Upgrade your Ultimaker 2 with the Extrusion upgrade

[DanielCrex 0]

I received my 2+ upgrade a couple of weeks ago. Works like a charm!

The question now is: What to do with the replaced parts?

Any fun DIY project to suggest?

[derbroti 4]

I also have a leftover part, the "threaded stand off"...... anybody any idea where this part should go ?

 

There http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/64-disassembly-of-the-ultimaker-2-plus-feeder are nice pictures of the feeder disassembled... so I would say your standoff goes not on the feeder at all

[ultiarjan 1,223]

 

I also have a leftover part, the "threaded stand off"...... anybody any idea where this part should go ?

 

There http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/64-disassembly-of-the-ultimaker-2-plus-feeder are nice pictures of the feeder disassembled... so I would say your standoff goes not on the feeder at all

 

Thats my thought as well.... but it's an Ultimaker part i have not seen before..... so to which printer does it belong ???

[peggyb 169]

looks like a part of the old feeder... http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/39-feeder-disassembly

[ultiarjan 1,223]

looks like a part of the old feeder... http://support.3dverkstan.se/article/39-feeder-disassembly

 

??? which part do you mean??? I'm pretty sure it's not ....

[Labern 774]

How long is it? It's not from holding the main board or ulticontroller board is it??

[ultiarjan 1,223]

it's 4 mm long, with m3 inner thread... could be a 'push in' part of a electronics board but I don't recognize it as an UM2 part...  nice mystery

Edited June 12, 2016 by Guest

[Jimmie 0]

To answer your mystery; it's pressed into the back panel of the UM2+. Two of them are used where the feeder will be screwed onto (from the outer side). It allows for easy assembly/disassembly.

[ultiarjan 1,223]

Ahhhhh sure that explains why it's apperantly in the feeder parts list for the resellers....

[bob-hepple 59]

Ultiarjan

Thanks for that but the sad truth is that in the UK they lag behind the rest of Europe they don't even have the upgrade Kit in yet..

Will try there website again and see if I can find it

Thanks

[cfdevices 0]

It is actually very nice. I have an older Ultimaker 2 and the upgrade parts have better tolerances. However, with my old electronics board, there is no obvious location for the blue/orange fan wires. In the instructions, it says to put them on the pins 'in the middle of the board", but there are no such pins on my board. Who can direct me to resolve this ?

thanks

[simonrafferty 0]

How have you guys got on with the upgrade?

Mine arrived 4 days ago - and I've yet to get a successful print out of it!  Continual under-extrusion.

I'm printing a file which printed fine before on my U2 with an Olsson block & iRoberti Feeder and regular Ultimaker Black PLA.

I've gradually reduced the speed and increased the temperature and flow - and it is now just about printing OK - but it's at 10mm/s, 245C & 150% Flow.

I'm not so much looking for a solution, just whether I'm alone in this?  Is it me - or the upgrade?

Si

[SandervG 1,521]

as far as I know most users have been very happy with the upgrade and highly recommended it, for various reasons. Upgrade in feeder and reliability, but also to bring an 'old' machine back to a new status with all the essential parts.

Anyway, are you printing with the same gcode or did you slice it again with new settings for the Ultimaker 2+?

Could you share a picture of your prints, and the settings you are using?

Are you using Cura or a different slicer?

It is also important to know that with a different feeder, a stronger heater, different fan shrouds and a more accurate PT100 the settings you used before could not work now.

For example, 220ºC before may not have been 220ºC due to the PT100, but maybe 230ºC.

Just an example, but intended to 'free' you from printing the same profile which 'used to work'.

I hope you understand. Looking forward hearing from you!

[JohnK 30]

Been very happy with the upgrade, my printer was printing fine before the upgrade apart from some small top surface issues. Those issues are sorted out now too.

With the upgrade, it's printing flawlessly, finished a 36hour print on the weekend and it's perfect from start to finish.

So definitely no issues with it here

[ultiarjan 1,223]

How have you guys got on with the upgrade?

Mine arrived 4 days ago - and I've yet to get a successful print out of it!  Continual under-extrusion.

I'm printing a file which printed fine before on my U2 with an Olsson block & iRoberti Feeder and regular Ultimaker Black PLA.

I've gradually reduced the speed and increased the temperature and flow - and it is now just about printing OK - but it's at 10mm/s, 245C & 150% Flow.

I'm not so much looking for a solution, just whether I'm alone in this?  Is it me - or the upgrade?

Si

 

I think looking at the setting you describe and the needed temperature something must be wrong. I had some initial issues as wel and quickly reassembled the head. Think there was too much pressure on the ptfe.

@SandervG we asked if you could share the tool + instruction on how to assemble the head with the correct pressure.... did you do this already? I think it could help @simonrafferty

[SandervG 1,521]

I did, but so far it has not yet led to an actual tool.

Mostly because it needs to be 3D printed, and depending on the calibration and print profile the dimensional accuracy may differ and that may undermine the purpose of the tool.

But still, as an example, lets say if it is 20mm or 21mm, it is still a rather good indication.

Let me chase it down again.

[simonrafferty 0]

I downloaded Cura 14.04.06, updated the firmware and used it to re-generate the G Code. This is a file I've printed previously on my U2 without issue.

I appreciate that the hot end is different. I started with the default settings in Cura and on the machine for PLA - but found it mis-fed in the first few layers. The hotter, & slower I printed, the further it got - but now the print temperature (assuming it's accurate) is really too high - and it still fails after a max of 10-12mm.

