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TwoDrunkOwls

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    Ultimaker 3
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    US
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  1. SandervG, All photos below TRUST IN GOD BUT KEEP YOUR POWDER PVA DRY! line in my last post (dated November 9) in that thread were not put there by me. The fourth photo down is a close up of the horse's left ear. I had deleted that photo altogether. Let me know if you need any more info, or if you wish me to add photos to this thread to test things out. Thanks for your time, Dennis
  2. I agree, humidity is the culprit for this print. The PVA was out in the open the entire time. Drying out the PVA some changed the printing characteristics. My PVA support structure is stronger, less flexible, and looks clearer. I still see a few bubbles in the extrusion but nothing like before. I will try this print again when I know my PVA is dry. I have resisted doing hot and cold pulls so far because the PVA always starts printing again after having been 'clogged' and I have seen no sign of charring. It started printing again after this failure like it never had a problem. I have been having intermittent PVA extrusion problems which may also be moisture related. (You can see my long winded posts here) The problem has lessened some since I dried out my stuff but it still happens. I do not understand how steam, in essence, could cause this. I will attempt to find out though. Seemed to make sense to me. When the moisture content evens out inside the bag the descant will trap what it can. Seemed better than trying to get the much cooler room air to absorb it. I'll try it their way in the future. For now I will dry material out on the printer bed, under a towel. I'll use a better way in the future. Vacuum perhaps. When I print I'll use my old Prusa MMU spool holders inside a plastic bag. The seal around the filament is not the greatest but it should let me print until I find something better. Plenty of options out there. At least I get to use something from that miserable first revision Prusa multi-material "upgrade". Thanks for your replies. TRUST IN GOD BUT KEEP YOUR POWDER PVA DRY!
  3. Technically speaking this site is a breeze to use. I have limited forum experience and the ease of use is welcome. However, when I add photos to the text they sometimes end up being entered twice, once where I want them, and again at the end of the post. I even have photos show up that I have deleted. What am I doing wrong? See my last response in this post for an example. I had deleted the picture of the horse's ear altogether. Thanks ahead of time.
  4. Thanks for the replies. I dried out the PVA as well as I could. I then put the PVA and the spool holders from my failed Prusa multi-material upgrade in a plastic bag with descant and sealed the bag as best I can while printing. This setup will be upgraded. It is now apparent that the first, and most important, item on my pre-print checklist is 'dry PVA'. I was able to successfully print a smaller version of the cat. The support interface regions came out nasty looking, but this was printed at .2 mm layer height with just a few clicks of the mouse. No sign of intermittent extrusion but the support it is only 30 mm high in this print. I expected it to look better, using UM3's materials and profiles, but at least it printed. I was also able to print my horse. However, the support did intermittently fail to extrude. Not nearly as bad as before but it did weaken the support structure, allowing it to warp and move around, which lead to failure. I'm not sure at which point the support failed. It had made it above the eyes last I looked, but was strewn all over the place in the morning. The print came out nice but I consider this another failure and still have no faith in this printer's ability to print support material "as advertised". Again, the support interface areas are a bit rough but look much better at .1 mm layer height (I think, it may have been 1.5 mm). If the support hadn't failed even I'd be happy with this.? So..... this makes: 9 failed prints 2 successes (one looks like crap) 1 fail that still came out well. Butterflies have been replaced with disappointment. While I am greatly disappointed with this printers ability to print support material as advertised I no longer worry that I have made a mistake. If this is the best there is, so be it. The support material intermittently failing to extrude does still worry me though. I hope it's as simple as moisture issues. Exploration and learning is 3/4 of the reason why got into this hobby so I've gotten what I asked for. I'll see what happens when I am confident my PVA is as dry as I can get it. Thanks for all the suggestions and links. From now on my new motto is.... TRUST IN GOD BUT KEEP YOUR POWDER PVA DRY!
  5. I am having problems getting a successful PVA support print on my new UM3. I decided to try the gyro because it came with the printer. If anything was going to succeed it would be this, right? Wrong. All but one of my previous attempts using PVA had failed. See this post. I was getting gaps in the support where it failed to extrude. The gyro support printed OK for many more layers than any previous attempt but then, in the last couple of hours of course, the support stopped extruding, as seen here: It looks to me that the support began extruding worse and worse until it failed: If you look closely you can see 'stripes' in what little PVA was being extruded: Has anyone seen this before? While I am not sure about the strange stripes I am thinking the extrusion problem is moisture related. If this is moisture related, why does too much moisture in PVA stop printers from extruding? I extruded a good two meters of PVA after I aborted the print. There was no sign of cooked PVA but it had bubbles all through it and snapped a few times so the stuff was wet. I am drying it out on the print bed now as per Ultimaker's instructions. It will be interesting to see if the desiccant turns color at all (turns green with moisture). It did when I dried out PVA that came with the printer. Any suggestions? Words of wisdom? What the heck are those stripes? Why is the sky blue? Regards, TwoDrunkOwls
