uncle_bob

Hi If the "gunk" got into the fans and locked them up ... replace them. Having them lock up for who knows how long is not a good thing. Having them burn out / lock up a month from now means further damage down the road. Bob

Hi Deciding to use grease on the rods is also a bad idea ..... I have data on this 😞 Data was from a UM3, but I'd bet the same applies to an S5. Bob

Hi I've always run on whatever the most recent firmware is. I check for a new version about once a week. Right now I'm on the latest and greatest, version 5.2.11. The S5 is on 5.4.27. Bob

Hi Ok, the rest of the info on the "magic" PCB and clips: The main circuit board in the Material Station is held in place with a bunch of plastic "clips". The bottom of the printed circuit board has plated contact areas on it. There are spring loaded contacts on the assemblies below the PCB. If the clips come loose, no more spring force on the contacts and no more function from those assemblies. The board is roughly as long as the Material Station is wide. ( = it's. a pretty long board ) It's not going to take a lot of nonsense (twist / bump / shake) in shipping to get a clip started loose. Once one comes off, I suspect you will get a "cascade failure" of the others. Fixing the issue is likely a one time thing (we'll see) and it takes < 10 minutes. The worst part by far is lifting the S5 off of the Material Station to get at it. At least in my case, the feeder process *did* work fine "as delivered" the clip finally let go far enough well after things were set up and prints had been run. What if it keeps happening? A couple very carefully placed gob's of electronic grade RTV would lock those clips in place pretty much forever. If you need to disassemble, the RTV will peal off. Yes, that would be more of a hassle than the current approach. Bob

Hi I'd bet there is a skinny little cable going from the display to the board. One end or the other has worked it's way out of the connector. Does that make it a quick fix? Only a phone call to support will tell ..... Bob

Hi I do not see this issue on either of my UM3's. They both run with "stock" AA cores. Last time a manual level was done ... hmm .... errr .... two years ago maybe? Its been all auto level since then. Prior to the manual leveling one of them had issues with the auto level. The problems do not sound like what's going on above. Bob

Hi I've had it happen because a part separated (split) while being printed. Indeed that should never happen but it did :(. Like the others, I have also seen it happen from parts coming loose. I have not (yet) seen it happen on my UM3's or S5. I make no predictions about the future .... The cleanup process is back and forth with the heat gun and the needle nose pilers / tools. Heat a little and then pull a little. If you get everything soft at once, it just will ooze around and get worse. If it's not soft enough, you will have to pull way to hard to get it off. Depending on just what is stuck where, a few "strategic" cuts with diagonal cut pliers can speed things up. Be very careful if you take this route. You only want to cut filament and not some vital component that happens to be hidden under it !! I like a "small tube" heat gun for this sort of thing. I also like one that does not get super monster honking hot. Multiple temperature settings can be a good thing on a heat gun. I'd be happy to point you to one I use, but mine has been out of production for a long time .... sorry about that. This is about as close as I can find in a quick Amazon search. Other than it turning up in the search I know absolutely nothing about it: https://www.amazon.com/Heat-Gun-Vinyl-Heat-Shrink-iHGun-1-Accuracy-Temperature-Adjustable/dp/B0752Z4165/ref=sr_1_50_sspa?keywords=heat+gun&qid=1580412530&sr=8-50-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUE1MlNERUlSRlY3R0wmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA3OTk3NjRIS0tZVDhXTFI0QVkmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDI3MjEwOTI4OEVCUUY4U0RHTzkmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGZfbmV4dCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU= Things to check in the future: 1) How are the parts being held to the build plate? If I stop a test print and give the part a shove, how well is it working? 2) Are the magnets in place on the head cover? Does it snap nicely when it is shut? If it gets bumped by hand does it flop down? 3) Do prints turn into "spaghetti festivals" ? If so, figure out what is causing that failure (could be filament / settings related). If the print goes nuts, this can be the result. 4) Start back up with quick / simple prints you can keep an eye on. Make sure all is working well. Be very picky about what is going on ( = being a perfectionist at this stage is ok). Once you have a few dozen runs that all went well, relax and kick back again. Lots of fun !!! Bob

Hi At this point it's not real clear that anybody outside the "select few" at Ultimaker know what some of the parameters mean. My only point was that when you run into those, just leave them as they are. The now show up in a lot of the default material files. Bob

Hi Indeed the file on Git does help. However you ultimately get to things like "surface energy" and a whole bunch of things described as "material station internal". Bob

Hi Keep in mind that boards *do* go bad. The flash memory on your typical MCU has a very finite number of rated re-program cycles. If you have been doing a *lot* of firmware updates, you may have hit this limit. I (unfortunately) have proven this a couple of times in the past ...... 😞 Bob

