Help for a newb

[richard-a 0]

Can anyone tell me why this happens at the end of every print. This only happens on objects that are curved, not square objects though. It just keeps poring material in a circular motion and destroying the print.

 

[gr5 2,237]

The head never leaves the top so the PLA never has a chance to cool enough to become solid.

What temp were you printing at and were both side fans running? Assuming those settings are reasonable, the next trick is to print two of these at the same time - place two into cura and then under "machine settings" set the gantry height to zero which forces both prints to print simultaneously - that way each part has time to cool while it prints the other.

Also make sure you don't have "support everywhere" turned on for this part. You can probably almost get by with zero support. Personally I would but a little support in the CAD model instead of letting Cura do it.

Is there any chance you can lay it flat on it's back? Or is the back side as complicated as the front side?

 

[richard-a 0]

The head never leaves the top so the PLA never has a chance to cool enough to become solid.

 

It does not just sit there and melt, it swirls around whilst chucking out a lot of material. to be honest I think there is a fault.

I'm printing at 220 on the quick print settings.

could someone tell if these things are faults.

1. It does not print when I click print. I have to go into the jog settings and jog the x, y and z, otherwise it will start printing with the build platform at the bottom.

2. the prints are printed on the platform about 2cm to the left from where they are on cura. so does this mean the x and y are out of alignment.

3. some times it prints with no material coming out because the filament has retracted half way down the clear tube. some times the material comes out in spots like there's a blockage. most of the time when printing, the feeder make a ticking noise every 3 seconds, I would not think anything about it but the manual says this indicates a blockage.

4. when the print has finished the print head does not cool down and the platform does not lower. Is this normal?

5. I ran the bed levelling wizard in cura and when it drew a line round the plate the print head smashed into the metal clip that holds the glass on the platform. it take it that can't be right.

could someone please advise since I have only had the machine 3 days and I need to make sure that these things are faults and nothing I could have done before I get the shop to replace the machine.

 

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi Richard,

I think GR5 is right and the excessive material you see on top of your print, is due to no cooling time for your filament.

If you would print 2 simultaneously it would probably be very helpful.

This does not have to do anything with the 5 points you mention later in your post.

I think you would benefit from uploading the latest firmware from Cura 13.11.2 and also slice your models while your settings are set to Ultimaker 2.

For example the bed leveling wizard (point 5) is meant for Ultimaker Original, and not for Ultimaker 2.

Ultimaker 2 has a semi-auto bed leveling wizard already in the interface.

I think all of most/all of your points are related to this.

 

[richard-a 0]

Thanks for the advice. looks like the mess at the end of the print is down to material not cooling quick enough. I would like to try the two simultaneous prints, but how can I get them to print at the same time rather than one after the other?

 

[IRobertI 521]

Edit: Bloody hell, I hate the editor in this forum software, it tries to be so smart and fails SO hard... The following is a quote from gr5 from above:

 

the next trick is to print two of these at the same time - place two into cura and then under "machine settings" set the gantry height to zero which forces both prints to print simultaneously

 

[gr5 2,237]

Richard - as Robert already mentioned - I already answered your question. Please read it again.

 

[gr5 2,237]

1. It does not print when I click print. I have to go into the jog settings and jog the x, y and z, otherwise it will start printing with the build platform at the bottom.

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you clicking on print from the front panel or within cura. You should only be printing from the SD card. When you click print it shows a "progress bar". It doesn't print until the progress bar gets all the way to the right - this is because it is waiting to heat up.

 

2. the prints are printed on the platform about 2cm to the left from where they are on cura. so does this mean the x and y are out of alignment.

I'm not sure what you mean - but on my printer it also prints 2cm to the left.... from the center line. Is that what you mean?

 

3. some times it prints with no material coming out because the filament has retracted half way down the clear tube. some times the material comes out in spots like there's a blockage. most of the time when printing, the feeder make a ticking noise every 3 seconds, I would not think anything about it but the manual says this indicates a blockage.

3a: if the filament has retracted more than a little, then before you print, go to the advanced menu where you can extrude some filament until it gets back towards the head again.

3b: clicking is bad but not necessarily super bad. It means you will get underextrusion and not as good quality on your print. But you will still get an "okay" print. To reduce extruder clicking you must print either hotter or slower. Try raising to 240C or dropping your print speed in half. Just try it. You can do it while it is printing - change feedrate to 50% or change nozzle temp to a higher temp.

 

4. when the print has finished the print head does not cool down and the platform does not lower. Is this normal?

This is a known bug. There's lots of posts about this. I think if you get the latest cura and re-install the firmware this is fixed. There are alternate fixes for now - one is to add a line that says simply "M25" to the end of your gcode file on the sd card before you print it. The bug has to do with Marlin not being able to read the last bit of the gcode including the part where it lowers the bed, turns off the heat.

5. I ran the bed levelling wizard in cura and when it drew a line round the plate the print head smashed into the metal clip that holds the glass on the platform. it take it that can't be right.

Another known bug. This wizard is for UM Original only. I suspect this will be fixed by ultimaker soon. They will either move the clips or somehow disable this wizard for the UM2. For now - just don't do it. In fact the only time you should ever connect to your UM2 with USB is to upgrade the firmware. Any other time is asking for trouble.

 

[richard-a 0]

thanks for all the advice, but as soon as I updated the software and firmware I got much better results and the I discovered the build plate was to close to the extruder. lol!

just one more question. when I print from the sd card the plate temperature raises to 75 but the print head stays at 0 unless I go into the tune settings and raise it manually. is this normal?

 

[gr5 2,237]

The newer firmware heats the bed to 90% before starting to heat the nozzle - this way they supposedly get to temperature at the same time. I'm not sure if the timing is always perfect though.

 

[gadgetfreak 7]

I suspect a bug, we also need to manually raise the head temperature after installing fw 13.11.2 even after waiting for heated bed to go up to temperature.