Can I print these designs with Ultimaker?

[kkkkk 0]

Hi there,

I'm new to Ultimaker. I'm thinking about buying one but I'm not sure if it will fit my needs.

I am wondering can Ultimaker print the following designs:

1.

2

3. I read that Ultimaker is limited to 0.4 mm in XY plane. Can I have the same amount of quality?:

Can I print these using plastic extrusion and Ultimaker or it is not possible at the moment?

Kind Regards

[micha 0]

1. if you manage to get all overhangs within the coral structure out, then its just a matter of cleaning out 1gazillion strings from rapid movements, depending on how good the machine is calibrated.

2. worth a try, in fact i have bee surprised more than one time from the ultimaker airprint capabilities .

3. don't see a problem here. you print with 0.4mm nozzle, whats the diameter of the smalles line, or whats giving you the smalles possible radius. your circles should come out well.

All it's a matter how much time you let the machine spend on it. if you put the layerheight to 0.08mm for instance, it's doing an amazing fine job. But there will be no situation, where you don't see the layers.

[kkkkk 0]

thanks for your input @Micha

Concerning example #3: The diameter of the small circles is around 3.8 mm(radius=1.9mm). Do you think Ultimaker will manage to print them fine?

Is there any point in trying to print it in the Z direction(maybe with supports) or printing with the XY precision should be enough?

Also...I saw that Stringing is a problem with most of the 3d prints. Is this something that can be fixed with the Marlin firmware and Netfabb or it's something that one should deal with when using Ultimaker?

Should I expect stringing if I print example #3 with maximum detail and maximum print time?

Thanks for your answers - they are pretty helpful since I'm a novice around here...

[micha 0]

If its just the circles, I would lay them flat. Don't see a problem here. Regarding stringing, if it's all connected in some way, netfabb(beta) or skeinforge should managage to stay within the solid region... something to be tested, could happen, that the connection between the circles must be greater than 0.5mm.

Can't tell, if you can ever achive a string-free printing. All I can say, it's hard to calibrate it to that point .

[Daid 285]

To give a very simple and clear answer to your main question.

No. The Ultimaker will not match those prints in quality. It's a pretty awesome machine, but those first two prints would really push the limits of it. And the 3th one, it won't look as, sandy as those circles.

This octocat:

http://daid.eu/~daid/IMG_20120107_214334.jpeg

is still one of my favorite prints. It's detail is very good, but you still see the layers, and it has a few flaws.

As for stringing, stringing looks like this:

http://daid.eu/~daid/IMG_20110927_000944.jpeg

, it's quite simple to cut away the strings afterwards. You can get better stringing results then this print, compared to recent prints the strings in this one are pretty bad. But I still get strings. However, with Skeinforge "Comb" feature, the 3th object should be able to print without strings.

[ddurant 0]

Hi there,

Howdy!

This looks a lot like "can a $2k printer perform as well as a $50k+ printer?" and, sadly, the answer is that it probably can't..

The first object can be done but you'd want to get reversal right before trying it. The gaps between solid bits being small mean that stringing won't be horrible but you'd probably still get some.

The 2nd object would need support material, which would be a real pain to remove since it would be on the inside of the object.

The 3rd object looks doable but you'd want to be very well calibrated first. I'd be tempted to write my own gcode generator for something like that, since each layer is the same and you'd really want to minimize travel moves. SF sometimes goes a little weird on object like this, printing one bit then moving a long way to do the next bit then coming back to the start to do the next one, etc..

[kkkkk 0]

Thank you all! Your insights are very helpful!