Newbe problems with Cura

[REMAP 1]

I thought I'd posted this a day or so ago, but can find no sign of it, despite seeing a reply I'd made to a different thread.

I'm a total newbe to 3D printing and have had my Ulitimaker2 for only a couple of days. I'm using the latest Cura 15.06.03 under Win7 Ultimate x64 and have encountered a few problems.

1). When closing Cura I get a message saying there were errors in 'Cura.exe' see logfile. As can be seen in the attached screenshot, the message tells me where the logfile is, but it isn't there. The screenshot shows the sorted folder that should contain the logfile. What'sd going on?

2). I've had a couple of attempts to print the planetary gears from Thingiverse (called Bearing 5, I believe). Attempt 1 used the default Cura settings, took 3 hrs, and, although it works, the gears are rather sloppy, so I tried again.

With the 2nd attempt I set it to Maximum Quality and tried to reduce the physical size by scaling to 75%. The print took 9 hrs, and the gears are no longer sloppy, but the size wasn't reduced and there's a very obvious fault line (lamination error/split) about 2/3 up. See the attached photo.

Why didn't the scaling work, and is the lamination fault due to Cura or the printer, or what?

[Labern 775]

I haven't really used the new Cura so cant answer some of your questions but what filament did you use.

It looks like you have a few layers of under extrusion. This can be from a lot of causes. May have been a filament tangle or various other things.

When printing gears like this, sometimes when it's a bit loose, you can just increase the temp a bit. Say 5 or 10 degrees and this can tighten it up nicely.

[REMAP 1]

Thanks for your response.

I'm using the PLA that was in the box with the printer. After that bad layer the rest of the print was fine. Is this a fairly normal problem with 3D printers, or does it suggest a more serious root cause?

[Labern 775]

it's something that happens from time to time and can be a battle. A lot of people use Roberts feeder and Spool holder to help prevent these issues. I no longer have the issues after using these.

[gr5 2,224]

You probably had a tangle that caused that one horizontal band of underextrusion. It's good to pay a lot attention to the spool so it's not smart to put it on the back of the machine where it's hidden. I usually print with the printer sideways and the spool on the floor so that I am more likely to notice a tangle. Once you get a tangle you can't fix it until the print is over (in theory you can but I'm not smart enough) and you can take the filament out of the printer and pass it under the "knot" or "tangle". Once the tangle is fixed the spool should be good forever unless you let the end get under a loop again. I now am very careful to never let that happen so I always stick the end of the filament through one of the holes to keep it under control during storage.

[gr5 2,224]

Also when printing this bearing the bottom layer is very critical. I use zero brim. And I adjust the 3 bed screws so that you get ZERO extra filament on the bottom layer - it must not touch - gears must not touch housing or each other on the bottom layer. The remaining layers are easy.

I also printed this slow for good quality - 35mm/sec and cool - 210C. It came out great - I can spin it and it coasts for about 1 to 2 full seconds - maybe 10 full rotations. People are always amazed at this one.

I dont' know about the 75% scaling but the new cura (15.6.*) has a lot of bugs - I'm still using 15.4. 15.6 is kind of like a beta version but it's getting better! Some day soon I hope to use the new one. When they fix more bugs.

[REMAP 1]

Thanks for the replies. I've been away for a few days.

I'm minded to printing the Roberts mods.

Does scaling work properly in Cura 15.4, and if so, is there a way for me to get that version?

[ultiarjan 1,223]

scaling worked fine in the older version I think ...

https://ultimaker.com/en/cura-software/list

[REMAP 1]

Thankyou.

[ghostkeeper 105]

Also, with regards to (1), this is a known bug. Cura requires administrator rights to be able to write to files in the Program Files folder. It works if you run Cura as administrator, but we should change that so it saves the log somewhere else, such as %APPDATA%.