Hello from Ukraine! Just share some experience.

[alex-marakesch 0]

Hello everyone!

I want to share with community my small experience and say some wishes to creators.

Delivering was fast due to small distances. But custom formalities take more time. Received my ultimaker at 1500 of 13th June 2013, start built it, and finish at 0500 next morning, so it is 14 hours with coffee times, not bad, but not enough concentration in the end. First prints was not impressive, really. And I start calibrating my machine, that takes me about 9 days, that was big battle between me and machine, just like in terminator "humans vs machines". So I finish my calibration just few hours ago. That was big challenge, from one side it is really terrible, but from another side it is really good lesson to learn machine.

Already I forget from where it started, but share conclusions.

First it is that short belts should be really tight. Long ones also, but not so. I believe that creators can include some kind mechanics to improve tensions of long belts, something like that:

Used only what had in kit already. Really not big deal.

Second things, didn't find in wiki (many things out of date), and assemble instructions. Two wood measurement instruments with figures:

Really great instrument to get good align of X/Y rods. Please explain this part in the assembly instruction, because I found what is it after 6 days.

And third thing about slider blocks. Pressure of c caps pretty high, and after some time, it is possible that wood can be broken. As decision it is put some super glue between wood parts, glue will keep it in position.

For all this time I used single cross to check accuracy my ultimaker.

From top left to bottom right you can observe progress. Problem that infill and border had gaps, problem solver was to increase tension for belts. Especially for short ones.

As result my good print:

That's all! Have a nice day!

 

[ian 32]

thanks you for your review. it is always very interesting to see the initial progress of a new ultimaker user.

im sure in the coming days, you will have your maschine aligned, tight and oiled and popping out lots of great prints :-)

Ian :-)

 

[alex-marakesch 0]

Thanks for yours replies!

Just printed my first model with 0.1 mm layer height, for me was big surprise about quality.

Only some small retraction problem, believe it is possible to remove it.

And my first big print, had some shift, quality not best, only 0.2 mm. Next time it is better to use 0.1 mm and less temperature.

 

[ian 32]

a challenging big model to start with but a pritty good result !

yeah i think your right, drop the temp... maybe 190 if the flow is good and smooth, lots and lots of cooling !!

and then with something like this, there will always be a little bit of clean up.

Best wishes.

Ian :-)

 

[illuminarti 16]

The shifting late on in the print is probably due to one or other of the pulleys becoming slightly loose. Make sure all the pulleys are tight - including the ones on the motor shafts.

 

[alex-marakesch 0]

Hello again!

I tried print with ABS and no success=( But after continue with PLA, and I have still some problem: gaps between infill and borders.

What do I do wrong? Short bells already tightened as much as it is possible by hands. I dont know what is really wrong.

 

[illuminarti 16]

This looks to me like backlash due to the belts being too loose - most probably the short belts. The short belts should seem quite tight. It also looks like you might be undeextruding quite a bit - I'm seeing quite large gaps between the infill passes - which can also be caused by backlash, but in this case its a symmetrical and continuous looking pattern, so I think the lines may just be too thin, in addition to not being long enough.

Can you perhaps post a gcode file somewhere so I can take a look at your settings? Don't think you can add gcode here, so post it elsewhere and link, or mail it to me at gcode@fbrc8.com.

 

[alex-marakesch 0]

I dont think it is extrusion problem, due to before I did it and result was better. Can you please post any alternative way tightening short belts.

 

[ian 32]

when you pluck your finger against the rubber pulleys. do they twang like a guitar string... if yes.. super... if no... :-(

Ian

 

[alex-marakesch 0]

Thanks for advices, now made another little improvement http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34785

As for me with such thing it is more easy to set proper tension for small belts. Also my small belt were broken, due to it touched to motor during work, found new in local store mostly the same, but little bit longer, so make deeper place for motor. And now I have good prints.

That is good story, but I have some strange noise when printing, it is like tik-tick, tik-tick. Very strange cause cant understand from where it come.

 

[owen 18]

I have some strange noise when printing, it is like tik-tick, tik-tick. Very strange cause cant understand from where it come.

 

I think it is related to the belts/pulleys.

Possibly a pulley is not properly in line with the belt so the side of the belt rides up on the flange and then falls down again. Maybe look for this or do a search on the forums for 'Strange noise' or 'strange sound'

 

[alex-marakesch 0]

Made a video

 

[owen 18]

Yep it sounds like a sound from the belt. One of the Y belts in particular. You'll notice it always makes the sound at a certain point when moving in the Y direction. Can you take a video of each of the 6 pulleys involved?

 

[alex-marakesch 0]

I just suppose that it is impact belt tensioner with block. Tomorrow will do another video and checks.