Ultimaker R&D - We want your ideas!

[schafe 3]

The topic of a "rewind/restart" function has come up to salvage prints that fail due to blocked nozzles or running out of filament. I recently discovered one more reason to have this option: power blips. Iowa wind storm. Power blipped for less than the blink of an eye. Printer froze where it was and welded the nozzle in place. It was hour 19 out of 20. BLARP!! My PC has now sacrificed its battery back up to prevent this in the future.

 

[halex 1]

It would be great to have a cam watching the print and a program behind that adjust the parameters like speed and heat etc

 

[zolcos 0]

1. A manual prime option on UM2. Sometimes with certain batches of material it takes a long time into the print before material starts actually coming out. Would be nice to let it heat up, then have some time to rotate the wheel until I see it's fully primed before starting the print.

2. Selective removal of supports in Cura. Sometimes the overhang angle isn't the only thing that determines whether supports are needed in a given place. I could model custom supports but it would be faster to be able to see where cura wants to put supports, and delete the ones that aren't needed.

3. More materials. I see people already using custom settings to print a few other materials such as nylon so having builtin support would make things easier. I'd also love to someday print in cooler materials like polycarbonate and those resins infused with wood or metal.

What could really be a killer app is finding out how to get a reliable printing experience with those very common plastics previously deemed not good for printing like HDPE. Then anyone with a filament extruder could realize the dream of printing with ground up milk jugs and shampoo bottles instead of throwing them away. Very green.

Something I'd recommend *not* doing is making a feature to use the heated build plate for an acetone vapor bath. It's been suggested more than once but IMO you don't want to encourage people to do that indoors. And a "presto part finisher" is available in much of the world for only ~20 USD anyway.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

About that "presto part finishe"... do you have a link? thx.

 

[Daid 306]

Something I'd recommend *not* doing is making a feature to use the heated build plate for an acetone vapor bath. It's been suggested more than once but IMO you don't want to encourage people to do that indoors. And a "presto part finisher" is available in much of the world for only ~20 USD anyway.

 

That's crazy anyhow. Acetone vapor is a fire hazard, and a health risk. Would be hard to sell under proper CE legislation.

 

[drayson 75]

Honestly, I would still just keep on the laser attachement :-)

Something similar to this would be nice... but I don´t know how easy it is to implement on a fully equiped UM1 (heated bed, second extruder) or even UM2...

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:156753

 

[IRobertI 520]

Can you actually do anything useful with small diode lasers like that though? I'm not very up to date with what's available these days but I would think there's a reason the real engravers/cutters still use big ol water cooled tubes to get the work done?

 

[Daid 306]

Lasers in an open machine are the worst idea. Everything over 5mW is a danger to your eyes.

I have a 500mW laser, which allows engraving of wood, and cutting of paper. But I have a set of safety googles with it.

 

[drayson 75]

Sure - safety first, goggles on and - best solution - close the UM sides with corresponding material... (no, not a heated chamber - that´s patended, just a safety closure because of the laser... :-) )

Nevertheless, maybe nothing for the DAU (dumbest assumable user)

Use of it... hmmm... engraving and cutting paper :smile:

I´m thinking of automate the anoying cutting process when building pepakura models. Took ages to cut out the parts for an Iron Man helmet...

Also cutting balsa parts for my model planes.

My only concern is how to controll it via the existing UM1 hardware, especially when fully equipped with dual extruder and heated bed...

Servo output pins maybe??

 

[IRobertI 520]

Piggy back onto the fan output?

 

[zolcos 0]

About that "presto part finishe"... do you have a link? thx.

http://solidoodletips.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/presto-part-finisher/

The guy recommends to wear a respirator, and after not following his advice I now agree with him

 

[drayson 75]

Piggy back onto the fan output?

 

Sounds also strange to me - therefbut I have no idea how to address it another way... maybe one of the servo outputs?

Nevertheless, would be a cool addon - isn´t?

 

[schafe 3]

I like the new option of selecting what type of filament is present when making a change. The order of this process seems incorrect to me. The filament type selection is the last step in the process. I think it should be the step after the existing filament is removed from the printer to allow the nozzle to get to the proper temp.

 

[schafe 3]

Set up the printer to display the most recently saved files on the SD card at the top of the list rather than the bottom. I know this is a minor inconvenience, but it will save me 3 seconds.

 

[eldrick 65]

Two enhancements for Cura, if included, would let me produce my product with better print quality than any other slicer could do:

- Variable layer height. This would give me gradually decreasing layer heights as the piece comes to a rounded crown. The result would be visually-constant layer edges and a much smoother "crown" on the piece. This could be automatic or user-defined (per Slic3r).

- Restrict the range of random layer start-end locations, like the "jitter" in Kisslicer. This allows "hiding" the pock-marks in less-visible parts of a piece.

While on the topic, the "random" start/ends in Cura, as of 14.05RC2, are anything but random. I get lines of pox running up the piece that come out looking like cracks or random segments of seams that got lost - it's pretty badly broken "randomness".

 

[Nicolinux 288]

Since we are talking about small enhancements - my favorite is "show elapsed time" when the print finishes.

Another small one would be "show actual layer number".

Actually these small bits of information could very well be tucked inside the tune menu. Something like "show advanced infos".

 

[eldrick 65]

And I'd love to see an Abort Print option that only retracts the same amount as a successful print, and doesn't turn off the heaters.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

What do you need this for? Wouldn't "pause" do the same?

 

[eldrick 65]

Not when I want to kill a print and start over immediately.

 

[dieselpower 0]

How about a Wi-Fi/Ethernet add-on, so you can monitor everything while your gone (status, temps, etc.)? Maybe (web)cam connection.

(yes I know.... a competitor already has this)

 

[milehigh3dii 0]

One thing I hate is when there are feed problems,like when a Nozzle clogs. I notice that the idler wheel opposite the filament feeder turns as filament feeds. Make stripes in this that an optical reader could see, or put holes in thru it and use a light/detector to count and monitor the number of times the wheel turns. If the wheel gets out of step by some ratio with the filament gripper, either alert or stop the print. With the wifi, it would be nice if it texted you about it.

 

[ideasdotmaker 0]

I noticed that when the nozzle is not clean properly before a new print, some left over material tends to scratch the building layer or pull the material during printing. Is it possible to include an auto-clean nozzle before it starts to print, just like our normal ink jet printer where it cleans the ink cartridges before it starts to print.

 

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

I noticed that when the nozzle is not clean properly before a new print, some left over material tends to scratch the building layer or pull the material during printing. Is it possible to include an auto-clean nozzle before it starts to print, just like our normal ink jet printer where it cleans the ink cartridges before it starts to print.

 

Interesting idea with the auto-clean... :-P however, I just wondered how this could be achieved without the mechanism requiring a lot of maintenance itself...

 

[milehigh3dii 0]

Interesting idea with the auto-clean... :-P however, I just wondered how this could be achieved without the mechanism requiring a lot of maintenance itself...

 

Have wipe on a high temp silicone wiper like a conveyer belt that is geared/connected to one of the motive bars so that it is continuiosly wrapped around its end points. That should make most plastic, once hardened at room temp, to fall off. A small doctor on the underside would help.

Aren't these almost mandatory with the multi head set ups?

 

[ideasdotmaker 0]

My idea is when finished printing while the nozzle still hot, it will go through a cleaning station like brush or high temp silicon to wipe away the material stick that on the nozzle while on it way back to the home position. I think this can be done easily by adding a cleaning station on top near to the home position and rewrite the homing path in the firmware. :cool: