Tough PLA firmware support for Ultimaker 3

[KickahaOta 14]

Hello! The new Tough PLA is starting to hit the market; but neither the testing nor the stable versions of the Ultimaker 3 firmware appear to recognize Tough PLA NFC chips or allow Tough PLA to be manually selected as a material type. When will this support be ready?

[gr5 2,189]

The specifications appear to be extremely close to regular PLA when you look at softening temperature (it's around 52C - same as PLA), printing temperature, strength,etc.  So I strongly suspect regular PLA print settings will be close enough until profiles come out.

[KickahaOta 14]

The Cura default print temperature is 225C vs. 200C, which seems worth making the adjustment. It's not a big deal, since Cura does have the support; it's just a bit of a pain to have to override the "Please switch from PLA to unknown" material-change prompt before each print.

[WesleyE 14]

We are aware of this issue and it is indeed a nuisance to override the configuration each time you want to print with our Tough PLA. We are working on a UM3 release for Tough PLA as we speak.

 

As a current workaround: you can select PLA in the printer, we only use those profiles for X/Y calibration and the bed leveling for example. Your actual prints from Cura will use the right profile.

[KickahaOta 14]

Thank you for the update! I appreciate it.

[hooey 0]

I spent a day trying to get NFC chip to read!  

I tried firm wear update, tried it on reel 1&2

thanks, this is like the cart before the horse

[WesleyE 14]

Just to update you all; We've released version 4.3.3 for the UM3 that contains the hotfix for the Tough PLA materials. When updating to 4.3.3, you can now select the proper material or use the NFC chip to have it automatically selected.

[KickahaOta 14]

I was hoping that was what that firmware drop was for; thanks!

[cjs 34]

39 minutes ago, WesleyE said:

We've released version 4.3.3 for the UM3 that contains the hotfix for the Tough PLA materials.

Don't want to hijack this topic, but does the new fimware also contain something else besides though PLA ? 

[CarloK 203]

1 hour ago, cjs said:

Don't want to hijack this topic, but does the new fimware also contain something else besides though PLA ? 

Yep, that's the only change you'll notice in the update. (there was also a bootloader fix, but that's only for initial programming in our production facilities).