SandervG - is this a part I could machine? I run a small engineering company and despite my apparent lack of 3D printing ability - I can machine anything pretty much.

On the advice of others here, I slackened the screws on the print head a little and oiled the feed tube. Didn't make any difference though.

At the High temp, slow speed it runs fine until it gets to a part where it would normally retract. Retraction is turned off as it immediately caused a jam previously - but it still seems to fail at the same point.[/media]

Regards,

Si

[neotko 1,417]

Take out the feeder and check if the metal plate adapter of the feeder has the big hole perfectly aligned with the big hole of the frame. If not maybe the feeder gear isn't doing perfect contact. Also triple check that the bowden it's completely 'in' inside the coupler. Also, do an atomic (or 3) to be sure there's isn't any particles inside the nozzle/heater causing trouble. (This happened to me on a few brand new e3d nozzles)

Also check the feeder, how it moves, it's everything looking as it should? Maybe it's something simple maybe it isn't.

[prb4 6]

I've just installed the upgrade and done a quick test print.

So far everything seems ok but I'll reserve judgement till I've run some longer tests.

I have one concern. I have quite an old Ultimaker 2 and many of the instructions were incorrect which is fine for all except one.

My old print head had an extra pair of wires on an extra connector that connected onto the PCB adjacent to "J22" and near the word "serial".

I was not told to remove this cable in the instructions (but obviously I had to).

The new print head assembly did not have this cable.

What was it?

Everything appears to be working but have I missed something?

Also the fan duct on the new print head just hits the edge of the plastic printer body when the head homes. I haven't looked at fixing it yet but I am thinking of filing the fan duct down a bit, unless someone knows of a better fix?

Thanks

Peter

[sambianchibazzi 9]

I've just installed the upgrade and done a quick test print.

So far everything seems ok but I'll reserve judgement till I've run some longer tests.

I have one concern.  I have quite an old Ultimaker 2 and many of the instructions were incorrect which is fine for all except one.

My old print head had an extra pair of wires on an extra connector that connected onto the PCB adjacent to "J22" and near the word "serial".

I was not told to remove this cable in the instructions (but obviously I had to).

The new print head assembly did not have this cable.

What was it?

Everything appears to be working but have I missed something?

Also the fan duct on the new print head just hits the edge of the plastic printer body when the head homes.  I haven't looked at fixing it yet but I am thinking of filing the fan duct down a bit, unless someone knows of a better fix?

Thanks

Peter

 

are you sure you installed everything correctly? If so, bend slightly the X endstop so that it is activated slightly before. Not too much!

[avogra 68]

Instead, you can bend the endstop lever a bit, so that the endstop will be pressed earlier.

[SandervG 1,521]

What these guys said is probably a better idea than filing your shroud.

Also bent it, but be gentle and not break it.

[simonrafferty 0]

Well another day of failed prints.

I did observe though that it prints OK (with the temperature set higher than normal) until the fans kick ramp up to 100% - then the underextrusion starts. If you turn the fans down, it extrudes properly again.

Alex suggested it might be the temperature sensor faulty - which is certainly possible. Unfortunately, I needed my printer working - so I just returned it to how it was before and it's printing nicely with the same firmware & version of Cura.

I've wasted 6 days chasing this - and just don't have the time to continue. I'm sure for some of you it's a great improvement - but even when it was printing OK, I'm struggling to see any difference. I have an iRoberti feeder and an Olsson Block from 3DSolex - and it's pretty good. I had hoped the new feeder would increase the range of what I can print in - but I guess I'll not find out now.

I've asked to return it for a refund. 3DGBIRE, from whom it was purchased have refused saying they cannot refund as I have fitted it myself.

Sure, sometimes things are faulty - no manufacturing process is perfect - but I wasn't expecting to get in to a bust up with Ultimaker UK over it. Still, you live & learn.

Si

[valcrow 144]

If you haven't already, check the little gear on the extrusion motor. You can undo the feeder without messing with anything else, you can even leave filament in there. Take off the 2 screws top and bottom of the feeder and check the gear that's attached to the feeder motor. If this isn't flush with your motor, you'll need to press it in with a small dab of glue. If this gear is off, it will cause the symptoms you describe.

[prb4 6]

What these guys said is probably a better idea than filing your shroud.

Also bent it, but be gentle and not break it.

 

Ok thanks, this sounds like a good solution.

Any idea what the extra cable was for on my old print head assembly?

I'm now fighting Cura.

I haven't updated Cura for a long time because the later versions were always worse.

The problem still remains.

I have a little test print cube, when I use my (very) old version (14.something) of Cura it says it will take 24 minutes and it does.

When I use any later version (now 15.04.6) it says it will take 22 minutes (great!)

but it actually takes 32 minutes (Oh dear!)

This may not seem like much, but on larger prints it adds hours and hours to the print time for no benefit.

I have avoided updating Cura because of this problem (I've posted about this problem before but no one has offered any solutions/reasons), but with the upgrade I've been forced to update Cura.

Investigating the problem last night I think it might be related to retraction.

When I print the test Cube sliced with old Cura, it doesn't do any retractions when printing the infill.

When sliced with the new Cura the printer is doing retractions after every line of infill and taking a long time to do it.

I don't want to turn off retractions for obvious reasons.

Why is Cura putting in retractions for infill when it didn't use to and how can I stop it?

(clearly I don't care how much stringing goes on inside the print!)