Hello from Lichfield UK

[thirty6 3]

After much searching my choice came down to makerbot or ultimaker, following a visit to 3dprintshow London choice was made. Ultimaker stand half the size but staff twice as enthusiastic and (in my opinion) better print quality. Following a visit to your forum I am now the pride owner of a used UM.

So far only problems are Bowden popping out at the drive end (now sorted) and bits not printing fully when exported from cura (under investigation)

Awaiting a heated bed.

Thanks for all the info and advice everybody has posted to the forum.

Matthew (thirty6)

[illuminarti 18]

Welcome!! 'Bits not printing fully' is a bit vague, but sounds like it might be due to overlapping parts in the models, which Cura treats as interior voids. Ideally you would merge your model into a single solid surface before slicing it, but failing that, the 'Fix Horrible' advanced settings might help. You can look at the 'Layers View' after slicing to see what Cura is doing, so that you don't need to actually print the part to see how it will come out.

 

[lee 2]

Hi Neighbour, South Brum here, right next to 'Rover'

 

[thirty6 3]

illuminate thanks for the info, it looked okay in layers view but the fins may have been to thin to print.

I am aware that getting the best out of this machine takes time and patience so hopefully i will improve.

Does anybody get away with using quickprint in cura?

Lee, ah up fellow brummy how is yam?

 

[illuminarti 18]

In short, no. Don't bother with quickprint. Learn the detailed settings, there really aren't that many in Cura. Other slicers are a lot more daunting - but those can have dividends too. But start with Cura in 'full settings' mode, and that'll do most of what you need.

Cura will insist on drawing a full 0.4mm outline around a shape it is going to print. I think it allows some overlap of the outline pass... so you can print walls thinner than 0.8mm (i.e., 0.4mm on the front side, and 0.4mm on the back) but there comes a point where it just can't print any thinner, and it will totally skip over those parts of the object.

If it looks ok in layers view, then it should print ok. But bear in mind that thin blue lines in the layers view represent non-printing moves, where nothing is extruded.

 

[lee 2]

Good good mate, I'm not a yam yam though, I was originally from Reading, and moved here in 2001