First Print ... Straight out of the box ?

[hacklordsniper 1]

Thank you, i never knew that since even in manual it shows only Ultimaker robot. Learning something new everyday

 

[SandervG 1,521]

The prints on the SD card are indeed for testing purposes and to have some things available before you get into slicing.

Nothing to fancy, but easy to print.

 

[ian 32]

Skint... have you posted some photos of your first prints ??

Ian :smile:

 

[skint 61]

A few things to mention

Preparing of the Happy Corner takes ages... mainly because my little man room is full of all sorts of junk haha

 

I started to unbox the U2, I panicked slightly as the packing was different to what the manual says and I thought the instructions and other bits and pieces may be missing... fear not they were just buring underneath.

 

The packaging is excellent, there is enough spare cardboard at the end of unboxing to allow you to build yourself a nice cardoard house, ready for when the girlfriend kicks you out for not giving her any attention

Then it was unpacking everything else, and snipping the cable ties loose with some wire clippers. At this point slight panic again thinking " where is the material holder? " but it was stashied inside that tall bit of packaging in the middle.

 

Now...onto the assembly. First thing is fitting the material holder..SNAP into place it goes into the back. All simple. Connect power etc.

Oh by the way... grammatical error on instructions here, no need for "ing" on detaching

Once you have loaded the material feeder etc, its then onto the scary bit..Levelling the bed. Nowhere in the manual would it state that the glass sheet is buried underneath the build plate...how to get it out ??

I pondered this for a while until I gave up and just thought " Sod it lets switch this baby on ".

I pressed ON and a loud noise happened... PANICK...Its the glass stuck at the bottom... No, it was just the machine warming up lol. Once it was happy with itself, the build plate raised and I could remove the glass.

Then you have to insert the glass onto the build plate by releasing these squeaky ( one was very stiff! ) clips. Simple enough.

 

Make sure you read the manual...ASWELL as following the onscreen instructions... because adding the glue to the build plate is not mentioned on the on-screen bits...

 

So... Levelling the plate:

Now I have to say, that for a £2000 bit of kit... the levelling of the build plate process seems a little crude and basic. First we level the rear centre of the build plate, using the control knob on the front of the U2.... you get it to approximately 1mm from the end of the nozzle...?? you have to guess this bit.

Following this, the head moves to the two front left and right edges to level these, but not with the control knob, but with the screws which you can see on the bottom of the build plate.

 

We then get scientific... and adjust with much more accuracy... haha OK we stick a bit of paper under the nozzle and pull a little until we feel " bit resistance ".. then all is done...

OK.. I think im ready to print.

First attempt was not very successful. I think for atleast three reasons

1) The levelling of the bed was not done very well... I think I put it too close to the nozzle.

2) I put too much glue on the bed?

3) I noticed that there was already some dried PLA on the nozzle head... but the print had already started so I just wished for the best. Below is the result lol

I aborted the print and whilst the nozzle was still hot, I poked a tiny piece of wire and a pin into the end of the nozzle.. some funny coloured PLA (silver)did come out along with new blue... so I must have unblocked a small bit of PLA that was left there from previous testing ?

 

Anyway... during this time the glue on the glass bed was in a bit of a mess...but I thought I would try again anyway....as you can see, the base of Mr Robot didn't take too well to the uneven surface... obvious I thought to myself

So... aborted, cleaned of the glass and glue with Warm Water. This time I wanted to see what would happen with No glue... and hey presto Mr Robot pops out 30 minutes later.

 

Apologies for stating some of the obvious here, I just wanted to share my experience.

 

All in All, I can see myself having some fun and frustration with this machine... hopefully more of the fun bit.. I cant wait to get home from work and try to play some more.

I haven't started messing with Cura yet, that may start tonight.

 

That`ll do for now. Over & Out

Wayne

 

[hacklordsniper 1]

Hello i have noticed some things. It seems like on picture 12 the screw head is not "flush" with bed, is it just a picture angle?

And on picture 13 is that rust on bottom of leveling screw?

 

[ian 32]

Hello i have noticed some things. It seems like on picture 12 the screw head is not "flush" with bed, is it just a picture angle?

And on picture 13 is that rust on bottom of leveling screw?

 

The brown substance is a special copper lubricant for keeping the leveling screws nice and lubricated !

Ian :-)

 

[gr5 2,167]

That robot came out okay but you can do better if you slice your own. The leveling is PERFECT! At least it looks to be perfect - the skirt looks just right - flattened a bit. The drooping strands on the overhangs (under his belly) can be improved - this is a little tricky. Typically .1mm slicing will do a little better on those. 100% fan is needed for overhangs - also slightly cooler temps might help - maybe 210 instead of 220 or 230. Lower temps have a downside though - you are more likely to underextrude.

 

[SandervG 1,521]

The brown substance is a special copper lubricant for keeping the leveling screws nice and lubricated !

Ian :smile:

 

Thank you Ian

I think here is some room for improvement on the robot.

