uncle_bob
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Posts posted by uncle_bob
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4 minutes ago, greatg said:
So,I have purchased 2 new spools of PVA from local dealer, and I dried my existing spools using the Ultimaker suggested process. One of the new spools loads OK. Print starts and runs for 4 hrs. The I get an error 56. Have to pull the power plug to clear the error and the I have to manually remove the filament as the unload feature is grayed out. That's another failed print. Next I try my dried filament. Run the load sequence and get Error 57. Pull power plug, try different bay, loads but doesn't reach extruder. During the priming process no material is extruded unless I apply force to move the filament along. This only works for a few seconds an another error 57 pops up. When reverting back to original S5 sans material station, PVA loads and prints OK. Sometimes I get message that the filament has run out? Seems like PVA is a real PIA!!
Hi
If this was happening on my printer, I'd do a series of hot / cold pulls. I'd also pop the feeder open and clean / blow it out. Last I'd make sure the spring tension on the feeder was correct as I re-assembled it. (mentioned mainly because I often overlook that last step).
If all that did not solve the problem, it's off to swap the core and start looking at Bowden tubes.
Bob
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Hi
I have an S5 Pro Bundle and have not seen the issues you saw. I have indeed seen this and that, but not what you have seen. The S5 has been out for a while and it is a bit odd to have issues like you are reporting. That is in no way saying things did not happen, only that they are out of the "normal range". My guess is there is something different about what you are doing with your printer or wrong with your printer. Again, not to say "doing wrong", simply different. Without being there and directly observing, this would become a "10,000 questions" sort of thing. We are far more likely to get tangled up doing that vs actually finding a root cause.
There are a number of things I would run through on a printer in front of me *if* this was my printer. Mostly they involve checking various mechanical bits and pieces. Each should "look right" and "feel right". That's of zero help if you have not seen and worked with a printer before. Hopefully your dealer *does* have experience. I have had many printers arrive with shipping induced this and that. I always go over any printer before I turn it on. ....... actually not always. Always since I damaged that first one turning it on back about 10 years ago 🙂
The "Arduino" core is present to run firmware based on Marlin in its native environment. It is a *very* well respected approach and pretty much bulletproof. Porting the code to a 32 bit MCU has been a "real soon now" work in progress for many years. They are getting closer and closer.
The Linux side of things handles what you would expect it to: the com with the outside world and fun stuff like that. You likely could bring out a serial port and feed the gcode file into the Arduino to get a full print. The bells and whistles would not work ( = no camera / WiFi / remote status reports). Integrating true real time code into a Linux machine is not at all easy. Linux is not something I would pick as an RTOS.
Bob
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If it's both WiFi and USB then there is an error at the start of the gcode. I normally grab a text editor and look at what it actually says. Often it's some "user definition" sort of line that some guy named Bob has put a type of punctuation (that is not allowed) into.
Bob
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My poorly worded suggestion was aiming at *one* setting controlling all the lights. Once that's unified I can start ranting about the whole setup dimming down under certain conditions. ( print done and needs unload is one, nothing loaded for X hours would be another )
Bob
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Try printing from USB and see how that goes. If it works ok, then WiFi needs to be poked at. Wired Ethernet is generally a better bet on these printers.
Bob
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Hi
On the UM3 each extruder has it's own "happy space". If both are enabled, you get the union of those two spaces. As mentioned in other threads things like "keep away" settings and brim widths impact just how much area you can use.
In some cases Cura is a bit stupid about placing parts. You have to go in and manually move the part a bit to get it to fit. Without the actual model to play with it's hard to know just what issues you are bumping into.
Bob
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Hi
The OP was looking at an S5. We now know the port plays with the Air Manager. If the S3 has the same sort of port then maybe someday there will be add ons for it as well. There is no way to know until Ultimaker sends out a product announcement. They don't seem to be big on the "never ending hints" game.
