Can your UM2 printer achieve 10mm3/s ??? Test it here...

[das_enginer 2]

I’ve run some more tests with increasing current, and found a rather odd behavior. The print improves at 1.5A, but taking it any higher causes the print to decay rather quickly.

1250mA – Print starts to skip at 6mm^3/s, best was 7mm^3/s

1500mA – Print starts to skip at 8mm^3/s, best was 9mm^3/s

1625mA – Print starts to skip at 5mm^3/s, very quietly

1750mA – Printer skips immediately after priming (video of it a few seconds into the print)

1875mA – Printer skips immediately after priming

2000mA – Printer skips immediately, never primes

I ran another 1500mA cylinder after going through these to make sure something hadn't fried in the process and created the error, and it failed exactly as the first 1500mA cylinder (eg nothing was fried). The only point at which I had filament grinding was when the printer was priming the nozzle at 1625mA, but this was very minor and the printer carried on of its own accord.

Thoughts? :???:

 

[illuminarti 18]

Ok, Das... you're not allowed to play any more. You're just confusing everything.... if you can't break things the right way, then.... ;-)

No, really, that's weird. I would have expected that at the highest current it would still extrude and eventually just tear up the filament, rather than totally failing even at low speed - and STILL skipping.

With your 'quiet' underextrusion at 1625 - is that still skipping back, or is it just slipping past the filament and tearing it up, leading to underextrusion?

At higher settings I'd have expected it to still extrude some, and certainly not to click backwards. Maybe it's just exceeding some absolute limit on the motor... not sure. I'll ping the UM R&D folks, and see if they can comment.

BTW, is your extruder motor a different size from the x & y motors?

 

[das_enginer 2]

I have a habit of finding weird ways to break things in cars; it's apparently carried over! :cool:

When the extruder stepper is at full speed with 1625mA during the few millimeters of priming, the motor doesn't skip and lightly chews the filament. When the extruder stepper slows down and is printing the cylinder, it's definitely skipping backwards just as it does in the higher volumetric speeds with lower currents. I have a small red mark on the end of the extruder stepper shaft so I can watch this instead of guessing (it should be almost visible in the video).

The extruder motor is the same size as the others, around 42mm a side.

I've also uploaded the test files I used here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10655012/Test%20Files.zip) just in case I mucked them up again.

 

[illuminarti 18]

The motor should be a different length.... about 1.5in front to back for the main motor body on the x-y motors, and 1.8in on the extruder motor.

 

[das_enginer 2]

Ah! So it is, I was only looking at cross sections and the plastic standoffs on the x/y motors made them look identical to each other. The extruder motor measures at 1.88", the x/y at 1.49in.

 

[norsac 0]

I have had ongoing challenges with under extrusion with my UM2 since I have received it. The extrusion test is great and I am finally able to have a test benchmark to help make tweeks.

 

 

It appeared that the extruder gear was crushing the PLA with the knurled nut and after taking boden, extruder, and feeding system apart, it appeared that this causes far to much friction.

 

 

I ended up modifying the feeder because it would not get loose enough even with the set screw all the way loose.

 

 

I cut the plastic top down 2mm so It would be less pressure against the PLA and not dimple it as much.

 

 

 

This helped my get above 4mm 3s on blue PLA and had reduced the crushing of the blue PLA. The grey and clear PLA is a little thicker and the drag makes it unusable even in just the hot end.

 

I may take another 1 mm off the feeding plunger to give me some more adjustable room.

 

 

Here is the set up tests so far. The "almost" 10mm ( a few underextrudes at the end ) was made moving the temp up to 240. I also found that due to the old filament crush by the feeder that eat marks would cause a jam/underedrude on prints with more action/retraction.

Here is my test series... the grey and white PLA are much closer to ~<3mm and jam more. The factory blue ultimaker is closer to 2.87 This little bit, cause a large friction increase.

Does the boden system need to be so tight in tolerance? I would think that the hot end should be the only resistance end with the hot funnel.

 

[SandervG 1,521]

Illuminarti, I'll repeat the tests as soon as you arrange for me to recieve 2 new spools of Ultimaker PLA, on the house of course.

 

consider it done, for all the hard labor.

(and Illuminarti said he could make it happen. And when he says something.... )

 

[braddock 1]

Hey Scott, I can print 10's consistently since making my own ball bearing spool holder and placing it under the printer. Before my results were unpredictable. Have you tried this?