  6. Hello, I am the new owner of an Ultimaker 3. (I love saying that, even though I've had little luck with the blasted thing so far) Anyhow, I'm trying to print my favorite practice model of an Egyptian cat. Unfortunately the support material stops extruding at regular intervals, causing the print to fail as seen below. The grey one in the back was one I had left over from my Prusa I3 MK2/S. The silver one in front is an earlier UM3 attempt that failed the same way, the support gets knocked off at the week point and I have to abort. This print also failed twice for the same reason. You can see the gaps in the support. At first I thought it was moisture in the PVA. I had snapping and bubbles in the PVA that came with the printer but the Egyptian Cat PVA was brand new and printed clear and silently. I originally posted this in another forum and Community member Smithy suggested this: In my opinion you could have to different problems: 1.) PVA stops extruding (moisture?, clogged nozzle in the BB core - do you use the BB core for PVA?) 2.) support structure not stable enough - there are some Cura options, but I am not the support structure expert. Community member Shadowman asked me what version of Cura I was using. 3.5.1 was my answer. He then suggested this: I asked because I have read where others were having support issues with Ultimaker Cura 3.5 and 3.5.1 and reverted back to using 3.4.1. I use 3.4.1 and until today when I am trying the Ultimaker Breakaway material; all of my prints have required PVA support. The only issue that I have had with PVA has been the Prime Tower. Unless someone has a better or more viable suggestion I would encourage you to try Ultimaker Cura 3.4.1. I am using the BB core. My filament was wet but still failed after being dried out, as did the new package of PVA. I had a 2 day print of the 'gyro' going at the time and that was going OK until the end (see my other post in this forum). I saw no sign of cooked PVA and the extrusion had no bubbles that I could see. In my experience a clogged nozzle stays clogged. Is that correct? As for the Cura version I will try version 3.4.1 tomorrow. I have the PVA drying on the print bed. I hope to have time to draw up a simple test model for this problem. Have any of you seen this before? I found one post that had a similar issue with the AA .4 mm print core but they never received any replies. I can't help but think that the apparent regularity of the intervals of poor extrusion is a clue. What do you think? Regards, TwoDrunkOwls
  7. Smithy, I do understand that the UM3 is not top of the heap. The parts coming out of the printers at work teach me that every day. However, and I say this with all due respect, one look at UM's website tells me that support printing is where they believe this product shines. That is why I am so bummed out, not to say worried. I'll give you last word on that if you want it.?? As for moisture in the PVA I am with you. After 2+ days of printing the gyro failed. The support material printed worse and worse and then stopped altogether. Has to be moisture. I hope. I am going to start two topics in the Materials forum, one for the Egyptian Cat and one for the gyro. Most likely should have put this there to begin with. I guess I'll reserve this thread for my posts stating how much I am freaking out that this printer and I are now 1 for 10 using support. That's: 9 fails 1 success 1.6 million butterflies in my gut hinting that I may have made a big mistake. Oh yeah, this is the only successful print. I shall name him '3500'. Because so far, THAT'S HOW MUCH HE COST ME! Sorry about the 'all caps'. Whew! I feel much better.? Regards, TwoDrunkOwls
  8. Thanks, I will give it a try when the gyro gets done printing.
  9. Thanks for the welcome Smithy, As for your suggestions: 1.) PVA stops extruding (moisture?, clogged nozzle in the BB core - do you use the BB core for PVA?) The PVA that came with the printer came out of the bag snapping and popping with too much moisture. It was still flexible after it printed. I dried it out on the build plate for 4 hrs and it printed much better. It was much stiffer when it printed. I printed the robot (it had failed the first time due to no support under the antenna) and it came out OK. I opened a new spool of PVA that came in during the week and that was dry but still failed with this symptom. I am using the BB core but I can't see how it would 'unclog' itself and start printing again. 2.) support structure not stable enough - there are some Cura options, but I am not the support structure expert. I tried using 'ZigZag' infill pattern and playing around with it but that failed on the horse model. Quite frankly this printer is advertised as being able to print right out of the box. If you use their materials and their profiles you should get a successful print. IMHO, I should not have to adjust a thing to get a complete print. The quality of that print can always be improved by study and patience, but for $3500 the print should come out right. Sorry for the rant but if I had purchased this from a brick and mortar store it would have been returned by now. Regards.
  10. I am having problems with my 1 1/2 week old UM3. I've come here first to see what the Community thinks. I've been haunting this sight for 2 months while researching the UM3 and I've grown to value your thoughts. I'm attempting to change careers, which requires learning PTC's CREO Parametric Modeling Software and a good working knowledge of 3D printing. Can you say "mid life crisis"?? I had a bad experience with my 'upgraded' multi material Prusa I3 M2/S so I decided to move to the UM3. The Prusa single material was great, I learned a great deal trying to master Prusa's multi material upgrade, but it wouldn't work and I refuse to upgrade my upgrade. So here I am. Unfortunately my experience with the UM3 has been disappointing so far and is literally giving me butterflies in my stomach.? Please understand that, other than my car, the Ultimaker 3 is by far the most expensive item I have ever purchased in my entire life. By far. So, I have come here to hopefully find out it's all my fault so I can calm down and start having fun.? I am trying to print my favorite practice model of an Egyptian cat. Unfortunately the support material stops extruding at regular intervals, causing the print to fail as seen below. The grey one in the back was one i had left over from the Prusa. The silver one in front is an earlier UM3 attempt that failed the same way, the support gets knocked off at the week point and i have to abort. This print also failed twice for the same reason. You can see the gaps in the support. I am using Ultimaker material and profiles with cura. Just a few clicks and I was printing. Outstanding. Until the prints failed. The only bright spot is that the gyro has been printing for ~ 2 days now and the support shows no sign of this symptom. The print is still coming out bad though. The support has been knocked off in a few spots but I will cross that bridge later. The fact that the support is not having extrusion problems with the gyro makes me think this problem is something I am doing. Please help if you can. Sorry for being long winded but I'm freaking out.?
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