Bob
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Hi
The WiFi on these printers is a bit "challenged" in terms of holding a connection. It's not only on the S5, the UM3's have the same problem. A wired Ethernet connection seems to be the better choice ....
Bob
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If you just happen to catch the beast as it tries to unload:
A non-square tail end ( = one that is bent with a bit of a hook to it ...) on the filament can catch right at the Material Station feed mouth. It sits just inside the thing *almost* out in the open / headed to the spool. The firmware bashes away at the thing to try to get it to move past the point. It may / may not peal off a part of the end of the filament in the process. Cutting the end of the filament will indeed help with this problem. However a tapered end (which some rolls have) would be the ideal case. ( So yes, I have indeed seen the problem and caught it right at the point it was about to fail).
On some of the rolls that I have seen, there is the case of a "pinched" end. This one is not bent. It necks down right as it bends around into the hub of the spool. The result is about 5 to 10 mm of filament that is barely attached to the rest of it. Sometimes it falls off in the "bin" with the spool. Some times it makes it all the way into the system and back out again (still attached). Sometimes it comes out loose. I have a really nasty suspicion there is a case where it gets lost in the internals and jams things up ..... I have zero proof of that.
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After about 10 minutes of carefully guided work / following the instructions from Ultimaker Support, my "A slot" problem is fixed. It was *not* a chunk of filament stuck somewhere. The issue was much simpler ( = loose connection).
Bob
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Just sliced a Benchie here with gyroid and tough PLA. Didn't print it on the S5 but could. No errors came up. Indeed more info on what happened would be useful.
Bob
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Some of this gets into "try it and see" sort of engineering. For an item like a clip, doing up a very simple part and optimizing it may make sense. That way you don't burn through lots of time and filament each time you do another pass. Once you get the clip to do what it needs to, go back to the full sized part.
Bob
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Hi
I've gone through at least a dozen printer brands and for most of them, several printers per brand over the last decade or more. Eventually keeping up with their issues becomes a pain. Once the manufacturer stops supporting the model, it gets nutty. It gets worse when they go out of business.
Building a printer from scratch ( = from a kit) is a wonderful way to learn what's in a printer. It also gives you a lot of details for tear down and set up of the printer. I've done a lot of kits over the years. The ability to mod / fiddle every little part is great. It also eventually turns the printer into a Frankenstein. Support becomes problematic as a result ....
Tool chain wise, check a few out. Pick a good one ( for your printer) and stick with it. The set of programs that get it done on this printer may not be the same as what gets it done on that printer. Fusion 360 and Cura are my current favorites.
Training wise, YouTube is the way the world works these days. People don't read books, they watch videos. There are an enormous number of 3D printing "channels" out there. Each has their own spin and production values. Some will work for you, others simply will be to painful to watch.
That said:
With Fusion 360, the export from the "CAD" program is already in a format that can be sliced. With other tool chains, you may need a "shim" program between CAD and slicing.
With Cura and *some* printers, the slicing is done *and* all the "load to printer" stuff as well. On other printers, you again are off to some sort of next layer to transport the result to the printer. There may also be another program to monitor the printer. Indeed I have a couple printers here that *only* work with the manufacturer's cloud slicer and support program. There are *lots* of variables.
Ultimately what it all does:
1) Takes in a sketch and puts it in some sort of CAD format.
2) Converts that CAD to and STL format ( shells that can be sliced)
3) Converts (slices) the STL to GCODE (the text file that drives the printer or CNC machine)
4) Loads the GCODE into the printer and launches the print
Since GCODE is just a text file, you can write it with a text editor. Why you would do that is a bit unclear, though I have done it. It is a very common "language" to drive all sorts of stuff so there are tutorials on it as well.
Bob
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I have at least one NFC spool that simply will not "log in" on the Material Station. I keep meaning to run it down to the UM3 empire and see what they think about it. I've tried it in multiple slots multiple times and it simply does not get read.
On a happier note: Another successful print yesterday and another chugging along today ....
Bob
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So far here, there have been zero issues with the air handler. It fires up when it should and goes off when things are done. The issue mentioned above on the material station was a one off and has never come back. There *is* now an issue with slot A on the material station ( = it no longer recognizes inserted filament). I have an email into the dealer that hopefully they will respond to "real soon now" about that. I have over a hundred printing hours in on the material station at this point. Only two failures so far.
One good story about the material station:
Last night I had a spool get tangled on position C. Normally this gets to a "grind it down" situation on an UM3. It should give you a filament error on the bare S5. The material station "happily" unloaded that spool and went on to the next one. Not a big deal, it's *supposed* to work that way. It's just nice to see it doing what it's supposed to do.
Bob
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One intermediate solution - put a button into the Cura / monitor / remote manager interface to clear the message. More or less:
User goes to load the new print via Cura
Notices the "is build plate clear" warning
Looks at the camera and sees that the plate is empty
Hits the button to clear the message
Still "safe" and it eliminates the long walk down three floors to push a button on the printer.
Indeed I *have* started a print on top of an old one. The result was not at all pretty. The damage to the printer was not massive but it did take a while to fix.
Bob
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I'm more concerned with an "overview" look at the variables (and process of generating them) than any one specific number. The end goal is to be able to tweak profiles so they work better in the material station. That said "no load move factor" indeed has me wondering just what it could be .... I suspect I'll have to by somebody a beer .... 🙂
Bob
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40 minutes ago, SandervG said:
What if instead of someone tediously rinsing the engine with too much resources that would also take too much time, could be optimised by only a fragment of the time and material necessary to perform? The procedure would be less intrusive and you wouldn't need to make any sacrifices to the reliability. That (reducing the time and material necessary to perform this task) is something we are actively working on as we speak.
Reducing the amount of times that material is being pushed through the feeders is always a good idea. You can request it on Github as a feature, I read that you were familiar with it.
🍻
Hi
The risk of simply putting suggestions straight into the "add this" pile is that there is some blindingly obvious reason *not* to do this or that. Indeed what is very obvious to the world may or may not be obvious to one individual. That's been proven a lot of times in the past ....
Discussion *is* a good thing.
Bob
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4 hours ago, SandervG said:
Hi Dennis, thank you for your fast response. It's correct that the S5 alone does not run through the same cycle. This is because when you switch material on the S5 this requires some manual work and personal attendance, and it is not geared towards an automatic process from one print job to the next.
Now if you add the Material Station to the mix (and potentially the Air Manager), you now have a station that should by itself unload material at the end of a print job and load new material that matches your new print job. To make sure this goes smoothly this prime + cold pull is inserted in the process.
I think your analog example would make more sense if the engine plan would fly with fuel A first, but it can also run on fuel B and C and you don't know yet which fuel will be used for its next flight. So when your flight ends, you clean and rinse the engine and leave it empty for the next flight and you fill it up with the whatever fuel you need for that flight.
(hopefully this makes sense and I didn't make it more confusing!)
Hi
..... as the manager of the airline, I *do* know what fuel is next up. 🙂
How about a flag somewhere to let me provide this information to the material station (from Cura or via the touch screen) ?
If all I'm doing is endlessly printing the same material again and again (yes it's boring ... welcome to the real world) that would save a lot of wear and tear on the system.
If I change my mind and now want to use something else .... then do the whole super duper deprime reprime process. ( = I would need a button to make that happen as well ).
Yes there is a bit of firmware to code to make this happen. That's why you have firmware guys. Indeed they do eventually retire and go off and buy things like S5's to play with ... 🙂
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I believe I heard that somebody was buying the next round of beer ??? 🙂
Bob
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4 hours ago, SandervG said:
Hi, thank you for your message. The profiles for materials supported in our marketplace are being actively worked on as we speak and should be made available in batches in the near future.
Exactly because of these reasons.
Hi @uncle_bob, I would be curious to get more information on why they don't work or what makes you think why they don't work. We would love to help you.