 

Hello. My name is Scott and I am addicted to printing cylinders. I printed my first cylinder in February and have not been able to stop since then. I keep telling myself there are other things I need to print, but it is always a cylinder that ends up on my build plate. Printing cylinders used up all of the best filament I had. My wife thinks it is strange that I spend so much time watching cylinders print and that I save every one. She doesn't understand all of the notes I take about cylinders. Sometimes my wife gets angry with me because I spend more time printing cylinders than with her. I have lost sleep thinking about printing cylinders and have gotten out of bed before I should because I wanted to print a cylinder. All of my free time is spent printing cylinders. I have almost been late for work because I don't know when to stop printing cylinders.

I know that my cylinders get worse over time and the odds are stacked against me. I know the machine always wins. It is just so exciting when I print a cylinder that comes out a perfect 10. I sit and watch thinking "Go cylinder!! Go!!" On one side of my brain I know that the next cylinder will be worse, and the next, and next. The other side of my brain says "Just try one more. You might get 2 - 10s in a row. How awesome would it feel to get 3 - 10s in a row!! Jackpot!!" I can't get that side of my brain to shut up. It is just too loud.

I wish I had never heard about printing cylinders. I wish I never printed that first cylinder. Printing cylinders is ruining my life.

Thank You

 

[aaronalai 2]

Hey guys I know that I've been a bit absent from the forum lately. I've barley been following some of the main threads via my email updates. I've been messing with the printer a lot and working even more! I'm working on my first impression post, there are some good things and some bad things; mostly good things. I just wanted to post my first cylinder; sorry Schafe it made it to 10 mm^3/s on the stock holder. I didn't get any Ultimaker blue for some reason and have been doing my tests in red filament. I have a bunch of other filament types I'm going to try the cylinder test on though, and I'll report my findings as I generate them. I don't have to work Friday so tomorrow evening I'm going to try finish my post, it will be long but with lots of pictures and I hope what I have to say will help out others in the future. For now:

I also wanted to say that I totally owe you guys a good post, the amount of time you have saved me via your detailed problems and solutions is more than I can ever repay back.

 

[woofy 12]

Hey Aaron,

Glad your printer has arrived and it looks a good one. Looks great extrusion ar 10mm3/s.

I can only dream of that.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

Finally! Now I understand why you were absent the last few days

And great to hear that it is a good one too. Now, to break the test, repeat it with a half empty spool I bet it won't finish at 10mm^3/s

 

[schafe 3]

I have not tried a ball bearing type spool holder. One test I did was to measure the length of filament required for a cylinder, .97m. I started measuring at the feeder hole and cut that off of the spool adding a little more for safety. I coiled the filament around the stock spool holder, but it was basically hanging freely. I tried this several times with no improvement. I have also tried giving the spool a spin every so often to free up some filament with no change. Therefore I don't think a new spool holder would improve my situation.

I was very pleased with my post about being a cylinder addict. I had my wife read that post and suggested she read this entire topic. Now she has stress about cylinders and lots of questions. Her theory is that room temp and humidity is the cause. Our house does vary in temp some, I'd say +/- 10 degrees F. I have no idea about humidity, but with the furnace on during the winter it is likely very low.

 

[illuminarti 18]

Hi Aaron! Glad you finally got a printer, and that it works. Thank god. Given that you've made 300 posts BEFORE getting your printer, I can only imagine how busy the forum would have been if yours had had CUES (Chronic Under Extrusion Syndrome). :-p

And Schafe, I'm looking forward to seeing all your cylinders printed with the transformer the other way up. Should be a good couples exercise for you and your wife, now that she Gets It.

 

[schafe 3]

You guys are enablers. I just recieved the PLA from printbl.com. A guy just has to know what that stuff will do.

 

[braddock 1]

I enjoyed your post, very nicely written, and I can relate... my girlfriend has had similar concerns with my ultimaker obsession... I keep explainging to her, if the stupid thing was working as expected, I'd merely be kicking off prints, and going about my way doing other things, and life woule be normal. Fortuantely for me, I think I can tick under extrusion off the list of printing issues.

With the spool, even at it's best, the stock holder creates a very taught setup, with the bearing spool, with filament hagnging straight down, there's no angle, and the fillament even has a degree of slack, so it's clearly less work to feed it through. It's woth trying, particularly if you can manage a 10 in certain instances.

I've also has troubles printing in high humidity and hot days, this usually causes other problems for me though.

 

I have not tried a ball bearing type spool holder. One test I did was to measure the length of filament required for a cylinder, .97m. I started measuring at the feeder hole and cut that off of the spool adding a little more for safety. I coiled the filament around the stock spool holder, but it was basically hanging freely. I tried this several times with no improvement. I have also tried giving the spool a spin every so often to free up some filament with no change. Therefore I don't think a new spool holder would improve my situation.

