Trying to print outside printable area error

[Sparkybruce 1]

Hi, I have been trying to print a large version of the one piece elephant so I scaled it up as large as I could in the latest cura software to fit on my UM2. I have a raft enabled to keep the model as large as possible.

When I try to print the file it gets about 11mm up then stops with the trying to print outside the printable area message. I have checked the file on the SD card for errors and it reads back fine. I have also tried printing it twice and it stops in exactly the same place.

Looking at the file with an online viewer the only thin that I can see is that at times the print head is moving outside the printed model and I am wondering if it is this movement which is outside the area , but as it is not "printing" it gets passed the cura normal checks.

I have attached a zip of the gcode file.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

Bruce

UM2_big_Elephant.zip

[gr5 2,172]

About 1/4 of the way into your gcode file I find this:

Quote

G0 X67.275 Y-.228

 

That's probably the offending line.  It's at layer z=14.91.  Y should never go negative.  It's among a set of non-printing moves.

 

Do you have "avoid printed parts when travelling" checked?  It's probably that.  Try unchecking that.

 

I found the problem by removing all the X and Y from the gcode file and then reading it into a spreadsheet and asking for the min() and max() of each column.

[gr5 2,172]

Check this out:

https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/44677-maximum-build-volume-ultimaker-2-plus-ultimaker-3

 

[Sparkybruce 1]

Thanks for finding that - yes I did have avoid printed parts when travelling checked. I have cleared it now.

Searching through the file now for "Y-" it finds a number of other cases (but no X-).

So the safest thing is to do a (automated) search through my gcode files for moves outside the print area to avoid this error happening again in the future.

I was just surprised that Cura was happy to produce this error.

Thanks again

Bruce

[Sparkybruce 1]

The new file printed perfectly over the weekend so thanks for all your help.

Now I am trying to see why horizontal holes appear smaller than the models (which I think is down to the plastic shrinking somewhat during printing). I see between 0.5 and about 1mm under sizing.

Thanks again.

Bruce