orangepeel

Dear Ultimaker Community, I was doing some internet browsing recently and came across someone that has developed a higher temp printhead for the UM S5. I'm not trying to promote it, but why hasn't UM tried giving us some upgrades like that? What are some simple tweaks/ upgrades that you might like to see? here is what another user has posted a) Firmware upgrades to allow the current chamber to heat up more, if you have the filter and enclosure....... I thought that was implied when the enclosure and filter came out..... now there is even more reason, since there is a closer relationship with Stratasys, and a merger with Makerbot. b) Faster printing.....I know that there have been updates in Cura, but what about active shape modification, or FBS (https://www.3dnatives.com/en/new-software-reduces-fdm-3d-printer-vibration-without-losing-speed/)? c) How about skipping bed leveling, if it was done in the last 2 hours, or speeding up the bed leveling time? d) allowing the Travel speed in Cura to be increased over 150 mm/s, when possible. e) Retrofit of the camera, or even a bracket to allow it to be relocated a little higher. f) When the Material Station came out, there was talk that we would eventually be able to switch materials in the middle of a print, but I haven't seen that happen, unless you run out of 1 roll of a filament, and the second one is the same exact filament. How about getting that upgrade? I have been waiting to purchase it until that upgrade came out. A number of other companies now are offering a similar filament/spool management product for less money. g) how about a nozzle scraper/brush like the Stratasys Uprint+ and others had? I'm sure that some modified version could be added, especially with UM connections/part ownership by Stratasys now. Anyway, I better get back to doing my real job, but I would like to know what others are thinking. I thought I used to see a section where users could post ideas like this all the time, but not anymore. I hope that UM is not just coasting. The UM S7 seems more like a slightly upgraded S5. Take care, Larry

Even if the camera view is only going to update every 10 seconds, then that should be stated some place. On the Print Jobs browser window, at the bottom of the camera view, there is a status bar that slides across, and gives the impression that the camera view is just slow in updating. If there was no moving status bar, and the picture just updated every 10 seconds, then we would catch on. I would still like to see the camera view in Cura, yet, be able to submit over the network, and also check it from home when needed. Why can't we have both?

Just to add some more, I am using an Ultimaker S5. THe "Monitor" print option, using the camera updates very slowly if at all.

I am not sure that I really like the "Digital Factory" It just seems like a lot of extra layers to go through. Anyway, WHen I click on the Photo icon, to see the print in action, from the camera, the picture updates slowly, if at all. Also, if I want to use the Digital Factory app on the browser, I can't view how the print job is doing in Cura, in the Monitor Tab. That is a real downer, because most of the time, I am at my computer in my office, and it is easier to check the print through using Cura, than going on the web and checking using the Digital Factory Webpage. Please help!

Is there a problem with printing PLA at a higher environment temperature? Wouldn’t it be like annealing it?

Thank you for the comments, that helps answer my question here and on the related question in another post, about the material station.

Hi, I am starting a sister topic, I am interested in the UM Air Handler/Manager for the UM-S5, I haven't seen a lot of discussion about it. Is it worth the expense? I am mostly interested in raising/keeping a steady temperature in the print chamber. I have not seen a lot of safety issues from our current configuration (filter is nice, but not a major concern).... does the new air handler increase the quality of your prints? Less warping? Will it actually allow one to control the chamber temperatures? What other benefits does it offer? I have seen the promotional videos, I would like to hear from the users? THanks in advance!

Hi UM users, I am considering getting a Materials Station for our UMS5. I am at a small texas university, on the coast, so we have high humidity all the time. Also, we want to print a lot of TPU, nylon, and fiber-filled nylon filaments. Right now we just dry our filament every few days, and we have a makeshift enclosure that somewhat slows down the ingress of moisture. a) First question, if the room environment is about 60% humidity, will the materials station (if kept on) keep the humidity in where the filament is at, low enough so that we won't have to redry tpu or nylon, pva, etc? b) Second question, setting aside the problems with pva, does the material station do what it is advertised to do? I would like to keep some PLA, TPU, nylon, and ABS filament inside the Material Station, and just select them as needed. thoughts? reccomendations? Thanks ahead of time!

