Pausing the Ultimaker over night

[daultonoryan 0]

I saw an old thread of someone discussing that they worked in an office that would not allow for leaving the ultimaker printing unattended because it is a fire hazard. Unfortunately that thread became a little over populated for my taste so I am starting my own based on a solution i worked out. Basically, the place where i have been printing has the same rule but they allow for the makerbot to be paused overnight because the print bed isn't heated (and pausing cools the extruder?). Yesterday i came up with somewhat of a solution by printing PLA on a non-heated bed and then pausing the printer. Of course this only works for PLA but it is a practical solution to reduce the heat generation. It can be modified by adjusting the temperature through the tuning function to reduce the extruder temp to zero (or realistically room temp) and then reheated in the morning, to make the fire hazard that of any other electrical device. And my print finished perfectly without any lifting. As a side note though the plate needs to be relatively cool prior to starting a print or the PLA can still lift free.

[gr5 2,170]

PLA will stick to cold glass but not very well at all. And if you start on hot glass and let it cool the part pops off as glass and PLA have different thermal expansion rates. So if you are going to do this much I recommend you put blue painter's tape on your glass and relevel. Also it's critical that you wipe the blue tape with alcohol to clean off the waxy surface - otherwise parts won't stick well to blue tape either.

[xeno 108]

I like this idea, can you explain in a little it more detail what you did ?

did you just use the "pause at height"and edited that plug in.

I would really like to see a pause button, that stops the print and moves to the zero position and cools the head,

and able to continue after that.

[gr5 2,170]

I don't know about UMO as I haven't paused a UMO print ever I think. But I'm pretty sure the UM2 lets you do that - get to the TUNE menu while paused and in the TUNE menu you can do things like turn off fans and nozzle heater.

[dodgrr 27]

Unless you turn down the temp in "pause" mode, your ptfe coupler will meet an early demise as a result.

[eldrick 65]

Perhaps you could point out that the Ultimakers are safety certified and get the policy changed:

Under SAFETY AND COMPLIANCE at https://ultimaker.com/en/products/ultimaker-2-plus/specifications

[cloakfiend 995]

Hate to be so negative, but ive never heard of any commercial 3d printers setting on fire? like ever. what makes you think your one would be the first.

On the on the hand i fully understand stupid policies, however for progress to happen you have to ignore stupid policies like i did and just told my previous companies that it was safe, it was (luckily lol), and i still think it is.

imho the worst thing that will happen is that you will get a bunch of clown hair and a blocked nozzle. thats it.

i left it on overnight for over a year even at the start when i didnt know what i was doing and was returning to endless failed prints. its almost impossible for it to catch fire as once the nozzle blocks, no more plastic is coming out and the head is constantly moving and the bed lowering (i say almost because anything could happen including ghosts destroying the office). even if the remnants of the print sticks to the outside of the head its no longer getting heated.

paranoia is the only problem. many computers have psu's of 1000-2000w especially gfx render farms and such and they run them 24/7?

if its working well, i would not worry a bit, test the hell out of the machine, and then set it free. pausing prints is a no-no in my books if its quality you are after. id rather just turn it off than leave it overnight on pause, thats just silly.

i sat mine under a fire alarm at the start but moved it around the building including inside the actual racks of the main server room of a broadcast company which holds endless servers and hyper expensive equipment worth over $20 million dollars so thats why i think you are worrying waaaaaay to much.

after that i learnt that server racks are a poor choice of placement due to the high airflow and got constant blocked nozzles and failed prints......but no fire! ever

just tell you boss to relax man!

Edited June 3, 2016 by Guest