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Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas


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Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas
Ian, on 27 Mar 2014 - 8:19 PM, said:

i have two setups at the moment.. a seperate board with my designed test rig and im changing that in and out all the time with new designs and i have a motor to push the filament through.. then i put the original feeder back onto the actual printer... so I can still learn from the default perspective what the hell is going on with that thing...

Ian :smile:

 

Not sure I understand. Wouldn't it be simpler to stick with one of the alternate feeder designs from this thread and just not bother with the UM2 stock feeder - as your design (and others here) sound as if they have already solved the problem?

I can't do anything here as I'm still unfortunately waiting for my replacement UM2.

 

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    to be honest your right.. ! iv taken off the existing feeder housing and dropped it into my box of never to be used again things..... and put on a second copy of my simple feeder system.. :-)

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas
    Ian, on 27 Mar 2014 - 9:23 PM, said:

    to be honest your right.. ! iv taken off the existing feeder housing and dropped it into my box of never to be used again things..... and put on a second copy of my simple feeder system.. :smile:

     

    "Box of never to be used again things" lol! Perhaps UM should just consider adopting one of the alternate solutions on this thread. I think they'll be one of the first things I'll be printing :D

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    :smile: i like it :smile:

    can i ask.. why do you have a second fan positioned over the side.. blasting air down onto... nothing ?

    Ian :smile:

     

    I had them assembled for something else before.... they are powered by an old handy charger i missuse ;D i was just to lazy to disassemble them

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Bit off topic - sorry (mods feel free to move)

    I'd intuitively imagine that 1.75mm filament would be happier being pushed through a curved bowden tube

    than 3mm as the 1.75mm is going to be less "rigid" than the 3mm. So it should offer less "back friction"

    Has anyone tried adapting a UM1 or 2 for 1.75mm and if so, did it suffer less from skipping and underextrusion?

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Here's a US source for a hobbed pulley that works quite well with 3mm: http://trinitylabs.com/products/hobbed-pulley

    One could probably use two in opposition to get excellent control of the filament.

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    nice hobbed pulley... definitly worth a try :-)

    thanks for the link !

    Ian :-)

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    as the 1.75mm is going to be less "rigid" than the 3mm. So it should offer less "back friction"

     

    Yes, true! But there is another problem with 1.75mm filament that causes other problems. But, um, I completely forget what that was.

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas
    gr5, on 28 Mar 2014 - 4:04 PM, said:gr5, on 28 Mar 2014 - 4:04 PM, said:gr5, on 28 Mar 2014 - 4:04 PM, said:

    Yes, true! But there is another problem with 1.75mm filament that causes other problems. But, um, I completely forget what that was.

    If you remember I'd be interested to hear. I did a search but drew a blank :-|

    I think the idea of pushing 3mm rigid plastic filament (with a bend to it already from coiling onto a spool) through a Bowden cable is asking for all the physics to work against it, rather than with it.

    Bowden is designed for pulling through. Thinking of motorcycle clutch cables here etc., pull a cable through it, no problems. Push a cable through it, to actuate something resistive on the other end and (the cable/filament) will want to bend, buckle up, squirm and ride up against the sides of the tube.

    I get the idea of a light weight and nimble head - free from the weight of the feeder assembly and stepper motor to zip around unhindered through mass, but if it then can't print without skipping because of the feed, it's not an advantage...

    Academic I guess, as Ian and others in this thread have already solved the problem so far as I'm reading it? Is that so?

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    nice hobbed pulley... definitly worth a try :smile:

    thanks for the link !

    Ian :smile:

    I've had one on a TrinityLabs Aluminatus for a year with 3mm filament - it doesn't skip or chew up filament, although it works better in one direction than the other.

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Hey Guys,

    I'm working on a feeder as well here, one which doesn't use a bolt. I have one question for the moment. Am i correct if i say the feed per rev on the bolt is 25mm ? This is a very important part of the calculations i have to make for it to work with standard cura settings, and i wanna know it's exaxtly that.

    Thanks in advance !

    Rick

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Cura doesn't know or care how much plastic your feeder drives per revolution. Cura calculates the amount of plastic needed for each line segment, and expresses that in terms of either 1) linear mm of filament fed in (for RepRap/Marlin gcode) or 2) cubic mm of plastic extruded (for Ultimaker² UltiGcode).

    The printer firmware is where you set the number of steps per mm of plastic fed in. You can do it via the Ulticontroller, in the Cura machine settings, or via gcode.

