Ultimaker 2 settings for different slicers

[cor-kiekens 0]

Hi There, i was wondering if anyone has some experience with different slicers for the ultimaker 2.

I hope to receive my UM2 next week. My only 3d printing experience is with te "3D Builder". A fine machine to work with, but i hope my UM2 wil bring greater joy.

Working with the 3D Builder i have become quit a big fan of "Repetier Host /Slic3r".

For instance the posibility to use the "Spiral Vase" Function. Or Printing infill only every third layer and printing the outer line of perimeter even slower then the inner lines, etc etc

Now my question is: Does anywone know wat kind of settings i should use for the UM2.

-Steps per mm lengt of raw filament? Steps per E?

-retraction amount ?

-max retraction speed ?

Hopefully Daid can provide me some good anwsers??? :?:

 

[IRobertI 473]

I've been playing around a bit with KISSlicer and have gotten it working. The main thing I had to do was take the start and end code from the output that cura produces in RepRap mode and put that into KS. I also had to change the firmware type setting to "5D - Absolute E" under Printer->Firmware. I don't have any separate Steps per E setting in the gcode.

I copied the retraction settings from the controller on the UM2 which is set to 4.5mm @ 25mm/s.

And of course I had to change the bed size and such. I'm still figuring stuff out but that should get you going in KS at least. There are a few issues that I haven't fixed yet, namely:

 

• If you abort a print you have to restart the printer to start a new print or it wont extrude properly
  
• You have to heat the bed manually. It will recognise what heat it should be at but will not wait for it to reach that temperature before starting the print. It will wait for the head however.
  
• The start code from cura needs to be tweaked for more priming
  

I have not tried the other slicers yet.

 

[gr5 1,505]

I copied the retraction settings from the controller on the UM2 which is set to 4.5mm @ 25mm/s.

 

What the hell? Mine is set to 2.5mm I thought that was too little! Really? 4.5? I think I might change mine to that as 2.5mm just doesn't look like enough - the filament is still pushing up on the top of the bowden tube arc.

 

[cor-kiekens 0]

Thanks.

[IRobertI 473]

What the hell? Mine is set to 2.5mm I thought that was too little! Really? 4.5? I think I might change mine to that as 2.5mm just doesn't look like enough - the filament is still pushing up on the top of the bowden tube arc.

 

Yup, just double checked and that's what mine is set to. I don't think I changed that myself unless I did it while sleep deprived and promptly forgot about it (highly doubtful).

 

[jamboy 0]

@gr5: retraction at 4,5mm is also not enaugh. Best settings for me are 5,1 or 5,2.

 

[jasonatepaint 18]

 

• You have to heat the bed manually. It will recognise what heat it should be at but will not wait for it to reach that temperature before starting the print. It will wait for the head however.

 

 

I'm not super familiar with the UM/2 G/M Codes yet (Ordered one recently). But typically there is a GCode for heating and waiting (for both the head and bed) and just heating w/no wait. This is something supported in Marlin/Repetier firmware, but I'm not sure if UM supports those features.

M104 - Heat Hotend w/o waiting

M109 - Heat Hotend and wait for temp to be reached

M140 - Heat Bed w/o waiting

M190 - Heat Bed and wait for temp to be reached

I guess its a matter of testing those on an UM2 and see what happens. :-D

 

[illuminarti 18]

Gr5 - yes, my retract was set to 4.5 at 25. I've upped it to 5.5 at 35, and that seems to be working pretty well now.

Jason - yes, the UM2 certainly supports those gcodes, the issue is just that by default it uses some additional gcodes and internal smarts. For instance, retraction is now done in firmware by default (triggered with G10/G11 codes to retract and de-retract), and the E parameter is specified in cubic mm of plastic not linear mm of in-feed. These changes allow more direct control over filament and retraction settings on the printer itself, rather than having to be baked into the gcode. In addition, the firmware now has pre-baked start and end gcodes to handle heat up and cool down (again, this is done so that temperatures etc can all be set entirely on the printer, not hard coded in gcode).

The issue is just that currently there can be a bit of a conflict between the printer expecting UM2-compliant gcode out of Cura, and other more traditional gcodes from other slicers. In theory it should handle the switch back and forth, but there are a few wrinkles to iron out (but Daid is working on it).

 

[sylefeb 0]

Hi,

I am developing a slicer (IceSL) and I am adding support for my brand new Ultimaker 2. I can easily change the E values to be cubic millimeters, or I can stick with millimeters. What would be the simplest for the UM2 firmware? Is there any way to indicate to the firmware which is used?

Also, I noticed that the final E values produced by Cura have a ratio of approx. 2.4 wrt indicated filament length (e.g. Cura reports 0.50 meters - 500 mm - and the last E value is 1208). Where does this come from?

I am having a blast with the UM2 !!

Cheers

 

[illuminarti 18]

By default, when printing from SD card, UM2's firmware looks for the ';FLAVOR:UltiGCode' comment to indicate that the printer should provide its own start and end gcode, and expect E values in mm³.

I think that expressing the coordinates as a volume is better, as it makes it easier to account for different filament diameters on the fly, without reslicing.

I don't know why you are seeing a discrepancy between the coordinates and length reported. I just sliced the UM robot using 14.02RC5, and the Cura UI reported that about half a meter would be used, while the usage comment in the header of the file, and the last E coordinate were about 3000 - roughly the 6:1 ratio between volume and length that one would expect for 2.85mm filament.

I'm not sure how Cura converts volume to length when reporting the latter at the end of slicing, since for the UM2 we don't tell it the filament diameter. Does it jsut assume 2.85mm filament, or does it perhaps use some other stored value; if Cura thought you were using filament somewhere arounf 1.75mm, that would give a 2.5 to 1 ratio, which is about what you saw....

 

[sylefeb 0]

Great thanks, got it working with mm^3. Yes it makes sense to abstract away the filament diameter ; but maybe it would be best to use another letter to avoid confusion? (V instead of E? for instance sailfish uses A/B for dual extruders, but I do not know whether there is any standard for this).

I also got the estimated time and material use in there, so that the diplay is correct - cool!

About the discrepancy in Cura: I had switched to a Reprap profile and used 1.75 mm, then back to Ultimaker 2. Cura probably continued to use 1.75 mm when estimating times. I did the same switch back and forth with 2.85 mm filament and now everything matches.

Thanks!

 

[gr5 1,505]

I am developing a slicer (IceSL)

 

Very cool! I hope this gets as good as Cura someday! It would be great to have another slicer.

http://webloria.loria.fr/~slefebvr/icesl/

 

[sylefeb 0]

Hello everyone,

We just released a new version of our slicer with support for the UM1 and UM2:

http://www.loria.fr/~slefebvr/icesl/

It now runs on all OpenGL4.3 GPUs.

Best -

 

[thomas-roager 0]

No Mac version?

[sylefeb 0]

Right now we only release a Windows version. We do have a Linux version in the works (we will try to release it soon) but as far as I know there is no support for OpenGL 4.3 on Mac? (Otherwise that would be possible).