you folks have a business to run and these are business decisions. Fair enough. That said, Cura restricts printcore selections to only Ultimaker provided options, so it tends to backdrive the demand for as much capability in these options as possible. As an alternative, what about allowing user-specified printcore configurations? For those of us with 3rd party printcores, it would be nice to be able to specifiy a nozzle size not offered and might take a bit of pressure off your development team. You can concentrate on the configurations that make sense for you, and users with corner case applications can do their thing. For your consideration... John

Your costs would be less than mine as it looks like you are in the US. I got everything from the gr5 store, he's on this forum. I found the pricing as good as it got and service was fast, even transborder. I'd recommend him. https://thegr5store.com/store/ John

Good afternoon. I have just gone through the mod process, not saying what I did was right, but I have heard from a filament maker that it will work and prevent damaging wear on my UM3. The stock AA printcores cannot tolerate abrasive filaments for very long. The first thing needed is to acquire a hardened printcore. The second is a hardened feeder. I went with a 3dSolex Hardcore printcore AND everlast nozzles with ruby or sapphire. I tend to use a 0.6 size as it seems less likely to clog, but I bought a wider range as it made sense with shipping. Ultimaker has just come out with the Print Core CC Red, specified for abrasives, but I don't know how hard that will be to get. Likewise, the stock UM3 feeder uses drive components that cannot tolerate CF, whereas the S5 feeder is made of hardened material that can. My solution was to buy the BondTech DDG UM3 upgrade. There are two BondTech offerings, you can decide which is best, both are hardened for CF. I have some nylon/CF on hand and am setting up to test another brand, but haven't done anything worth reporting on yet. Others here will likely have some better experience to share. One final thought - if you decide to start out with nylon/CF as I have, you may want to invest in a filament dryer and a drybox to keep the filament as dry as possible during printing. The nylon substrate is very prone to moisture absorption and its impact on print detail and adhesion is significant- probably the only plus side of cold Canadian winters is that I can look forward to easier printing as the house humidity plummets ? Hope this helps! John

This discussion reminds me of a very different situation. I once had a fellow working for me who had, by all accounts, limitless potential. But almost every project he got involved in ended up with high drama situations where people were storming out of the room. I was called in to referee and try and get my staff to back away from defcon 1. It turned out that 'limitless potential' created unique focussing issues. There was never one direction that the guy would settle on. The team would agree on something, charge off in a direction, only to have this fellow rip it all down because he no longer felt it was optimal. There was always a better idea, and the cycle repeated until everyone else exploded in frustration. In the end, I had to pull him off of some of the key, time sensitive projects and look for safer spaces where he could contribute. My director called me in, 'what the heck are you thinking? He's the smartest guy you have. Limitless potential'. I said the first thing that came to mind - 'you know, lightning has just about limitless potential too. But just try to power your house with it.'. At least he laughed before kicking me out of his office, but he got the message. In this setting, there are so many ways an Ultimaker can be used, each one of them with an expansion or enhancement branch. I don't know how you corral all of that into a corporate strategy without turning your entire staff into something that looks like a transporter accident. All I can do is cheer you on and hope you guys get some breathing room. All the best John

Hmmmm. @ctbeke I don't know you, indeed I have never actually met anyone from Ultimaker face to face. But your comments to Kman have really struck a nerve. I don't think it is a personal choice you are making. My concern is regarding the entire crew of the good ship Ultimaker. I am reminded of a very old conversation- 'this job would be so much easier if not for the customers'. Spoken to me by a harassed company owner just before his enterprise imploded. While it has been a rough ride on a number of fronts lately, and I would not presume to advise you on technical details of your products, allow me this - your customers' expression of frustration is not something to be pitied. It is something to be studied. There is as much data there about what you should do next as there is in the system logs you are receiving. In the airline business, the most dangerous time in the lifecycle of a company is when it is expanding. That is when unrecoverable business errors like permanent customer relation fiascos, unsustainable capital projects and loss of the core clientele while courting new frontiers are most likely. None of these steps are done intentionally but are often reactive. There is even a model that describes this. Maybe unrelated, but those in my business will know this - the first sense to falter during a task saturation event is hearing. When I see what is taking place on this forum, I wonder about a parallel condition - have you guys perhaps been in overdrive too long? There has been aggressive expansion on a number of fronts lately. A new printer, new materials, new print cores, new Cura. Likely a number of things I have missed. My hope, and I speak only for myself, is that Ultimaker leadership recognises the need to downshift and give the creative staff a shot at stablizing the products now out in the wild. Part of that is going to require giving your interface staff enough time and resources to listen, and then listen some more, without reacting, until the whole story has been told. Then start to dampen down the oscillations until the line is flat. So an early holiday wish for you - that you guys get the time you need to do what you have to do, and recharge a bit. John

