New Ultimaker2: first printing of robot fails

[lumpidu 0]

Hi,

beware, I am a new Ultimaker2 user, so I guess my problem is the user in front of the Ultimaker2 panel

I have gone through the build plate levelling procedure and loaded my yellow PLA original Ultimaker filament and started a fresh print of the Ultimaker robot from within the SD card that came together with the 3d printer. Before starting printing I used as recommended the glue stick.

Print was beginning fine, however after some while I noticed that the robot was not sticking really safe on the build plate. When the Ultimaker was about to print the robots head, it fell aside. Before I noticed that the robot was slightly tilting as if it had no stable connection to the build plate.

When starting a different print it even got worse.

Can you give me some guidance how sticking of the printed objects to the build plate can be improved?

Regards,

Daniel.

 

[ian 32]

Hi Daniel !

Welcome to the Ultimaker Community ! :smile:

About your little problem.

It sounds like when you did your leveling setup, you gave it a little too much space between the nozzle and the print bed.

What I would do is...

Redo the leveling setup and make sure the piece of paper just passes between the bed and the nozzle.

Then start printing your robot.

Go into Tuning and bring the bed temp down from the default 70 to 55...

Then bring the print speed down to 50

Set the print temp to 230.

Now look at the first layers of PLA... you want them to be a little squeezed down on the print bed.. not just lines ontop of the bed !

If they are not being squeezed down a little... put your fingers down on the 3 little screws under the print bed and turn them so the 3 points of the bed raise a little..

Dont worry it takes one or two times to get a feel for whats right :smile:

Also another point.. the little robot is cute but not the worlds best printable model !.. so dont worry if it doesnt look 100% perfect... try another nice model from youmagine.com and... have a lot of fun printing and learning... :smile:

If we can help you further.. please post here on the forum anytime !!

Have a nice day.

Ian :smile:

 

[gr5 1,933]

I agree with Ian - probably just off by a tiny bit in the levelling.

Also don't put the glue on super thick - a very thin layer is fine. I'm usually lazy and just put it on directly but I'm going to print a 20 hour print or something I wet a napkin and spread the glue stick glue around very thin.

There's nothing special about 50C heated bed. Any temp from around 40C to 70C and it will stick equally well. However for large prints, more than 100mm across, 70C will help keep it from warping and lifting at the corners. But anything hotter than 70C (e.g. 75C is too hot) and the plastic doesn't cool fast enough and you get what *looks* like warping in the bottom 5mm (but is actually caused by the filament not being solid and the rubber-bandiness of PLA filament when still liquid).

 

[lumpidu 0]

Thx guys,

it got much better with your instructions. I tried a different model from the SD Card: double heart voronoi.

However now it sticks so perfectly on the print bed that I cannot remove it anymore ... should I wait until the plate has cooled down or how do you remove those flat objects ?

After you remove the object with some force, do you have to recalibrate the plate level?

 

[IRobertI 506]

Yes, wait for the bed to cool down a bit and it will be easy to remove the print (usually). Using something thin and sharp like the blade from a box cutter or the like makes it easier to pop off if it's still being stubborn.

Unless you're brutalizing the bed you shouldn't need to re-level it.

 

[juan-uribe 0]

Hi,

I was wondering why when printing an object from sd card the time according to ultimaker is 6 hours for the Earring circle?

 

[gr5 1,933]

No idea about the time thing - the latest version of Cura is getting very accurate about the time, but the time that the printer shows is not as good.

 

[gr5 1,933]

After you remove the object with some force, do you have to recalibrate the plate level?

 

Nope. Never. Not yet anyway and I've hit it harder than I should have.

don't try to remove until temp is down to 50C as at 60C the bottom might still be above glass temp and it might warp instead of come free. At 50C, if you are impatient, then go for it. But if you wait until 20C it often just pops off on it's own or with very little force. This is because glass and PLA have a different expansion coefficient.

My favorite tool to remove parts is a putty knife that I sharpened with a file. Once you get a little bit under the part, it comes up easy. Getting that first millimeter corner is the hardest part.