Perfectly calibrated Ultimaker

[anaxyd 0]

Hello!

How do you perfectly calibrate your Ultimaker? Does it need modifications? Pulleys? Belts? New head? etc?

The guide at Ultimaker wiki is great, but I feel it is a bit underdetailed.

 

[ian 32]

i guess the perfect answer to that is.. yes a little calibration, tight belts and oiled.. but why not just search the forum for calibrating ultimaker and read the many many many many existing posts on this topic...

Then when you have tried these ideas.. and have problems ask us...

Have a nice day.

Ian :-)

 

[anaxyd 0]

I have tried searching, and there is, yes, a buch of existing topics. Maybe we should make a collection of the all ideas in one sticky thread? That could help future UM folks.

Thank you anyway, I am a bit confused regarding the belts, and the tension. I followed the video in the wiki manual rev 4, and tightened my belts to reach the same tone. But they are not SUPER tight. Should they be tighter than in that video, since I see that people are using belt tensioners and such?

 

[IRobertI 516]

Here's a silly question for you. Have you tried printing something? Before you start tweaking things I'd suggest printing a few things and see if you have any issues that need fixing in the first place. A standard Ultimaker without any modifications can print with pretty damn good quality as it is.

 

[gr5 2,025]

My belts are quite loose and I get great results. No visible backlash or play in my prints.

More importantly you could test the pull strength of your extruder. It should be able to pull filament with 22 pounds of force (assuming no additional load in the print head).

Also you could load pronterface and experiment with different values of acceleration. I doubled my Z acceleration and that helps with the Z seam and makes changing layers more of a "click" now as it's much faster.

 

[valcrow 144]

I don't feel the UM actually NEEDS anything additional to be 'calibrated'. Mine prints great at .04mm out of the box (after building). You'd almost see a bigger difference in getting different filament than you would tweaking the machine parts.

I think a lot of the calibration needs to happen with your mindset rather than the printer to get really nice results. Learning which orientation to print parts, when to use supports, print at which speeds will net you a better result than tweaking hardware in my opinion.

I printed off some belt tensioners as I tried to replicate the 'twang', but I didn't end up using them... My print quality steadily improved as my understanding of the process improved. And i find most of my early qwams for quality were due to bad setting choices.

The only thing I think might be a hardware fix would be the vibration pattern you get on hard 90 degree turns. I tried feet dampeners, weighing down the machine but it still persists. Maybe daid can solve that eventually with some clever speed controls. Or maybe I'll learn its user error afterall...

 

[gr5 2,025]

That vibration pattern is called "ringing" by most people. You can get rid of it by reducing acceleration and your prints don't slow down as much as you might think:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/2532-prevent-ringing-wobbly-surface-after-sharp-corners/?p=18006