JohnInOttawa

I think your epoxy option might be good. You can get epoxies with the viscosity of water and control the color with additives. In my part of Canada, West System epoxy is available in a wide array of consistencies and hardness, I was able to find one that was fluid enough and had a long enough setting time that I could allow it to soak into spalted maple and fill the internal cavities before setting. Color control was easy with this stuff as well, I needed to match surrounding wood grain and was able to use simple dried out, used coffee grounds. They dissolved beautifully and the result was flat and solid, with enough give to absorb wood movement without inducing stress along the bonds. If you do go the epoxy route, it might be easier to coat the surfaces you don't want epoxy on with a release agent, then you can fill the inlays without worrying about staining. Not sure if that's an option where you are, but hopefully this give you an idea. Cheers John

I'm having a hard time seeing the issue from the image, but if I could clarify, the walls of the yellow box are thicker than those of the grey, just that yellow overhangs the grey both on the inside and outside? If that is the case, is there any possibility you are looking at effects of different nozzle thickness to line thickness, such that the walls are actually coming out a bit thin on the grey? Is there any way you can get a set of calipers on the yellow and grey walls to measure their actual thickness against expected? (might be a challenge for the grey due to the starting layers) Also, could you indicate what material you are using, and if it is the same material, is it roughly the same age and humidity? I recently printed a project with an older spool and found it out of tolerance (vertical holes were too tight for the inserts), reprinted it with a fresh roll and it was perfect. Just some guesses, hopefully something of use in there.... John

Thanks. I was hoping to learn that my technique with the support material was somehow flawed and there was a setting fix. Sounds more like it's a shortcoming to work around. Thanks again and all the best John

Thanks for the suggestion. I had considered doing just that, of course thought it would be more straightforward, and stronger, to do it all together. John

Good morning everyone! This might be obvious to the more experienced, but it's new to me, so here goes: I am printing an adapter (reverse ring for a camera lense) with two different sizes of thread, both ISO metric, one M42 x 1, the other M62 x 0.75. There is a circular flat plate between them that really needs to be flat on both sides. I first printed each thread (UM3, PLA) individually on a test cylinder, test fits went perfectly. So I decided to create the merged STL with the plate between them. To keep the plate flat, I elected to go with PVA support. I selected 'everywhere' instead of 'touching build plate' just to see how it would go. Good news first, the plate came out flat as expected. Bad news, neither the lower, nor upper threads, printed correctly. Both printed fully encased in PVA. They look fine, but neither thread will start correctly and starts to cross-thread in about 1/8 of a turn. Under magnification, instead of the thread geometry being a smooth, trapezoidal cross section as it was without support, it was more like a histogram, with visible gaps between (very straight and flat) filament layers, almost as if there was interleaving between the PVA and PLA. Also, the PVA was a challenge to deal with in the fine metric thread, even after prolonged soaking and cleaning with a toothbrush. I'm still not sure I got it all out. I will try this again with modification to the support to try and move it away from the threads and will ensure it's set to just touching the build plate. Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance John

Hmmmm. I'm still learning this medium, but when I look at the infill picture above, I don't see brittle. I see a torsion box. From that perspective, interior walls that look really weak on their own gain, and add, incredible strength when bonded to the walls, top and bottom, as infill is. Gaps must be managed depending on stress points, but the infill's intrinsic appearance would not have alarmed me. If the torsion box analogy holds, then testing an infill wall on an unfinished/failed print would give misleading feedback about its strength. I have wood webbing inside the torsion box that holds my 600# CNC. I can crack this webbing with my hands, but when the top and bottom are glued and the joints immobilized, the table has no measurable deflection and has a failure load triple what I need. Is it possible that infill enjoys the same benefits? John

You are most welcome ;-) . As my dear departed mother once told me, there are some whose life serves as a fine example. I, on the other hand, was destined to be a cautionary tale..... I do, however, take some solace in watching the absolute carnage my bride wreaks on technology. Not only does it keep me perpetually useful around the house, but it constantly opens new experiences for me. For instance, before meeting her, I had never seen a computer quake in its boots and crash just to get it over with. John

I second the occasional manual level. Automation is fabulous, but I have to remind myself, it all works on engineering assumptions, which don't yet account for everything in the real world. As a fellow noob, I have found I have a remarkable skill for defeating engineering assumptions.... John

This is of interest to me, I have both an Ultimaker Original and UM3, will certainly mod the Original, just need to decide if I will mod the UM3 as well. Shout out to gr5 - great service, the change out tool for the hardcore is most appreciated! Related question - can the tl smoother be used in conjunction with the SilentStepStick (tmc2100) on the UMO? Thanks all for a great thread. John