I was very pleased with my post about being a cylinder addict. I had my wife read that post and suggested she read this entire topic. Now she has stress about cylinders and lots of questions. Her theory is that room temp and humidity is the cause. Our house does vary in temp some, I'd say +/- 10 degrees F. I have no idea about humidity, but with the furnace on during the winter it is likely very low.

[aaronalai 2]

Schafe, I also really enjoyed your cylinder post :lol:. Glad to see that your wife now understands the importance of all your perceived madness. You have a keeper for sure! Also, that was a pretty awesome thing Ultimaker/the mods did for you, but I wonder if feeding your addiction is a good thing?

Wives, girlfriends; what are these? I have a 3D printer, are they like 3D printers? Can you provide an stl file and some suggested print settings?

Hi Aaron! Glad you finally got a printer, and that it works.

Thanks illuminarti! But who's to say it would have worked straight out of the box; I did a 10-point inspection (a car reference, definitely checked more than 10 things) on my printer and found a couple of problems that would have potentially set back or caused problems down the road for someone who just got the device and didn't spend so much time in the forums. Did I mention how I appreciate everyone in the forum yet ? You guys (and gals) are great!

Hey WoofysPlace, it seems like you have been following all the threads about the subject of under-extrusion. I'm assuming you have tried everything by this point, or are there a couple of things you have yet to investigate?

 

[IRobertI 520]

@AaronAlai: Sweet, glad to see you've finally got your printer. You've been contributing a lot even without it so I can imagine you'll be even more of a resource now Also, I see you wasted no time ripping off a cover or two, attaboy!

 

[woofy 12]

Hey WoofysPlace, it seems like you have been following all the threads about the subject of under-extrusion. I'm assuming you have tried everything by this point, or are there a couple of things you have yet to investigate?

My UM2 is currently very poorly. It skips on the first layer (0.3mm 20mm/S) all the time. Fastest print speed is now only 0.2mm 25mm/S. (or 2mm3/S)

I have a new teflon part and nozzle on the way from Ultimaker. Marrit is sending them under warranty which is great, and I even had a follow up PM from Sander to make sure everything is being dealt with.

The teflon part seems free when I remove it and push some filament through it but under pressure and temperature I'm not so sure so I want to change it.

Like wise the nozzle. Although it looks clear after I clean it out and a 0.3mm syringe goes though ok, I'm still unsure its 0.4mm all the way through. I will run a 0.4mm drill through it but want the security of a replacement nozzle on hand first.

The pressure on the filament from the feeder spring is huge and does distort the filament. The filament is wearing through the ABS casing too, so its clearly binding in there. I will try both Ian's and Geeks designs as soon as they are ready. I'm currently printing Roberts extruder to check out (mirrored so I don't need to rewire hardware or rewrite the firmware). I can see some scratching on the inside of the bowden so I've some of that on order too.

Finger crossed, I'll get there.

It's not all doom and gloom though. The printer produces great results provided I go very slow (0.1mm 30mm/S). In my spare time I've been printing and modifying the Faberdashery spool holder.

 

[skint 61]

Aaron... Whooo Hooooo Happy Printer days

Nice spool woofy... I stopped at 3 arms and so far its working ok. The faberdashery filament is nice, I got some green glowing stuff lol

 

[schafe 3]

Hola nerdmigos!!

Behold my glorious cylinders:

It seems my printer is a picky eater. These cylinders, all 10s, were printed from brand new spools of sapphire and cherry red PLA bought from printbl.com. Hopefully the performance won't get worse as these spools get used up.

I hit the jackpot, won the progressive, the car and the trip to Fiji!!

Other than the change in filament, I think unscrewing the nozzle helped the most. I measured the gap between the teflon and the silver cylinder with the perimeter holes with a feeler gauge. It is .026 inches or .660mm. For the rest of my setup I have a small O ring under each of the 4 head screws, but I really don't think that does any good. The spool is below the printer hung on a section of pipe. I used small screw eyes to align the filament with the feeder hole. (Picture coming soon.)

My power supply is still black side up. I'll try flipping it over in the future. No wait, I'm done printing cylinders - really. No more experiments.

 

[schafe 3]

Here is the rear. I used 2 small screw eyes for the guides.

 

[illuminarti 18]

Yay! Welcome to the land of Happy Printers!!

 

[Nicolinux 288]

+1 for the sophisticated dust filter

 

[das_enginer 2]

Is anyone aware of the make and model of the extrusion stepper motor, and/or where another may be sourced?

 

[IRobertI 520]