@JohnInOttawa I know this is an old topic, but if you still have some Xstrand to print, we could do some flexural tests for you for free. We print rectangular specimens 4” long. .5” wide, .125” thick. Metric equivalents are fine. Larry.peel@tamuk.edu. I know there is published data out there, but more test data is always good. we are at a small university that has some reasonable test equipment. We usually conduct tensile and flexural tests.

Thank you for all of your comments. ALso, SandervG, I will try to seperate out some of these. I will pull the log file and post it where you stated..... ALso, I found out that I have been doing some posts on this forum with another id..... I thought they both the same...., anyway, thanks again for all the suggestions! My available time to get on here varies a lot. -ldp

Hello, I use Cura to create and submit prints to an Ultimaker 5S, purchased last August. It is one of about 6 FFF/FDM-type machines we have in an engineering lab at a small US university. I really like the machine, and it has quickly become our go-to machine, but I am continually having problems with Cura. I thought about posting this in the Feedback section, but that appears to be more for the UM website. Please note that despite the issues listed here, we have printed a fairly wide variety of materials and objects, both for student and research use, and like the machine and tolerate the software. I am using Windows 10, on a new Dell Optiplex 70, with 16 GB Ram, and 256 GB SSD hard drive. Here are some of the problems I am having, and what I have done to address them so far, with a request for what else we can do. Note that our systems are locked down, I have to get a computer tech in to do any upgrades to the software. 1) Cura crashing at random times. I updated to Cura 4.4.1 from Cura 4.4 hoping it would help with stability, but recently it seems to be crashing again. How can I get those to stop? Cura 4.3 seemed to crash a little more. 2) I have a short-cut on my desktop for Cura, and now, since I have upgraded to a new computer, the software won't always come up when clicking on the icon. I get the spinning wheel for a few seconds, then nothing. When I bring up the Task Manager, it shows Cura to be running as a background process. I had our computer tech look, and initially the problem seemed to just need a reboot of the computer (yes, I should have done that, duh!). However, the problem is happening again, and still comes back after the reboot. I went to the folder containing the software, and right clicked on the executable, and found a compatibility checker.... ran it, and the software is kind of running as a Windows 8 package......suggestions? 3) We have repeated problems with the camera on the UM5S not showing pictures, but after reading on this forum, I turn it off, then back on, but that is getting old..... we have had that problem for about 3 months now, off and on. just did that again today. 4) Now, I leave Cura 4.4.1 opened up on my desktop computer all the time, because of the difficulty to get it to come up as a working program, and not as a 'background" program. However, now most all the "Monitor" functions don't work: When I submit a new job over the network, the job gets submitted, but doesn't show up on my top sub-window as having started, sometimes it shows up as queued, but not always. WHen I first had this problem I would click on the little camera icon, and could actually see the machine starting a new build, but now when I click on it, the whole "Monitor" screen just goes gray until I click again. WHen I click on "Manage in Browser" It shows the current and recent print jobs, but not the picture/video from the camera (Update, the camera pic has come back since I turn off/on the UM5S, online, but not in CURA 4.4.1)....Suggestions to fix? 5. It is really iritating to not have a list of print jobs, including the model and profile used, amount of material used, and print time, in CURA. I understand that I can go online and get some of that, but what if I submit a job by USB? It seems everyone would want to track their print jobs..... and if you are trying to go back and diagnose problems with a print, having that data would be useful..... am I missing something? I can't believe such a list doesn't exist somewhere in Cura. 6. the UM App seems to work sporadically. If I am at the university, and on the same WIFI network, I can get pictures/video, other places I sometimes get notifications, sometimes not. I have an app for a Wild Animal camera, for a camera a 1000 miles from me, on a totally different wifi network, and I get pictures from it, video, I can pan and zoom, and with this UM app, it kind of works when I am close enough that I can walk to the machine. Suggestions? Okay, good enough.... on another note, here is a simple decorative coin, using no top or bottom layers, and only infill, with only single bead-width lines that I have developed.... this is the final result after about 10 iterations. We will print out a bunch (slightly thicker) to give out to prospective students. I hope you like it! Thanks, Larry

