PaulK

My typical miniature print will be buried in support; printing a horse at very high quality requires serious support. But material switches still have to happen. Maybe I'll just try it.

I've been printing some miniatures with a 0.25 core. My last one knocked over the prime tower.... this is printed very "low and slow" to maximize detail. The default profile uses a prime tower. I notice that I think the default profile with a 0.4 nozzle doesn't (Cura 4 beta) seem to use one by default. Has anyone printed miniatures without a prime tower? (PVA is a god send for this application)

TGlase (a PETT) instructions for printing clear include turning the nozzle temp up until bubbles appear (and backing off slightly), so it seems to be a common thing for transparency.

I found, with windows as the host, I could only get reliable connection via Cura by using a set IP (Preferences | Printers in the network settings). Windows+Cura could not reliably discover the printer otherwise. Of course, the DHCP settings can make it difficult to know the IP address beforehand. I solved it by reserving the IP in my DHCP server, but of course this is not available in all environments. In your setup your cheap router should allow this; once you get rid of it, you'll be in more trouble 🙂

Wow, I had absolutely no idea that the two sides of glass were not the same. That is fascinating! I guess my "other" plate which has a chip out of it (CPE, I'm looking at you. I think it was you) should be best kept for use with adhesion sheets. I often print with a thin coat of PVA (ok, actually hairspray). Does this negate the difference? One would think so, but since I had no idea about the glass, now I doubt everything 🙂

Yah it is very slow to move. If you get stuck this way again, flip the lever on the extruder, which will release tension on the filament, and push the filament to the hot end. You can do this while it is in the state of waiting to extrude. Close the lever again. It'll extrude shortly after. Best hint I got for feeding is to cut the filament at an angle. It makes feeding much easier. I find I want to see about 5 cm/2 " worth of filament in the tube when it prompts me to feed the filament. This minimizes the wait for the extrusion.

Well, the UM doesn't need to purge the head on color swap, so it is a different problem set. If I read it correctly, he is using a dual-in head with a single nozzle. That would mean it would require more then the math to change, but have different g-code then would be generated with a full dual head machine like the UM

Innofil claims speeds of 120-150 for their Pro1 series, which they say is formulated for speed (and quality if you print slow). I've not tired it, but have a reel I'll bust open when my current reel of Tough PLA black runs out. It will be interesting to try the Pro1 at 120 or so with a 0.8 nozzle and see if you can keep the plastic flowing enough. It would be nice for certain fixtures that you are ok with some roughness and inaccuracy, but just want to bang out.

I think it is more then profile needed. IMO, slicers need to be come aware of two things (well, ok at least two ) 1) Thermal mass and 2) Expansion/contraction. (1) can solve some problems by doing dynamic cooling instead of fixed for everything. (2) is needed to fix the whole hole thing, and general dimension issues. It would need to do geometry analysis and "correct" the geometry based on estimated contraction/expansion. I expect this will be very difficult. Part of the problem is, I suspect, that STL is a really really bad idea, because you want to know about solids but are given information about surfaces, so you basically have to reverse-engineer the solid. But, in my mind, this problem is solved by improving the slicer, not by some fixed expansion value in the profile. On another printer I played with those parameters and it was impossible to get holes and posts and perimeters all right at the same time; it needs to be smarter. Maybe the next generation of slicers? I keep hoping some super smart Ph.D project will take it on and add it to Cura 🙂

Yah, it is unfortunate placement (though good placement while staying in the confines of the box is admittedly difficult). I use it mostly to make sure there isn't a bunch of spaghetti in there, which even that placement could tell you after a few minutes, or if the head is just dragging around the print.

Man, couldn't be much worse 🙂

When the roll gets smaller, it will. It is an unfortunate place for the power plug (hey engineers!). I'll probably print a diverter of some sort eventually. Well....the roller stand came with the roll. The shelf brackets are from thingiverse. The shelf is a bit of MDF I rounded and painted black. The arrangement is my idea. So, it is sort of my design, sort of not? I think it is Alex, with casters added, because everything in my shop has to roll 🙂 That is a good idea. I really want the back right to the edge to help feeding, but that is a good start. I probably don't worry enough about the printer taking the leap. Thanks!

Getting a big spool to feed to your S5 ...

No, I want it part of the core change/load process, just like it is with a filament change/load. I don't want to have to remember to do a second step or train someone else to do a second step.

Of course there is a dozen ways one could make material go through; I bought an ultimaker in large part to streamline the process and click a lot less buttons (and to avoid less mistakes in process). I think it would be very common to want to clear a core on core change (especially if you are not doing a filament change) and am requesting it be built into the core change process. I am probably misleading people by putting "nozzle" in the title and description, I mean core.

Ah, but during a core change the core won't be heated (by default) to extrusion temp, so I won't be able to extrude. Remember: This is changing cores, not filament. Filament changes work like a charm. Core changes result in old filament being extruded on the next print unless you go heat the nozzle and force some extrusion (possibly manually)

S5. Am I missing something? I seen no option. It is ... open fan bracket, pop core, insert core, close fan bracket, done

When you change/load filament, the printer does an extrusion test to allow you to make sure things are extruding. This is really great on a colour change as you can clear the nozzle of the previous colour/material. When you do a nozzle change, it does not offer this. The new nozzle likely has some left-over filament, and if your next print doesn't have a brim/skirt there is serious concern that you will get some colour/material contamination from whatever was in the nozzle previously. I do use a prime blob when not using a brim/skirt, but don't have the confidence that it will fully clear the nozzle. It would be really nice if the same extrusion test was at least offered on a nozzle change/load.