Thanks! While we're on the subject, I have a nylon print coming up later today, support would be good but my last PVA attempt at that wasn't great. Have you tried PLA as a support with Nylon? John

FWIW I no longer use any support strategy where PVA rests atop PLA. Everything has to touch the build plate or I use a different support material. Just too many problems. In my case, I put the PVA in a dryer before and after every use, never hear sizzling or popping so I am pretty sure it's all dry. I think it's just a finicky material and the BB core takes careful management to avoid clogs. I'm sure others have a better technique. Perhaps breakaway would be a better option, but I haven't picked any up yet. John

First off, thank you for organising this AMA. This was my first chance to participate in one and I found it really helpful on a number of fronts. One question I meant to ask and just did not recall on the day, was, has Owens Corning run any comparative analysis on their product vs Markforged Onyx? I appreciate that it would be hard to do this properly as the Onyx product would really have to be printed in the Markforged eco system for a fair test. That said, it occurs to me that an apples to apples comparison would greatly clarify the case for choosing an Ultimaker S5 (or UM3 with modified feeders and print cores) over a Markforged Onyx One. Probably the biggest single capital decision I face in the next 18 months, as I consolidate some of my CNC processes, is whether I can economically produce a true, equivalent-service-life additive replacement to a CNC'ed part. At present there aren't a lot of competitors in the continuous fibre reinforced printing, or office based metal printing, but then the bulk of what I do doesn't need reinforcing. So, for nylon or plastic based parts, If XSTRAND can do (most or all of) what Onyx does, then Ultimaker wins with layer height, dual extrusion and swappable print cores so I can move on to the next job with the same unit. Is there any way to route this question to our XSTRAND gurus? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Cheers John

If you happen to run into issues with the backslashes being interpreted as control characters, there is os.path that will allow you to build this string correctly. FWIW J

Hurray for the gyroid infill! This is going to help me! With thanks to the beta testers. Sadly not me for at least the next 4 or 5 weeks.... J

OK. You might want to try this again in Cura 3.4.1 just to rule out a software issue. Good you checked. But just for clarity - Issues with belts, rods, lube and Z do not affect all layers equally. For Z in particular, it depends where the dirt or other source of friction is. Pulleys slip sometimes as a function of jerk and that is dependent on geometry and print speed. Not all layers print at the same speed with the same acceleration, so tension and tightness issues can surface in wierd spots. The last comment pertains to shrinkage of the model as the filament cools or print temperature and fan settings change. Granted this would be a dramatic example. But since no root cause has yet been found, thought I would verify that the dimensions are too big in spots, and not too small. Cheers J

I shall post results. In fact, what I am hoping to do is print the exact same test part with these samples, compare it to my nylon and nylforce CF. I somehow suspect I will be offering someone a good deal on the nylforce after that.... John

Thank you! That would do nicely! Much appreciated. John

Thanks for your reply. To be clear, I don't have a problem with the premium price. It's just an entry barrier to evaluation. It might help to understand that there are many, many products that have come out lately with pretty impressive claims. It's simply impossible to justify buying a full roll of all of them. I would like to clarify though, is there a shelf life to the GF30-PA6? Thanks John

That's along the same lines as my concern - Getting an evaluation roll (glad to hear there is such a thing in the world) should not be a painful decision. It doesn't have to hold enough filament to fill an S5 space after all - but enough to experiment with the aspects that can ruin a print - adhesion/warping, stringing, detail, edges, support interface, etc. Since each of us use our printers differently with different setups, my experience with the manufacturers' settings has varied from spot on to way off. OK if it's a $40 roll of PLA. Not great with a $100 roll of anything. John