Ultimaker 3 print quality worst than a Makerbot Cupcake

[antpgomes 0]

Hi all

We recently purchased an Ultimaker 3 for our lab (2months).

While it ran fine for the first batch of parts, issues soon started to occur. I am guessing the printcore(s) are faulty. See below an example pic. Something is terribly wrong. It's basically printing squishy objects of very poor quality. The messed up prints are both from Printcore 2. Similar issue has occured in Printcore 1 in the past. I disassembled it and cleaned filament particulates that were inside. I tried the same approach with printcore 2 with no success.

Black: Original Ultimaker Nylon

Clear: ColorFabb XT CPE

Blue: Gizmodorks PLA

All of them were printed at 50% infill, Nylon and CPE with speeds as low as 30%.

I have to say, for a 3500$ machine this has been nothing but a great disappointment. I have tried to contact ultimaker support over the phone multiple times to no avail. Has anyone had a similar issue?

Thanks in advance.

Edited April 3, 2017 by Guest

[fbrc8-erin 279]

Hi there,

Could you try uploading the pictures again? They don't seem to have come through on this thread. What settings are you using for the PVA Core? One of the default profiles (if so, which one?) or custom settings?

Are you using Ultimaker PVA or another brand?

[antpgomes 0]

Ultimaker Original Filaments, both PVA, PLA and Nylon have demonstrated issues printing.

To add to the aforementioned issues:

NFC Does not Work - Diagnostics say no NFC Hardware (i checked the cable connection inside the spool holder)

4/2/2017 - Doing Test prints with the Nylon with my spare core AA. Turns out the spool wasn't properly rolled from factory, it jammed at the fedeer, gunk accumulated at the nozzle level and suffice to say on of our AA printcore is now rendered useless and the other one is printing incredibly poorly as per the pictures in this topic.

4/2/2017 - Updated Firmware, coincidentally or not Auto Leveling doesn't work. I had to turn it off completely to get the machine to even print anything. The message reads (There is a problem with the active level sensor)

Suffice to say that while Erin and the support team at Fbrc8 have been super responsive, in its current state my printer is a 3500$ piece of hardware that simply put does not work.

I would expect this sort of QC from a chinese knock off company, not from ultimaker. I was pretty excited about this printer but so far it's been a great disappointment. Any insights on (any) of the above issues would be greatly appreciated

[yellowshark 153]

Well the blue one looks OK and is PLA so no surprises there. I personally never found nylon easy to print. The black and probably the clear are suffering under extrusion and the black looks OK to start with, so it is probably not settings like temperature and speed - most probably a feed problem. Your filament could be sticking on the reel or in the Bowden. There could be a blockage in the extruder assembly. Your filament drive gear could be worn or not adjusted properly.

Personally I would move over to PLA and see if you can get a series of good results confirming the printer is all OK etc and only then turn your focus to the other materials.

[SandervG 1,521]

If your NFC doesn't work, which it should and should be fixed, but if it is not now, are you sure that you are not printing Nylon with the PLA profile because your Ultimaker does not recognize the different material?

Have you tried making changes to the tension in your feeder to battle under extrusion?

Were these cubes printed with support of PVA?

[antpgomes 0]

Well the blue one looks OK and is PLA so no surprises there. I personally never found nylon easy to print. The black and probably the clear are suffering under extrusion and the black looks OK to start with, so it is probably not settings like temperature and speed - most probably a feed problem. Your filament could be sticking on the reel or in the Bowden. There could be a blockage in the extruder assembly. Your filament drive gear could be worn or not adjusted properly.

Personally I would move over to PLA and see if you can get a series of good results confirming the printer is all OK etc and only then turn your focus to the other materials.

 

Coincidentally enough the blue PLA is the only filament that is not ultimaker original. One could argue that nylon should be absolutely fine ot print with since there's a profile for it and it's an ultimaker original filament.

