akke

Besides the above problem I do wonder if it’s normal to see horizontal banding like seen on the picture below. If this is normal, then it’s okay but if you think this is an issue it might be related?

On my new s5 i’m having underextrusion issues in top/bottom layers and it seems to be random and/or model dependent... Small prints usually do not have this issue but anything bigger is usually underextruded at some point. I’ve seen it happen in bottom layers even at the early beginning in layer 2 or even layer 3 (after layer 2 was printed without issues...) It happens in top or bottom layers and sometimes it’s underextruding a whole full layer and the next one is fine again. I've not seen it happening in other places. With some models the printhead needs to travel while printing the top layer and I’ve seen it printing fine and starts under extruding after a travel move (and back okay after another travel move sometimes..) I don’t know what to make of this but many of my prints have bad top/bottom layers and I need to get this fixed. Any idea’s what could be the cause?

I checked the fan but it’s correctly installed. A new printhead pcb is on it’s way to me to try....

I completely dismantled the printhead, checked the PCB but it all looks perfectly fine. The cable from the sensor to the PCB was fine too but the connectors are a bit loose. I think it's normal but just to be sure I soldered them in place to rule out this as a possible problem at least. After putting everything back together the problem looked solved: I was able to perform active leveling 13 times but the 14th time it failed again. Damn! It's strange. The problem is very random. Some days it works most of the time. Other days it fails most of the time. I have no idea what could be causing it and I don't think there's any other device nearby that could be causing interference. There's a monitor 1.5m away and some other devices in the same room but nothing is touching the printer. The closest thing, next to the printer, is a formlabs form 2 printer sitting there with about 40cm space between them. But that formlabs printer is not even powered on.... I'm thinking about replacing the printhead PCB but it's more a guess, maybe it's just throwing away money? but how else can I find the root cause? Also, I do think that auto leveling doesn't work as it should. Sometimes it looks like it's printing too far from the printbed and when I restart the same printjob it's better. I could disable active leveling and see if it still happens, if not: the problem is active leveling. If it still happens it must be something else. But the fact that active leveling sometimes fails with that error about differences in nozzle height is something we should be able to fix somehow...

When doing the captice sensor test using the maintenance menu most of the time it reports "GOOD" but sometimes it comes back with an error telling me there is some interference. So I replaced the cable and the first few days the problem (where active leveling fails telling me the height difference is incorrect...) did not come back but then suddenly a few days later the problem was there again. It looks like the cable wasn 't bad after all. Now when I try to print sometimes active level fails, sometimes it works. I can sometimes fail like 3 or 4 times in a row and the next time it continues and starts printing. But I do have underextrusion problems too now. I've not been able to diagnose it yet but I think the printer is now printing too far from the bed. This could be an active level issue too offcourse. Could it be a broken printhead PCB? If I'm not mistaking this PCB has all the active level sensor logic and maybe I can try replacing this one? .. except it's not cheap 😞 ...

My UM3E's active leveling system is somehow broken. It doesn't always work anymore. Sometimes it starts the active leveling process, the glass moves to the top but doesn't touch the nozzle. Then repeats the same process for the other printcore and comes back with a message telling me the height difference is incorrect and stops. After repeating a couple times the printer starts it's printjob but with the issue described above. I've ordered a new cable for the printhead as someone told me this could be the problem. I'll give it a try!

I wonder why buildtak sells these plates for the S5 while active leveling can not be disabled. Since the S5 is measuring at a lot more different locations the buildtak sheet will be ruined after a couple prints because buildtak doesn't like the hot nozzle tip to touch it...

I'm printing a scaled architectural design but I'm having issues. As you can see in the pictures there's a very visible horizontal line, on the whole print, where the bottom plate finished and the walls started to print. It looks like the bottom plate shrinked more, especially the layers with infill, compared to the layers with only walls or the top/bottom layers of the bottom plate. I know the material shrinks when cooling down but on this print it looks really ugly and I'm wondering if this is still normal? Or what can be done about this to prevent it from happening? Any toughts? I printed this with Ultimaker PLA White. Maybe other materials have a lower shrink ratio and are better suited for this particular printjob?

Buildtak sells flexplate systems for ultimaker S5. Does this work with active leveling? Or do we need to disable active leveling like with UM3 ?