Hi, can you elaborate on what is happening why it does not reach the print core? As Uncle_Bob said, the Material Station is more aimed at keeping your material dry, instead of drying it when it is wet. Depending on the shipping conditions or what happened to the material before it was packed or inserted in the Material Station, it could be worth your while to dry it before loading it.
Hi
All the details of my multi bucket 2AM failure on the material station are in the "other thread" on the material station. I saw your question there before I saw it here. Indeed the cascade failure has not happened again and operator error could have been part of the issue. Also I'd guess that lots and lots of power cycles / reboots could get things into a bit of a mess.
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Is there any detailed explanation / definition / help on the various parameters associated with how a filament functions in the material station? Some of it is pretty obvious (retract distances / speeds / temperatures). Other items ( surface energy, no load move factor) are a bit obscure. Even their connection to the material station is a bit unclear other than comments in git hub code on the fdm_matterial file format. The fact that the move factor gets carried out to 9 decimal places is a bit exciting. Measuring anything to that level .... yikes ....
Bob
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Hi
Ok, here's what happened (as best I can recall .... it *was* 2AM in the morning):
1) Came down and spool A had finished. I had the same material in B,C,D and E. I had a different material in F. Only F was on extruder 2, the rest were on extruder 1.
2) Message on the screen was Error 58(?) see Ultimaker.com .... off I go and learn that a reboot is the only solution. This does not make me happy 😞. The print has been running for quite a while. The message is talking about position A
3) I check all the things indicated on the web page and reboot the printer by unplugging everything and powering everything down. I then plug it all back together.
4) That clears the issue on A. It then tries to load from B and errors out with one of several errors. Again the only option is to reboot. I do so and the same error pops up on B. I then unload B and it stops complaining about B. It then tries to load C. Up pops another 5x series error. Reboot again and the error is still there. Unload C and it goes away. Step and repeat for every single position.
The biggest surprise was that the feeder that was *not* on extruder 1 also errors out. It was only after I unloaded it as well that I could get to any sort of screen to control the printer. Keep in mind that *everything* above was under firmware control on the printer. I did not start another print. I did not have any input to the printer in any way.
My guess is that it was lonely and wanted to play at 2AM .... 🙂
Once all was unloaded and there were no more error messages, I called it a night. I reloaded in the morning and the print eventually completed. Since then this particular issue has not repeated its self. Indeed position A now has failed, but that likely is something else entirely.
Is there something I have not included? Of course there is !!!!
There was more filament down in the feeder on portion E than there should have been. I must have manually feed a bit when loading that spool. How much? apparently enough to muck things up (3 or 4" maybe). Why it couldn't tell me to re-do E and be done with things ... no idea. Why this had an impact on F .. no idea.
Another guess is that all the unplug / power up / power down cycles got it a bit confused. I probably cycled it 10 times total.
Bob
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Ok, that makes sense.
Bob
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Did this get fixed? If so any feedback on what the issue was?
Bob
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The issue is not unique to the S5. The UM3's (and I suspect the 2 as well) also do the same thing. As long as you are using standard Cura profiles, you will get a bit of "extra" infill. This is the desired thing vs too little infill. As mentioned above, they can print faster if they do it this way.
Bob
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To answer the question:
Half way on the tension indicator is the typical setting. It should be fine there for Tough PLA.
One thing that has not been mentioned is to do a series of hot / cold pulls on the extruder to make sure it is good and clean. As "stuff" builds up in the extruder, the back force on the feed gear builds up. At some point it grinds the filament rather than moving it forward. ( = look for grind marks when the failure occurs ...).
Bob
Non square S5 printer
in UltiMaker 3D printers
Posted
Hi
There is a video showing how to play with the mechanicals. Assuming you followed that and loosened the gears, best guess is that you didn't get them tight enough when you finished the last adjustment. The other thought would be that you have a belt that is loose and slipping.
Bob