Great news! Nice to see the print core concept starting to yield more fruit. I wonder what sizes and nozzle types will come next. Maybe something with an abrasive tolerant nozzle like the everlast or ruby in a 0.6? John

If someone in the print core creation department is listening.... Any hope of creating a print core that can process continuous strand CF? Would be a game changer to have an alternative to markforged with the ultimaker flexibility. FWIW John

Thank you! I will go for easy stuff first, GT2. It looks like that also involves replacing the blocks, I presume bushings as well. Does the new lead screw improve resolution noticeably? Excellent info on the electronics. I will look to see what standard the board is at. Cheers! John

Good afternoon everyone. I will start with apologies for likely asking about things on other threads. My (newbie) search didn't get me to a solution, so my hope here is to try and collect the wisdom on one thread. I have one (and maybe two in a short while) Ultimaker Originals, both used. I believe the hotend has been upgraded on the one I have, unsure about the second. Neither have the heated bed upgrade, although one has had the Z leadscrew and nut changed, still using a coupling. The other will almost certainly have the original lead screw. I would like to bring both printers to the same standard so I can run them interchangeably. Most jobs these days run over 24 hours and there is a backlog, so having the ability to have one down for setup, cleaning or maintenance without being pressured to get going would be useful. That's the background. What I think would make sense for me are the following (and here is where you come in to tell me if I am off base) 1) Heated bed upgrade for both. Some issues: I know the UMO heated bed kit is virtually extinct. There are a number of UM2 options. Will the UM2 aluminum plate fit the UMO? It looks identical to me, except for a small tab on the back side which looks benign to me. I can't locate the integrated Z screw/stepper in the places I am looking. Either the pitch is wrong or the motor is. Any suggestions here? If I just change the lead screw and nut to the right pitch and stay with the coupler, do I lose the benefits of the upgrade? Flanged linear bearings - Any suggestions on better or worse sources? Heat plate - ditto 2) Belts - I am thinking GT2 is a better setup and was thinking of sourcing from Robotdigg. It looks like a straightforward mod, but would appreciate knowing the pitfalls, tips and tricks in advance, will order accordingly. 3) Power supply and motherboard. I am almost certainly on the original UM motherboard. I think this will limit my options for which UMO+ or UM2 options I can apply. Specifically stepper motor wise, do I need to choose different steppers for the UMO vs UMO+ or UM2? Is there a critical mod that I have overlooked but the veterans here would recommend? Thanks again for your help, once again, apologies for overlapping on other similar posts. Cheers John

Amedee that's reassuring, thank you. I also appreciate the link to your firmware. Once I have things stable and know what I need, I'll take a peek. Honestly, still on a journey of discovery here. The print quality is already better than printers I have owned before, but due to the mileage on this unit, I suspect there will be a number of things to address in the short term. The challenge for me will be knowing what is normal and what is not. For example, after system boot, I get this slow rising note for about 45 seconds, then it stops (or rises to a pitch I can't hear). It almost reminds me of the sound the old camera flash units would make as they charged, but a number of octaves lower. So far I haven't had a chance to isolate the source. Pretty sure it is not the motherboard cooling fan (unless it is some weird harmonic), I know it is not the nozzle cooling fan. Any thoughts? Much appreciated! John

Thank you for your help with this. I soldered in the new Darlington transistor today and it appears to have done the trick! One question, when I went to test the fan speed, I could not get it to run until I set a value over 200 (I think it was around there). After that I could set slower values and it responded accurately. Does it make sense that I need a minimum initial setting to get it turning, then can set speed after that, or is there still something amiss? Thanks again John

Thank you for your replies. I am encouraged that the issue may be contained to the transistor and the board is durable. In the off chance that I am unlucky and need to replace the board, I would welcome any recommendations on places to get a reliable Duet or official UMO board. Thanks again John

Good morning to all, my first post here. I have acquired an older UMO, it has been working fine, however recently the hotend fan began to act up. (I think an intermittent connection at the connector). I decided to wiggle the wire, got the fan to run, however the machine then shut down, would not reboot for several minutes, then thankfully when I came back later it seemed to boot, except that the hotend fan is now running full from the moment of power on. I have read up on this, I suspect the darlington transistor (BD679) and have ordered two of them. Of course, I am wondering, due to the age of this machine, if the motherboard itself has been damaged or may be approaching end of life. I have spent some time looking for alternatives, but am unsure what motherboard versions will support the UMO and, once that is answered, what sources have proven to be reliable. At this point I would prefer a swappable unit as close to the UM OEM standard as I can get. Thanks in advance for your help! John (Ottawa, Canada)