One quibble I have is with the display. At the height my machine is located at, 85 cm, the display is quite hard to read when close enough to operate it without squatting a little. Ultimate, the display should hinge (or be a super expensive very wide angle viewing one 🙂 ), but in the shorter term some different choices in colour could likely help a lot. White text on grey buttons seems like a particularly bad choice when contrast drops off a lot due to off-angle viewing.

My daughter (6) gets to pick filament for some things, so I get to figure out how to print them 🙂 This time it was T-Glase. Interesting material. The printing recommendations, including from Taulman, are all over the map and conflict like crazy, so finding a starting point was tough. This benchy is a basic "normal" profile and not perfect by any means; more importantly, not optimized for clarity. I think I'll want to try popping in a 0.8 core and printing big thick layers as they recommend to get high clarity too. Got a few LED projects in mind that might work well and would please her. Prints real slow, but the top surfaces (not very visible here) are amazing and glassy.

This has worked out amazingly well. It should be in the docs, it makes life much easier. It's almost obvious once you see it, but when you are used to a different extruder, it isn't so obvious.

Ahh .. there seems to be a "but"; it will only show so many favorites in the favorites list. Maybe the first 9, in alphabetical order? Cure 4 beta.

I see that subtle little star there now. Yup, that does exactly what I want, lets me pick a material from what I have on hand. Perfect, you got that feature completed fast!!

I'd love to be able to mark materials as "in stock" and restrict the list to in-stock only.

This is my impressions more of the system, i.e. Cura (using 4 beta), filament and printer. Me: Hobbiest who may have lost his mind. Writes software for a coupla or three or so decades. Fair at making things. Background: Built a MakerFarm Pegasus (prusa-style design) 2 years ago. Spent the last two years rebuilding it and upgrading it with things like auto-leveling, better extruder/hot-end, etc. It is fully enclosed. I use Simplify3D and OctoPrint with it. Balance of ABS and PLA, more ABS then PLA. That printer prints ABS fairly effortlessly (PEI on glass bed) Goal with S5: Bigger. Dual extrusion (really want water soluble supports). Very importantly: Spend more time on the item being printed, less time of my time on the process. I print almost all one-offs, often with drastically different requirements re: quality, toughness, etc. I've run maybe a couple of reels, so early going. PLA/PVA and CPE only so far, intend to run just about everything eventually 🙂 Impressions: - The turnkey aspect is fantastic. I go from Fusion 360 -> Cura -> Print effortlessly and without disturbing my flow by fiddling with stuff. I love this. When Cura 4 gets octoprint support, I'll be switching from Simplify3D for that one too so I can replicate that flow, even though it means re-building a couple of profiles. - The print quality is fantastic. Out of the box, it was amazing. My other printer isn't crap, but this was a step above. I tried a D&D miniature (of course I play) with a 0.25 nozzle and holy crap, more then good enough. - The nozzle system (well print core) is way better than expected. I thought it was overpriced, but the ability to switch nozzles quickly and reliably makes switching nozzles print-to-print to be absolutely feasible. It is way too much effort on other printers for anything other then production use. This is revolutionary for printing one-off stuff. - The auto bed-leveling is first-rate and pretty quick. - The system can be buggy. I know Cura is beta. I have to reboot the printer for Cura and/or restart cura too often for cura to see it. I have it set with a manual IP address too; before that, it was a disaster. Lots of other little bugs; nothing show-stopper, but I'm hoping that part gets better. - The lack of built in dry-box is, IMO, a serious mistake. Way too much filament is moisture sensitive and if you aren't putting through a reel a day, it can get waterlogged too easily (or even on a long print). I've shown that even ABS can be water affected. - The mechanics are, IMO, a little underwhelming for the price point. - My machine has gotten a click on movement. I can get rid of it, but it seems to be whack-a-mole. This shouldn't be - Some of the fans are kinda noisy. Looking at the one in the shroud, its a sunon, if it is a magnetic levitating sunon they are super quiet, but some fan in there is noisy as f***. I hate fan noise 🙂 Over all though, the printer is very quiet. - Really stiff filaments, like PVA, are a serious PITA to get into the extruder for loading. - The ultimaker filament selection is ok, but not fabulous. Colors are kinda ick. White isn't very white, which really irritates me 🙂. It is really great to be able to use 3rd party though (well, a show-stopper to be honest, but ultimaker seems to fairly actively promote it and not use oddball reel sizes, etc like some, or claim you invalidate your warranty) - I love the NFC. It *really* helps keep down errors in running a print with the wrong material, especially when there is a queue. I also hate that they haven't provided docs (or possibly the ability?) to slap NFC on my own reels. Looking at the API, looks like I could POST a new material with a GUID, but figuring out how to format my NFC chips would be a rev-eng exercise. Would be nice to have a white paper on it. Also, back to the dry-box problem, I need to move the reader anyway off the machine. So, some help here Ultimaker. I don't want to rev-eng that stuff, there is more interesting things to rev-eng out there 🙂 Also, I'm trying to spend less time on the printer. - Its slow. OK, I know that quality thing is, in part, due to running slow, but a "sloppy" profile would be nice. Also, "engineering" profile that favors strength and dimensional accuracy would be nice. I've printed a relatively large item with a 0.8 nozzle and it did go pretty quick I'll admit. - Al build plate. Enough said 🙂 I really like the prusa bendable PEI thing though.... - There are some problem scenarios I'd like to see more explicitly described, like what happens if filament runs out, and how I'd load more to continue the print (or is that possible? it isn't obvious) - Patents, yadda yadda, but it should be fully enclosed (possibly with powered ventilation for filaments that don't want a hot environment). Mine is in a fairly dusty environment and even that part would justify a top. That's all in my brain dump for now. Although I listed more cons then pros, I absolutely love this printer and would recommend it to anyone whose budget can stand and/or justify it.