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

[schafe 3]

All fans work properly. The 3rd fan blows on my face as I am watching the printer.

 

[schafe 3]

I will also monitor the temp of the power supply with an IR thermometer over time. Monitoring and recording voltage seems pretty easy to me. How about the current. I think I need a clamp on amp meter that is very accurate and also records. I could then monitor the AC amps going into the power supply. Hopefully I know someone who has one, or some other device that easily records amps.

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

yeah... wd-40 can help but will not fix your printer... so... now is becoming very interesting, after excluding the normal under extrusion little devils it seems that you have a bigger evil. Half empty spools can cause problems too but i do not think that is your problem it seems to me that your printer had problems since day one.

I think if it was the power supply you would experience more problems and they shouldn't be only "skip" steps related.

If you can exclude:

nozzle (hole diameter and clogs)

teflon coupler

3rd fan

bowden tube

material feeder stepper motor angle (a stupid nut that pushes the stepper motor)

knurled wheel screw tightening

too tight material feeder

spool friction

stock filament guide friction

filament bends

nozzle temperature variations

too tight bed calibration

correct assembly of the head

increase the current to 1.5A

?

Next suspects are:

stepper motor

board

 

[schafe 3]

Yep, that is where I am at. I really doubt the power supply is guilty. I don't have any way to record temp but when I watch the temp on the UM2's screen there has never been a great variation. I guess I need a device that is simple to use, records temp, amps, and volts. Preferably all at the same time from several different points. Emphasis on simple to use. Oh yes, someone I know needs to own this magic box so I don't have to buy one.

Also been thinking about the "Advanced Member" thing. Once I get my printer going and my C-130 flying I will likely disappear from this forum. That will be a happy day for some and a sad day for others. Point is I will never regain my Advanced Member status, which is fine. For those who do become Advanced Members, will there be secret hand shakes and special words or phrases? "The blind frogman swims through the pipe at night by the light of the moon on a warm winter's day." Translation: "Ian, you are bringing the beer to our next secret conference in the Alps."

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

Hum?? beer ?? on the Alps?? now I understand why someone stole my advanced membership, I was definitely interested on the beer...

 

[schafe 3]

Oh yes, don't forget the iniation featuring "The voyage across the desert," and farm animals.

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

I am starting to like that advanced member thing. Farm animals it means there is fresh milk, bacon and eggs and maybe some nice country girls....

the voyage across the desert it's just stupid, since after cross the desert I will need more than a few beers and Ian will get a lot of trouble to get all the necessary beer to fill a thirsty camel.

I think I prefer to be a newbie and be seated watching my UM2 printing with a beer in my hand

 

[aaronalai 2]

He Schafe, the only think I can think of that might work to measure current to the extruder stepper motor is this little device: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4542-comedoone-for-ultimaker2/?p=40087 I don't think there is anything wrong with the amperage going to the stepper. The little current sensors are only 10 bucks so it's a pretty good investment. When I get it working I'll post a detailed description of my methodology and you can give it a try as well, that's about as black boxed as I can do :-P.

 

... there is fresh milk, bacon and eggs and maybe some nice country girls....

 

This conjures up so many peaceful thoughts :-P.

Also, I ran out of "Like This" powers for the day, some days it seems like I have a lot and other it seems like I can only "Like" a couple of things.

One more also, before you retreat away from the forums you must post some footage of your C-130 zipping around!

One more more also, you should definitely ask your wife about her "good old times." I have taken several gfs to check out the sights and they overwhelming love it. I know it's strange but even the ladies like seeing other ladies. I don't think the inverse is true for a lot of guys though, although I've never been to a chippendales performance, so who knows; lol.

 

[das_enginer 2]

Good morning Ultimakers!

Intersesting turn of events yesterday; I was starting to print IRobertI’s cable chain, and it started to skip like crazy a few layers in. I was running it at 220degC, .2mm layers, and 50mm/s speed. This is only 4mm^3/s, so it should have worked fine given that my test cylinder got through 10mm^3/s with only a single skip. However, my test cylinder was in Faberdashery gold, and I was printing in Faberdashery space marine blue. As such, I immediately aborted the failing print, and ran the test cylinder again. Interestingly, it failed at 6mm^3/s, which was expected given the print was failing at 4mm^3/s, but 10degC cooler.

