kcel

I just saw the printer throw some breakaway into the prime tower, but only after rendering several layers. What is in the prime tower just does seem to follow the layers that are being laid down in the proper print.

Hi All, I'm running a few prints with Breakaway for supports. Breakaway can be a little gooey and I find my printer dragging a string of Breakaway into the print area after it generates the prime tower. This is frustrating as it can drag it into an area where you don't want any Breakaway filament. To try and fix this I told Cura to generate a prime tower and I moved the prime tower so it is close to the front right of the build plate so it is close to the Breakaway prime blob. Even though the preview in Cura shows the prime tower is composed of both my main printing filament (PLA Tough in this case) and Breakaway the print head NEVER deposits any Breakaway into the prime tower. I'm guessing this might be because I'm using Breakaway for supports and not as actual printing material? I think this is must be a bug though as the preview shows both materials in the prime tower but the actual printer does not follow the preview. Anyone else run into this? Also, I don't recall Breakaway being quite so gooey when I first started to use it. Could something else be wrong?

Hi, Using the latest cura (3.5.1), I've noticed an odd problem. I'm printing using Tough PLA with Breakaway. I'm printing with a raft. What I'm seeing is that the Breakaway filament is primed (good), first layer of raft laid down (good), and then the PLA is primed (still has a couple of layers to go before it would need it) then drags a thread of PLA across the build plate (Tough PLA seems more stringy) so it can go swap back to the Breakaway and complete the raft. I'm left with a thread of PLA embedded in my raft. I've even turned on a prime tower and when it primes the Tough PLA it doesn't go near the prime tower to wipe or anything. So it is priming just for the sake of priming. In this particular case it doesn't really cause a major problem because the raft is, of course, throwaway. But it is odd behaviour and is not consistent with previous behaviour where it would prime the filament only when it first starts to print with it. Cheers!

@Jeffg1 Just stumbled across this post on reddit, and it might help you: Someone made a Cura plugin that allows for controlling an external enclosure fan. So you arrange for the exhaust to be full when your printing PLA but minimal for ABS. This would require the enclosure fan to be somehow hooked up to your UM3X so it can be controlled by gcode. Absolutely no idea if it is possible, but something you could look into.

It looks like the left is too far from the plate. So I would loosen the screw on the left. One thing I quickly learned was not to be afraid of adjusting the level during a print. Keep an eye on it as it lays down the filament and give the screw a quarter turn and watch happens. Repeat as needed until your satisfied with the first layer. FYI, it is possible for the glass to not be entirely level, so there you can never get it 100% right, but you should be able to get very very close.

It sounds like you need to put the printer in a cage. Like the type of cages some companies put their rack servers in so they can be under lock and key. That way nobody can access the printer without the key, but the enclosures can be removed without compromising 'safety'. Unfortunately we live in a world of irrational lawsuits. Short of sticking your finger directly on the heated nozzle I think printers are pretty benign. What happens when someone stabs themselves with the palette knife trying to remove a print?

I tried UMs TPU for the first time last night. Actually first time I've printed flexible material of any kind. I printed a Benchy that came out very well, and that is a reasonably complex model, but does not require supports. I also printed a phone case which came out very nicely as well. According to Ultimaker's material guide (https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/49799-material-compatibility) TPU with PVA or Breakaway is considered experimental, so you may have to do a lot of fiddling to make it work. You have me curious, and as I have TPU and Breakaway currently loaded in my machine I may try a test tonight and see if it works out.

It seems the purge block is dependent on the combination of materials you are using. When I do a dual print with two PLAs or PLA plus PVA, Cura does not generate a purge block, but when I try printing ASA with Breakaway suddenly the purge block appears. You can always turn off the purge block from Cura. I've done it a couple of times without any noticeable issues on the print. I'm guessing their might be some circumstances that not having the purge block might lead to a minor error in your print.

I concur with @kmanstudios The only issue I've had with my UM3X is related to build plate levelling. The active-levelling feature can get itself out-of-whack from time to time and you need to do a manual level. Once you do that a couple of times its easy sailing. And yes, you'll need a 3D Solex for any abrasive materials like carbon fibre, or metal fill materials. The nice thing with the Solex is you can swap the nozzles with various types and sizes.

Supports work very well. One of the reasons I got my UM3E was for handling some prints where I wanted supports. I've worked with both PVA and Breakaway and they both work nicely. One thing to be aware of is that not all support materials work with all print materials. The Ultimaker material resource guide (https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/manuals/materials) is a useful starting point to know what is possible (though I'm sure it's possible to push beyond the boundaries mentioned in the guide). I have a Prusa as well. It's a very good machine. I'm curious what issues your having. Something to keep in mind: There is no magical 3D printer that just magically prints without issue. They all present a learning curve, they all have issues, even an expensive beast like an Ultimaker. So if your having trouble printing with the Prusa, you might run into issues with the Ultimaker that frustrate you as well. Having said that, once you learn how to work your printer, they will serve you well. Despite the few frustrations I've had with my Ultimaker I like it very much and it is my 'go-to' machine for many prints.

Change XY Offset is used to calibrate your print cores. If you install a new pair of print cores you need to do XY Offset calibration where the printer prints a pattern and you use that printed pattern along with a reference sheet (included with your printer) to set the XY Offset of that particular pair of print cores. UM3 should remember that offset from that point on. There are online resources and manuals available. Manual for the XY Offset is here: https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/23125-xy-offset-calibration

There isn't a way to cancel that I'm aware of. Myself and others have brought this up in other threads. Hopefully a future firmware update will allow for this. Part of it has to do with properly controlling the heating and feeding of the print heads. There are certain points in the loading/unloading/changing operation where you might not want the user to be able to cancel, but I think there are some points where you could allow for it. As far as the cause, I think it is the NFC sensor. It expects you to add one roll of spool at a time. I remember during the first week of using my UM3E I had the machine turned off while I mounted two spools of filament with the expectation to turn the machine on and load them. The machine complained about too many filaments and I needed to turn off the machine, remove one of the spools and then turn on the machine and go through the loading procedure. As I have begun using some non-Ultimaker filaments I decided to unplug the NFC sensor and remove the rear spool holder. I now use two independent 3D Printed spool holders and just tell the machine what type of filament I'm loading.

I'm really curious how this could happen. Having recently put my UM3E on a shelf (with my other printers) I feel the sudden need to tether it to something.

One option is to get a air purifier for your office/room. A decent model isn't very expensive and it will refresh the air in the room and help filter out any nastiness. I don't print ABS because it is stinky and general a pain to print with. I do print PLA, various Co-polyesters, ASA (a variant of ABS without the stink), and other filaments and I don't notice much of any smell or irritation even when I don't have the purifier running. As others have stated, buy your filaments from reputable manufacturers, avoid no-name brands even if the price is attractive.

Ah, cool. Thanks for that.