[antpgomes 0]

If your NFC doesn't work, which it should and should be fixed, but if it is not now, are you sure that you are not printing Nylon with the PLA profile because your Ultimaker does not recognize the different material?

Have you tried making changes to the tension in your feeder to battle under extrusion?

Were these cubes printed with support of PVA?

 

I have always selected the material corresponding to the material being inserted in the printcores even though I have to chose it manually. I then proceeded to select the approriate ultimaker profiled for each type of filament, when applicable.

Not only have I adjusted the tension, I even cleaned both feeders with pressurized air given that they both accumulated debris due to a poor extrusion on both AA printcores.

Cubes were printed without PVA support. It's a cube. Unless this is a trick question I don't quite see who would print calibration cubes with PVA?

I have requested the return of this printer.

The latest firmware update bricked the auto levelling and now i need to power cycle the machine every time I remove the usb drive. Printing over network also no longer appears to be working. I will reiterate that this machine is 2 months old and didn't even went through 2 rolls of filament.

[fbrc8-erin 279]

The latest firmware update bricked the auto levelling and now i need to power cycle the machine every time I remove the usb drive. Printing over network also no longer appears to be working. I will reiterate that this machine is 2 months old and didn't even went through 2 rolls of filament.

 

Have you tried increasing the tension on your thumbscrews for the heated bed? Generally for active leveling errors, it's usually a result of the springs being a little too high and throwing off the leveling process.

[SandervG 1,521]

Not a trick question, I've read somewhere above that you also used PVA, hence i've asked what you printed with it since indeed your prints did not look like they needed it. But it seems to be gone now. I see Erin also referred to it in her first reply.

What do you mean by print core 2? Is that the one in the second slot? Or is it BB? Are you using AA or BB which is giving you these results?

Did you also check the NFC connection at the electronics?

I would recommend to put the tension of the feeder back in the middle which should offer you the best tension.

Have you made any attempts to clean a print core after a print failed?

Dunno if any of these tips help since you already requested the return of the printer. I'm sure if we can find the root of your problems we have the solution and you should find yourself happily 3D printing soon!

[antpgomes 0]

 

The latest firmware update bricked the auto levelling and now i need to power cycle the machine every time I remove the usb drive. Printing over network also no longer appears to be working. I will reiterate that this machine is 2 months old and didn't even went through 2 rolls of filament.

 

Have you tried increasing the tension on your thumbscrews for the heated bed? Generally for active leveling errors, it's usually a result of the springs being a little too high and throwing off the leveling process.

 

Yes I have tried manually adjusting the tension prior to try and do the active leveling. Please note the active leveling stopped working immediately after the last firmware update

[antpgomes 0]

Not a trick question, I've read somewhere above that you also used PVA, hence i've asked what you printed with it since indeed your prints did not look like they needed it. But it seems to be gone now. I see Erin also referred to it in her first reply.

What do you mean by print core 2? Is that the one in the second slot? Or is it BB? Are you using AA or BB which is giving you these results?

Did you also check the NFC connection at the electronics?

I would recommend to put the tension of the feeder back in the middle which should offer you the best tension.

Have you made any attempts to clean a print core after a print failed?

Dunno if any of these tips help since you already requested the return of the printer. I'm sure if we can find the root of your problems we have the solution and you should find yourself happily 3D printing soon!

 

Both AA printcores present issues, i tried using them 1 at a time on slot 1 or simultaneously in slots 1 and 2. also tried switching which printcore goes in slot 1 and 2 (talking about AA printcores only). no luck. further to this, the issues present itself with the spring inside the feeder at different tensions. I have always revert back to the middle position as shipped from factory

I tried to clean the printcores using the atomic pull method multiple times. This didn't help either.

As for the NFC. I opened the spool holder and checked the connection. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

Just waiting for a new packaging to arrive so I can return this printer and fbrc8 can observe the issues I have been describing in-loco.

Thanks for trying to help remotely nonetheless

Antonio