To see if something was different on the printer when it’s “cold” versus when it’s been running a few hours (I printed some parts in gold before switching to the blue), I immediately changed back to the gold from the blue, and ran the test. Not a single failure in the entire test cylinder.

I was now curious if the blue had managed to feed in a manner that was causing binding, so I cut any knurled filament from the blue spool, and re-fed to the same curvature as the gold was just running. This helped a tiny bit, but the cylinder was still failing at 7mm^3/s.

I left the printer to completely cool so I could completely remove the cold vs. hot consideration, and the cylinder came out almost identically to the previous one; failing at 7mm^3/s.

I was now curious to see if the gold was really easy to print with, or if the blue was very hard to print with (eg which color is more representative of my machine’s ability). I dug out my old reel of UM blue that came with the machine, and the cylinder started to fail in 5mm^3/s. I babied this test print and made sure filament was feeding without friction from the spool, so I’m guessing that the gold is just really easy to print with, and the two blues are more representative of my machine’s ability. I’m also guessing the increased curvature between the UM filament and the Faberdashery filament is what caused the earlier failure (5mm^3/s vs. 7mm^3/s).

I’ll spend some part of today disassembling the head and double check the following (if I missed something, please let me know):

· Nozzle buildup

· PTFE coupler ID

· PTFE coupler gaps/spacing

· Nozzle / coupler / Bowden concentricity as assembled

· Bowden tube damage

That being said, since the gold does print well, I’m not expecting anything above to turn up issues. I would expect that since these are all mechanical concerns, one filament to the next would fail the same if there were pathway blockage/constriction (unless it was on the hairy edge of failing and the easier to print gold negates that).

My only other thoughts are to stepper current, and testing the route that IRobertI found to fix his machine. I go directly to this since his printer was failing at around the same point as mine is, but I could be grasping at straws (correlation does not equal causation, etc).

While I have it apart, is there anything else that I should be looking for / testing / optimizing?

 

[aaronalai 2]

Thanks for the post Das_ENGINER; you have some pretty interesting observations. Do you think there needs to be a temperature change when you change the filament? I know they are from the same manufacture and such but perhaps the additive for the Space Marine blue requires a higher temp than whatever is in the Gold filament.

 

[das_enginer 2]

That's definitely a possibility, but the UM2 blue is the hangup for me. If others are able to print the test cylinder in the blue that came with the machine, I would expect mine (in a perfect world) to be able to do the same. In the end, the only "good" filament I can print with reliably is the gold; which is where I was basing my hypothesis that the gold is easier to print with than nominal, versus the others being harder to print with.

I do agree that the Faberdashery blue will need a higher temp than the gold for future prints, but with it failing at 6-7mm^3/s and already at 230degC, I would be hesitant to say that temperature alone would be a fix.

 

[das_enginer 2]

I changed my plan a little; to reduce the number of variables that are changing at once, I decided to fiddle with currents before I disassembled the head. Long story short; no dice. The UM blue that came with the printer is still failing at or between 5mm^3/s and 7mm^3/s. No counts of filament grinding since I didn’t exceed 1.5A. Current was increased via M907 E1500 (http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4586-can-your-um2-printer-achieve-10mm3s-test-it-here/page-3&do=findComment&comment=39581).