I'm not totally sure about this. I'm wondering if it's not an auto level correction fault or something.

I don't see anything wrong with the axles. All 4 sliding blocks are fit perfectly on the axles. I tried pushing on them but it's not moving so to me it looks like it's perfectly fine.

When doing manual leveling I always make sure to not touch anything at all (except the calibration card ONLY) and I'm positive that the friction between the nozzle and the bed feels the same at all 3 points before I hit the "confirm" button. So I don't think I'm doing this the wrong way. I'll check the axles in the sliding blocks in a couple minutes when I get back home and report back.

Just to make sure the spring isn't causing issues I've ordered the DR2160 spring to test with as soon as it arrives. If anyone has anything else I can try, please speak 😉

Distance is about 14mm so it should be good. Yet, it keeps printing like this every time. I do use ultimaker adhesion sheets but that shouldn’t be an issue, right...

Hi, As explained, I already did manual leveling.. multiple times actually. It doesn’t help. Any more advice?

I have an UM3E with automatic bed leveling enabled but whenever I try to print a big object, the first layer isn't printed evenly on the plate. Let me explain: At the front of the plate the first layer is squished to the plate as it should. I think it's more or less a perfect first layer. From the front to the back I can clearly see that the printed skirt gets smaller and smaller. At the back of the plate it's barely staying sticking on the adhesion sheet. I already tried manual leveling using the menu and using the calibrarion card. After manual calibration I set automatic leveling frequency to "Never" and tried again. Yet, I got exactly the same problem. So I wonder: Is the UM3E still applying automatic bed correction when level frequency is set to "Never" (from a previous probe). If so, can this be disabled? So I can still get it printed without relying on automatic leveling to function properly. I also want to fix the automatic leveling but what can I do? The spring at the back of the build plate is weaker compared to the ones at the front. Is this an issues for the automatic leveling system? If I'm not mistaken the weaker spring at the back is normal for older UM3E printers. But Ultimaker doesn't speak about it on any web page so I don't think we, as a customer, were supposed to replace it with a stiffer one? Any ideas or tips to fix this issue are welcome. Thanks!

Hi, I already had all of them (Z distance, top distance and bottom distance) at 0. It's the default, isn't it? I'm working with the default settings/profiles. I tried again today, with a large rectangle and it looks like on the front right the layers are okay but more on the left and to the back it's clearly underextruding. This makes me think that maybe the bed is not level but I have active leveling enabled and it measures the distance before every print. So the bed shouldn't be the problem, right? (And the first layer of PVA prints perfecly fine. And printing PLA on the bed prints perfecly fine too. So this doesn't make me think it can be the bed level...)

I have a 0.25mm AA printcore with ultimaker PLA loaded. The second printcore is a 0.4mm BB printcore with ultimaker PVA. Now, when printing with both cores separately, everything is working perfectly fine. They both print just perfect. When printing a model with PVA supports it all starts perfectly fine until it starts printing the first PLA layer on top of the PVA supports. It does print it, it does stick as expected.. but it's underextruding. I think Cura is printing PVA with a 0.2mm layer while still printing the PLA with a 0.1mm layer (=only option for 0.25mm core) and I think it's starting to print the first PLA layer too high from the PVA supports. Has anyone else tried printing with these cores? Printing tiny models usually isn't a problem but as soon as the model is like 5cm or bigger you can clearly see it's underextruding while printing the first PLA layer on top of the PVA supports. Is this a Cura bug?

I want to print a diadem with rounded edge on both sides using a 0.1mm layer height. So I used a PVA raft and it worked perfect but after washing I noticed the bottom layer wasn't as smooth as the top layer. Looking at the settings I noticed this happened because the initial layer height of the first printcore (PLA) is set at 0.27. Changing it to 0.1 also changes the initial layer height of the second print core (PVA) which is not what I want because I guess it's a bad idea to use 0.1 as the first layer on the glass plate? Cura tells me the initial layer height can only be changed for both printcores at once. Is there a solution for my problem or will I have to file a bug report/feature request? Thanks

My camera is no longer working either. I updated firmware recently too, so I assume the firmware has an issue. I can also no longer calibrate x/y because it is printing it without any filament being extruded...

I have exactly the same issue! 😞