Its a new year now, and there hasn't been any more discussion on this thread, but I thought that I would add my comments.... found this while browsing to see what people are saying about the S5 Material Handler. I'm at a small US university, and we have 3 Stratasys products (Connex 500 $280K, Objet30 $34K, and a UprintPlus $25K in 2009... a forerunner to the F123 series), and we just got a UM S5 in July. We have about 6 3D printers total, including a Leapfrog Creatr (mixed feelings, not working now), a Robo 3DR1 (Excellent single nozzle machine, but we wore it out!), and a Craftbot 3 dual nozzle (reasonable) Here are my thoughts: Print Quality: I think our Uprint+ from Stratasys has overall better quality than an optimized print from the S5, but not by much, except on the undersides of complex objects. The Uprint+ still shines there, because they have optimized the support/overhang printing for the ABS/Dissolvable support that the Uprint+ uses. The heated chamber does help the Uprint+, in my opinion. After doing considerable tweaking on a profile, the UM S5 does just about as well on the top side. The Connex 500 and Objet 30 use a polyjet process, and are totally different..... their print quaity is great, but most polyjet materials are very brittle, and degrade in sunshine, and with time.... probably not relavant to this discussion. I based my print quality on a 1.75 inch diameter, .25" thick 'coin' with raised lettering and graphics on both sides, as simple objects are easy to print well for both. Maintenance: We had to pay a yearly maintenance contract for our Uprint+, and they were fairly quick about coming out, but it was still about $3500 to $4000 per year, and now it has been end of-lifed by Stratasys, and has worn out belts (not currently working). However, when it worked, it worked well most of the time. We did have some clogged tip problems, and a few other broken items over the 9 or so years. On the other Stratasys machines however, the customer support wasn't good (we stopped using the Objet 30 after we got the Connex, because material costs were less), we have had many service calls for the Connex 500, including one over the holidays. After our initial purchase/service contracts expired, we have been paying as we go, as the service contracts started at about $17K per year for the Connex. Figure minimum of $6500 per visit. Material costs: We use our machines at our small university, for student use, classroom use, research use, and occasionally, a print job for someone off campus. For the Connex 500 we charge about $11.60/cubic inch, for the Uprint+, we charge about $7.80/cubic inch (Stratasys has lowered their material costs for education, so our numbers might be a little high now, but there are other costs....), for the UM S5 we charge about $2.80/Cubic inch for basic materials which is more than actual filament costs. We are mostly trying to just do a little better than breaking even, we also charge labor for non-student jobs. Of course we can only purchase Stratasys materials directly, but I do feel that their FDM filament is high quality. RIght now we are only using UM filament on the S5, which also seems to be high quality. I like the much wider materials selection available for the non-stratasys machines. Other costs: We needed modeling bases for the Uprint+, and reused them many times even though they were said to be single use. The Uprint+ typically used as much support as model material per build job, and was the same cost, and was dissolved out in a heated tank/machine purchased from Stratasys....plus we had to purchase their solvent to mix with water, and had to replace tips periodically. Our Ultimaker is new, so we haven't replaced anything yet, and the PVA filament we got with it dissolves in water. Overall: We are not a production enviroment, but for our department, I don't plan on buying any more Stratasys machines (even though I still like them better than 3D Systems), because of their high initial cost, high maintaince costs, closed and limited material selection. We plan to purchase the material and air handlers for the S5, and expect to use it for many years. I did like the simplicity "point, click, print" for the Uprint+ Catalyst software, as Cura crashes more than I like, and is still quite buggy and requires too much tweaking of profiles (ver 4.4) in my opinion. We were given a non-functioning Uprint machine, and hope to get our Uprint+ functioning again, and will use it as long as is reasonable, as it has it's place. I don't plan on spending much more on it, just using parts from the other machine. If it was working, I would offer to print a part, but it's not at the moment. This post grew much longer than I expected, but hope it helps! FDM 3D printing has really gotten much better over the past 10 years. I see Ultimaker where Stratasys was 10 years ago.... hopefully they won't make the same mistakes. take care!