I'm really hoping I find something taking the head apart again; I've had this thing since December and have spent far more time tweaking / testing / disassembling than I have printing actual parts. I could just print slower (as I have been for the few parts I've produced), but the raging perfectionist in me isn't happy until I know I can print my purely functional parts quickly (eg around 7-8 mm^3/s). :oops:

 

[aaronalai 2]

Yeah I see what you mean about not wanting to get too hot. I think I read somewhere you don't want to go above 250C or 260C with PLA not sure exactly where I saw that and I forgot to write it down. gr5 regularly prints at 240C with PLA though so I would think it's a safe printing temperature: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4541-fan-speed-issue-with-small-objects-shrinking/?p=39561

 

[illuminarti 18]

I changed my plan a little; to reduce the number of variables that are changing at once, I decided to fiddle with currents before I disassembled the head. Long story short; no dice. The UM blue that came with the printer is still failing at or between 5mm^3/s and 7mm^3/s. No counts of filament grinding since I didn’t exceed 1.5A. Current was increased via M907 E1500 (http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4586-can-your-um2-printer-achieve-10mm3s-test-it-here/page-3&do=findComment&comment=39581).

I'm really hoping I find something taking the head apart again; I've had this thing since December and have spent far more time tweaking / testing / disassembling than I have printing actual parts. I could just print slower (as I have been for the few parts I've produced), but the raging perfectionist in me isn't happy until I know I can print my purely functional parts quickly (eg around 7-8 mm^3/s). :oops:

 

What happens if you DO try to push the current above a setting of 1500? At what point does it start grinding? (In other words, is your motor underpowered, or is there just excessive resistance in the feed path?)

 

[das_enginer 2]

Good question! I'll add this to my list of tests as soon as I have reassembled my head (spoiler: nothing obvious was found during disassembly).

How high can I safely increase the current (I saw 2A bounced around somewhere)? I'll take it in smaller steps of course, but I'll see how high I can take the current until I get filament grinding.

 

[mr.-waldorf 0]

Yeah I see what you mean about not wanting to get too hot. I think I read somewhere you don't want to go above 250C or 260C with PLA not sure exactly where I saw that and I forgot to write it down. gr5 regularly prints at 240C with PLA though so I would think it's a safe printing temperature: http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4541-fan-speed-issue-with-small-objects-shrinking/?p=39561

 

My temperature limit for PLA is 245ºC, higher temps and a few hours later I have to dissassemble the nozzle to clean the burned plastic. I noticed this with gold filament and can be a little different with other filaments. Today I tested transparent PLA and it seems that 230ºC is to hot, next print will be with PLA transparent at 220ºC (30mm/s, 0.1mm layer)

 

[illuminarti 18]

The highest meaningful value is 2000; the parameter supplied is divided by 2000 and then multiplied by 255 to give single byte value (0-255) that controls a PWM output that drives the Vref on the stepper driver. So a value of 2000 will set the stepper driver to its maximum power.

(Note that although the comments in the source code say that the hardware is set up in such a way that the numeric parameter is equal to the current in mA, I'm not actually convinced this is the case. Didn't Coen say in one of his posts that the default current was roughly 1A in practice?).

Most people seem to find that the filament starts to grind rather than move at a setting of around 1700-1750.

 

Good question! I'll add this to my list of tests as soon as I have reassembled my head (spoiler: nothing obvious was found during disassembly).

How high can I safely increase the current (I saw 2A bounced around somewhere)? I'll take it in smaller steps of course, but I'll see how high I can take the current until I get filament grinding.

 

[das_enginer 2]

Okay, the head has been completely disassembled, cleaned, inspected, and reassembled.

 

• PTFE coupler had a 3.30mm diameter entry and a 3.23mm diameter exit; filament passed through it with no problem.
  
• The nozzle had a dark finish on the inside, but was still shiny. I took gr5’s advice and tried to burn out anything that could be on the inside, but nada. It did clean up the outside of the nozzle quite nicely though! There was some very minor thread burrs at the top of the entry; I lightly filed everything smooth. Nozzle tip diameter measured using needle technique; came to 0.39mm.
  
  • 
    
     
    

   

  [*]Bowden tube didn’t have any significant damage; standard “grab” ring, but nothing that obstructed the flow of the filament.

  [*]Reassembled the nozzle/collar/PTFE coupler such that there was exactly a 2mm gap between the top of the collar and the bottom of the PTFE coupler shoulder.