Hi If your program creates bad STL files, find another program to use. I've spent a lot of time with "fixer" programs. They are not the right answer. There are a *lot* of programs out there that you can use. Some are free, others cost money. In some cases a $100 program is the better answer than a "broken" free one. Bob

Hi The more complicated question is - where do you get information on some of the more obscure settings? That seems to be a bit difficult. Best to start from a material that is close to your target and just leave them alone. Bob

Hi Body1.stl loads into Cura fine here. It slices ok and says it will print in 17 minutes. That's with no support so the print would fail. I'd start by backing out the plugins. I have an auto orientation plugin installed, but maybe not the exact same one. I do not yet have OctoPrint set up on this version of Cura. Bob

Hi I have never done it for Lulzbot, but I have done it for other brands. There certainly is a way to do it. In most cases it's been a three steps forward / two steps back sort of thing. You loose some stuff they coded into their version and need to compensate. The only way I've ever done it is to just try it and see. Bob

Hi I've spent *many* years on *many* printers trying to get them to go faster. It never seems to pay off. 🙂 So far, I have not seen the problem above on either of my UM3's. Over the years, I have indeed gotten bad bearings, both in new printers of various manufacture and as replacement parts. There often is a "trick" way to orient the bearing for best results. No idea what that orientation would be in this case or even if I applies. Simple test would be to rotate it about 45 degrees and see if that helps. Bob

Hi Mostly I'm trying to keep up with the S5 Material Station. It's doing fine at this point, but forums always seem to be the way to stay on top of any "new to you" product. There is no way to put everything you need to know into a manual. Bob

Hi I believe there is a fan on the back side of the printer than moves air in to cool the electronics. I don't have a 2E+ so I'm guessing here. IC = Integrated Circuit. A small bit of electronics stuff. In this case a chip that is specifically designed to take high level commands from the computer in the UM2E+ and turn them into signals that actually run the stepper motors. Bob

Hi Just a strange way I write things sometimes. Sorry about that. Bob

Hi If indeed you have unloaded all the filament from the Material Station, there is no obvious reason to keep it running. That doesn't help much if the printer is routinely in use. Indeed getting the lights turned down on mine is pretty close to the top of the wish list here. Bob

Hi Did that image recognition stuff for a living in another life ( = *many* years ago). Getting it to work right with the limited camera view would mean moving the build plate while shooting pictures. The CPU in these printers really isn't very big. I doubt you would get the job done. For great big prints - sure, you can spot them. For a thin print of a couple layers .... not so easy. Throw in things like tape on the build plate and it all gets really hard. Bob

Hi ...... and I was hoping for built in Disco .... 🙂 =========== Does the same port / same idea / same developer mode apply to the S5 and UM3? Simply put, can I shoot key / value combos at all of them and control the lights on the whole batch? That and and random RPi would get me to the desired goal of turning everything down (or up) at the same time. Bob

Hi I run a second camera on my UM3ext because you really can't see everything with the one stock camera. Generally when I see the message, the response is "I took it off, it's right here in my hand". There is no need to see the build plate 🙂 Bob

Hi First off, what is in the Ultimaker printers is based on Marlin, but is not simply pulled 100% from there. They *do* indeed make a number of changes to match up with their printers. Exactly what those changes are is something I've never dug into. The Linux / Marlin divide is the same as what is done on a lot of printers. I have many printers that do pretty much the same with hardware I have "cloned" onto them. The normal process is that the gcode goes into the Marlin board at the start of the print. Once the print gets going, the Linux board is not part of the printing process. Is that exactly how UM handles it? I'd bet it is, but I've been wrong before. Stability wise, the Arduino code (whatever name you put on it) does not just lock up. If you go shopping for another printer, if it's a FDM machine there is a very good chance it has the same fundamental computing setup at the core of the machine. Indeed, machines with "other" cores (there are a few, I have one) are no more stable. Again, not much help .... sorry about that. Bob

Hi The stepper motors are driven with little driver IC's. When the IC's overheat the motors miss steps. The net result is a shift in the printing location. I'd check the vent fan on the printer and make sure it is not blocked in some way. Bob

Hi There's no doubt that the Material Station adds a bit of drag to the whole process. What was a "marginal but works" setup is now in the "not so much" category. I've spent a lot of time on the UM3's chasing feed issues. Often there is no one single / obvious reason for the problem. ========= One thing I've often wondered about (but never really addressed) is running filament type A and then switching to filament type B. If the two have very different characteristics they may not play nice if mixed. Clearing out *all* of A before B comes could be quite difficult. Say one is a 250C material and the other is a 190C. The 190C may turn to carbon before the 250 melts. Yes that digression likely has absolutely nothing at all to do with your problem. (The PVA prints on a different core) .... sorry about that 🙂 ==== You *might* try bumping the temperature on the PVA up a bit. On anything other than an Ultimaker, that would be very early in the debug list. The obvious risk is making things worse. Bob