Perhaps print a little bit cooler.

I assume both your fans are operational?

 

[skint 61]

Haha, I had a couple of brown substance moments during setup

gr5, thanks for the tips. I may try another little robot later with modified temps to see if I can improve a little...although I was quite happy with him as the very first print.

Sander yeah all 3 fans were operating, although one of the wires leading to the rear one ( I think a white wire ) was loosly connected...I may add a bit of solder later.

Sniper, well spotted. The countersinks aren't fully flush on the bed, so the glass does scrape over them a little. Its not a problem, and if I was the designer I would say that " they are purposefully standing proud to allow some friction to hold the glass in place during printing "

 

[skint 61]

:wub: Hmm Faberdashery do some nice filament colours... think I need to crack my wallet open again !

 

[cor3ys 28]

Hi Skint

I can recommend Faberdashery Filament, i just took another delivery of 500m this week :-P

It also works out a lot cheaper to buy 100m at a time instead of by the meter like i was doing..

Remember it does not come on a spool...

i made this for my Faberdashery filament

 

[hacklordsniper 1]

Well i know copper lubricants are used on constructions where heat is present, im glad my eye tricked me on that one.

If the screw is not countersinked flat it will raise the glass and glass will have a hard time to achieve temperature of heated bed under it (basically its adding a air isolator between glass and heated bed)?

 

[skint 61]

Cor3ys, thanks for the info. I did not know that 100m did not come on a spool :???: thats wierd. Although it is quite a few quid cheaper on their site rather than through Imakr who I was going to get it through.

Where do you usually buy your supplies from ?

 

[cor3ys 28]

Skint

Yes a bit of pain handling it as its not on a spool, but i now have four of them spool holders printed so i have pretty trouble free experience with it now, Some use a lazy Susan and other methods if you read through the forum...

I buy mine direct from Faberdashery and they always throw in a sample of a different color to try out, they do next day delivery or royal mail if you don't mind waiting a few days for a bit cheaper... I also have a few spools from colorfabbs which i also buy direct from colorfabb....

Yeh i found Imakr more expensive so i don't use them, But i did buy my UM2 from them back in October like you :-P

 

[skint 61]

Yeah they were a little bit pricey but the lead time sold it for me lol. I`m obviously going to have to figure out a spool method...assuming that once one filament has ran out you can just wind the faberdashery around the used spool... Im not too taken with the standard Blue, I want black. The black ABS that ID has printed those motorbike parts with looks nice !

 

[cor3ys 28]

Unfortunately you will have trouble getting it on a normal spool the inside diameter of a faberdashery spool is much larger than a standard spool your looking at about 10 -12 inches. it would just spring open that's if it did not snap trying to wrap it round a standard spool which is about 55mm diameter..

 

[skint 61]

Ahh bum, didnt think it would be that easy. Thanks for highlighting that to me, I could of been left stood next to a printer with a 100m of tangled PLA wrapped around me!

hmmm.... recycling old PLA scrap is now on my " I wish I could " list. Anybody read or heard much about this .. http://www.appropedia.org/Recyclebot

 

[woofy 12]

i made this for my Faberdashery filament

 

cor3ys,

That's a great looking spool holder.

Are the stl's available?

I had a quick look on youmagine/thingiverse and there are lots similar but I didn't see any so nice.

 

[skint 61]

Same here woofy, I had a quick browse through thingiverse earlier but thought it may be better for me to design my own. Unless Cor3ys is going to release the STL`s

I`m going to be ordering 200m from faberdashery later today.

 

[cor3ys 28]

Hi Woofysplace/Skint

This is the filament spool i used from https://www.youmagine.com/designs/adjustable-heavy-duty-filament-spool picture only shows 3 arms but you can fit 6 like mine, all i did was take the center piece (hub) to tinkercad and made the center hole size to my requirements..

The spool holder i designed myself i can post that up for you when i get home...

 

[skint 61]

Thanks cor

I`ll have a looksy at this later. 200m black Fab ordered

 

[woofy 12]

Thanks cor3ys.

I did look at that one and thought is was close but short of arms.

The 1st arm/hook is printing right now.

 

[cor3ys 28]

Excellent that's great, i also assembled mine using m4 x 25m nut and bolts from Homebase....

 

[skint 61]

So Cor3ys, does that software allow you to modify stl models? I`m using Creo ( formerly Pro-e ) and I need to figure out how to mod stls. easier for me to remodel I think.

Email from faberdashery...out of stock on black until next Thursday boooo !

 

[cor3ys 28]

Skint

Yes it is a web browser based software import the STL and modify it, its a very basic system, i am not a 3d designer or anything unfortunately, I have only been into 3d for a few months...

The files for the holder, i will provide the raw files and i used 123d Design again that is a web browser based but i could not get it to work in my browser so they provide a free download of the software as well which i used.

Both by Autodesk (tinkercad.com) (123dapp.com/design)

Shame about the black, I got 100m black from them on Tuesday :-P