   

  • 
    
     
    

   

  [*]Checked concentricity of Bowden – PTFE coupler – nozzle when reassembled, and I couldn’t see any out of alignment.

  [*]Did discover something that I didn’t know; the threaded rod in the nozzle isn’t just a clocking feature. There is a 1.5mm hex key in the top, and actually locks/unlocks the heater and thermocouple into the block. This explains why the top machined plate (that the spring presses against) has clearance holes to access the top of this threaded rod. I only found this because I couldn’t properly reinsert the heater and thermocouple until I had loosed this screw, and once inserted and tightened, I couldn’t remove them either. Knowing this, apparently the heater/thermocouple were never tightened in place since they’ve always just come out & gone in when disassembling the head.

   

 

Reran the test print (230degC / 65degC tray / UM Blue), and it still failed in the range I was seeing before (7mm^3/s). I’m off to bump my extruder current up until it starts grinding the filament away instead of skipping steps. Thanks for putting up with my griping / diatribe troubleshooting, and throwing out ideas!

 

[aaronalai 2]

Hey Schafe, have you looked carefully at the housing unit for the feeder unit on the back of the unit? Nicolinux had some pretty interesting findings on his new unit that is only a couple of days old. http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/3976-almost-always-missing-layers-underextruding/?p=40962 People have talked about this in the past, and are actively trying out different designs. I noticed you are not following this thread:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/4393-ultimaker2-feeder-system-improvements-and-ideas/ it's got some really interesting stuff inside!!

Also, do you see any black flecks inside your bowden tube or on your filament when you pull it out of the bowden tube? They might be really hard to see.

 

[Nicolinux 288]

Hey Schafe, join my thread (and grab some popcorn, it's a long one).

tl;dr for the newest discovery: after only three days of use the inner filament guide (inside the feeder) showes signs of wear. Maybe UM used another spring for the new batch of feeders. This one is unbeliveably stiff. No wonder the filament gets crushed into the ball bearing.

Oh and regarding your comment that you'll leave the forums after the issue is solved.

 

• I
  
• DON'T
  
• THINK
  
• SO
  
• :cool:
  

 

Remember, you've got a 3D printer. You are likely to encounter other oddities (hopefully due to the complex nature of 3D printing and not because some punny hardware is failing on you). Stuff to look for - blobs on smooth surfaces, stringing and oozing, printing too hot vs. too fast or any other combination thereof that makes every sane man abuse the WTF exclamation of wonder and joy.

And it would be a pitty if you leave too. I'd like to hear Aaron's story about this one time at band camp in Iowa

 

[schafe 3]

I won't even start my band camp stories. I'd be blacklisted for sure.

 

[schafe 3]

I have not "followed" any threads. I just remember to check in on my favorites every day or so. Nicolinux's and Ian's are 2 that I follow. I also follow mnis's topic where overheating is discussed, but I just don't understand a lot of what is being discussed there.

Visually, I like Geeks feeder design better. I like the idea of the threaded spring tension thing. I'm just waiting for someone to name a victor then I will print a new extruder for myself.

I do see black specs traveling through the bowden tube and embedded in my prints.

Tomorrow I will print some cylinders and monitor the temp of the power supply and the feeder motor. I will also remove the motherboard's cover and set up a small fan below for cooling. I bet the fan will change nothing and I will not observe any significant temp changes.

I've just about exhausted all of my options and abilities for diagnosis. If I remember correctly Aaron gets his printer in the next day or so. Hopefully, his is a dud like mine - sorry. I'm sending negative vibes toward Virginia and attempting to realign the lunar gravity right now.

I think tomorrow will be the last cylinders I print for a while. My C-130 is progressing to the point where I need to print sections to make sure I have everything correct, and spring is almost here. I may just get that thing flying this year.

 

[geeks 1]

Hey! Here is something interesting.

 

At the moment, my design went towards some users for testing.

 

When these tests are successful, I'll post all on YouMagine

 

It only takes patience.

 

[pikey 0]

Fingers crossed Geeks!

 

[geeks 1]

Pikey, want to try my first design before?