    The exact amount of plastic fed per revolution of the bolt depends on the depth of the teeth on the bolt, and the pressure with which the filament is squeezed against the teeth of the bolt - as those things affect the effective diameter of the bolt. Once you know the effective diameter of the bolt (which is a few tenths of a mm less than its actual diameter), just multiply that by pi to get the circumference.

    On my UM1, the distance per revolution is a bit over 24mm.

    Note that in practice, you also get http://www.extrudable.me/2013/04/18/exploring-extrusion-variability-and-limits/, so the actual distance moved is less than the theoretical one (and hence you always get some amount of under-extrusion).

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Hmm i see. But to calculate all that i assume cura has to know what the feed is per rev... as this is the only moving part in the feeder. But i suppose i'll start with values between 24-25mm per rev and see from there. The way i see it, cura calculates it by multiplying the diameter of the filament with the amount of mm filament feeded. But i could be wrong ofc. Also i have not seen a single line of gdoce in my life, so that part i still haev to figure out.

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Like Illuminarti says, cura calculates how much plastic it needs to create a line segment. Depending on the "flavour" of Gcode it will either specify it as a length or as a volume. cura doesn't care if it takes 1 or 100 revs to produce that amount, it's not part of the calculation. The Gcode produced by cura tells the printer "hey, draw this line with this much plastic", it is up to the firmware to figure out how much to turn the bolt in order to squirt out the requested amount, and this is where the setting comes into play.

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Ok, i just realized i asked the wrong question. I'll try to explain what i want to do.

    I'm going to try to feed the filament trough something. This has a feed of 0.5mm per rev. So in order for it to be compatible with the ultimaker 2 as it is, i need to know what gear ratio i must use in order to get the same feed as with the bolt. This has nothing to do with the software/firmware, it's just so i know what gears i need to order/make.

    So basically my question is: Is there a given value for this in either the firmware or in cura ?

    thx :)

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    My grand design of the Spool and Feederholder is now finished and ready for printing

    One Can find it here:

    https://www.youmagine.com/designs/spool-and-feederholder

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    It looks really cool... Im adding this to my print job list... ;-)

    Very interested to see if it makes a noticable difference..

    Ian :-)

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Just posting something to keep the thread alive. This is what I'm playing around with at the moment, the frankenmonster mash-up I was talking about. It's far far from finished though. Right now I'm bouncing back and forth on the thickness of the parts.

    Where the bowden enters I'm planning on letting it go all the way down to the bearing where a stopper towards the back will stop it. Not quite sure how I want to do that yet and if I could somehow make it switchable between an "open mode" and a more constrained one.

    So I'm trying to keep the open design from Ian going as people seem to like that aspect but also trying to constrain the filament path a bit for the flexible filaments (I haven't tried those yet though).

    feeder V4 Ass

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    i like it Robert :smile:

    I do really like the openess idea... make it so simple for people to see what is happening.

    I hope you get a working model together soon.. would love to try it :smile:

    Iv been quiet a little bit at the moment because I want to try a very different design to this feeder question.

    It is very different and I want the design to get to a stage that it actually ... basically works a little.. then I can tweak it..

    I do know for example that the new test rig I have created to start this project is absolutly not open... LOL.... and so will be a nightmare for flexable pla but if the new system does work for normal PLA.. with a push.. :wink: Then I can make the whole mechanism in a away that it can be opened like the doors of a shop.. filament loaded and door closed.. click print.

    I already started taking photos of my test model iv printed and am so eager to start sharing photos.. but not quite yet... nearlly.....

    Ian :wink:

    the big irish teaser :wink: LOL

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    How about just being able to open it, but by default it is a closed unit?

    I can imagine with an open design you have more dust etc that can travel up with the filament?

    If you can just open it to see if it is running properly (with something as simple as a hinge?) but also have the option to close it wouldn't that be better? :)

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    idea of changable lids !... answers a lot of problems ;-)

    Ian :-)

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    It would be trivial to add a cap to snap on so that's certainly doable.

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Oh and I should say I'm still working under the self imposed restriction of only using parts already available on the machine (except for one 30mm M3 screw). If not I'd probably just bolt on the feeder from a UM1 :lol:

     

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    Posted · Ultimaker2 Feeder System - Improvements and Ideas

    Oh and I should say I'm still working under the self imposed restriction of only using parts already available on the machine (except for one 30mm M3 screw). If not I'd probably just bolt on the feeder from a UM1 :lol:

     

    has anyone done that?? fitted a um1 feeder onto a um2... by the end.. my um1 feeder was really flawless... amazing reliable setup.

    Ian

     

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