Seems like you put that picture on "private"..
For a first print this doesn't look that bad at all. My first print was a complete fail ^^
You probably need to tweak your settings a little. Looks like you printed too hot, too fast or maybe both.
Getting the top antennae of the UltiRobot perfect is pretty difficult - you need to print them very slowly, as cool as possible and probably with the "cool head lift" feature on. Never tried that one myself but it's designed for that purpose.
From my limited experience, it seems to be improper leveling and way too high temperature.
Re-level carefully, set the bed temperature to 60C, no more. Print temperature of 210-220C should be enough for UM Blue.
The default settings are, so I seem to remember: 210 / 75 & 50mm/S.
Actually, it should not look so scary with it. Not even with original UM filament.
Adjust the nozzle distance to the bed again.
Try it successively with:
* 205-210 / 65 / 30mm/S
210-220 / 65 / 40mm/S
220-230 / 65 / 50mm/S
* The first attempt should already show a good result. And for the quality improvement of Robot right ear You still have slower print, 18-25mm/S.
Markus
That's how the robot looks if you use no fan. Did the side fans come on by the 5th layer?
Important settings related to perfect overhangs (like the robot's ear and belly overhang).
1) Fan at 100% by 5mm for sure - this is probably default but test that the fans work. You can test them without printing by telling it to print and then before it starts printing go to TUNE menu and turn them on there.
2) Bed at 65C max. For this part I would use bed temp of 60C. 75C is only useful on very large parts (>100mm across) that have warping issues.
3) Keep nozzle cool also. 220C should be fine but if you still have issues, you could try 210C.
4) Layer time - did you have infill on? If you had 20% infill then that means each layer had plenty of time to cool which is good. But if you printed a hollow robot then you need to slow things down - maybe set minimum layer time to 10 seconds instead of the default of... 5? 7?
5) Print slower - quality always improves as you go slower. Usually you can get excellent quality at 30mm/sec and okay quality at 100mm/sec. But the slower you go the better the quality.
In particular, make sure that the rear fan is on all the time, and the side fans come on by a few mm into the print. For best results on the antennae, print a couple of the robots at once, so each layer takes longer, and has time to cool.
In particular, make sure that the rear fan is on all the time, and the side fans come on by a few mm into the print. For best results on the antennae, print a couple of the robots at once, so each layer takes longer, and has time to cool.
Hi, thanks for your advice. Which is the Rear fan? Both fan are on the side of the print head from what i see. Please advice. Thank you.
Hi printed.man
If you look from the rear of the printer ( stand near the filament ), you will see a third fan on the back of the head.
Hi printed.man
If you look from the rear of the printer ( stand near the filament ), you will see a third fan on the back of the head.
Skint, thank you so much..
That's how the robot looks if you use no fan. Did the side fans come on by the 5th layer?
Important settings related to perfect overhangs (like the robot's ear and belly overhang).
1) Fan at 100% by 5mm for sure - this is probably default but test that the fans work. You can test them without printing by telling it to print and then before it starts printing go to TUNE menu and turn them on there.
2) Bed at 65C max. For this part I would use bed temp of 60C. 75C is only useful on very large parts (>100mm across) that have warping issues.
3) Keep nozzle cool also. 220C should be fine but if you still have issues, you could try 210C.
4) Layer time - did you have infill on? If you had 20% infill then that means each layer had plenty of time to cool which is good. But if you printed a hollow robot then you need to slow things down - maybe set minimum layer time to 10 seconds instead of the default of... 5? 7?
5) Print slower - quality always improves as you go slower. Usually you can get excellent quality at 30mm/sec and okay quality at 100mm/sec. But the slower you go the better the quality.
Where is this "TUNE Menu" ?
TO TEST SIDE FANS:
1) Select PRINT (even though you won't be printing anything).
2) Before anything heats up go to TUNE menu. Printing will not start until you exit TUNE menu.
3) In the tune menu set fan speed to 100%, they should start spinning immediately.
4) When done you can either hit the power switch, or exit tune menu and quickly abort the print before it starts.
TO TEST SIDE FANS:
1) Select PRINT (even though you won't be printing anything).
2) Before anything heats up go to TUNE menu. Printing will not start until you exit TUNE menu.
3) In the tune menu set fan speed to 100%, they should start spinning immediately.
4) When done you can either hit the power switch, or exit tune menu and quickly abort the print before it starts.
Got it. Fan running. Thanks 
I got there a little idea for you.
Make even following test without actually select a file for printing:
It is a simple extrusion test. Go to the machine to the menu item "Move material", select it and wait until the 210 degree standard temperature has been reached. Then the menu wheel turn slowly every second / latching Point to the right. There should be a filament strand slowly coming out of the nozzle orifice by now. While you do that, should the back of the material feeder can be heard (the black box on the back wall), a tick, almost in sync with your speed of rotation. Increase the rotation speed slowly until either the material flow interrupts visible, or you hear a different sound to the material feeder. Try to identify your maximum rotational speed (of the rotary wheel latching points per second) to the other audible noise.
Attempts to describe what has happened.
Markus
The default settings are, so I seem to remember: 210 / 75 & 50mm/S.
Actually, it should not look so scary with it. Not even with original UM filament.
Adjust the nozzle distance to the bed again.
Try it successively with:
* 205-210 / 65 / 30mm/S
210-220 / 65 / 40mm/S
220-230 / 65 / 50mm/S
* The first attempt should already show a good result. And for the quality improvement of Robot right ear You still have slower print, 18-25mm/S.
Markus
Where to set the temperature?
There are 2 ways. The simplest is after you select PRINT and select an object to print, you go into TUNE before it starts printing and adjust nozzle temperature, bed temperature, and possibly feedrate. If you print at 50mm/sec and feedrate is 50% it will instead print at 25mm/sec.
You can also test the fans at this point while in TUNE menu to make sure they are working as mentioned above but it is best to leave fans at 0% for first layer.
The other method will work for future prints also. Go into MATERIAL menu and CUSTOMIZE the PLA settings to use a bed temperature of 60C. Save the setting and then choose PLA to save into.
After all the great advice, my second print.
Extruder Temp 210
Bed Temp 60
Travel Speed 30
Flow 100%
Fill 20%
Layer height 0.1
Shell thickness 0.8
2nd printing
Side by Side
Big improvment. Please advice how to make it better. Whats my next step. Thank you so much. :mrgreen:
I assume you mean 30mm/s print speed, not travel speed. Travel speed is the speed your UM2 uses when moving between printing. Travel speed should be 150mm/s or even higher.
Actually 210°C is ok for PLA, however you might even lower it a bit, maybe to 200°C if you're really printing @ 30mm/s. Or you could increase the print speed while staying @ 210°C to something like 50mm/s.
Lowering the temperature is also what you should do for improving the antennae. I suggest you use the TweakAtZ plugin which is part of Cura 14.03 and change the temperature to 190°C at the height where the antennae begin.
Good progress so far!
Have you tried the "cool head lift" feature yet? This should help with the antennae.
Good progress so far!
Have you tried the "cool head lift" feature yet? This should help with the antennae.
Nope. How can I do that? Please advice? Thank you.
You will have to activate "full settings" (Expert -> Switch to full settings...). Then go into the expert settings (Expert -> Open expert settings... CTRL+E).
There you will find the "cool head lift" feature in the "Cool" settings.
Cool head lift will *only* improve the 2 antennas. You can get even better antenna improvement by printing 2 robots side by side. The problem is they are so small they don't have time to cool as the nozzle is making physical constant contact and keeps them above melting temp. With "cool head lift" or by printing 2 robots the nozzle moves away long enough for it to cool. These are tiny improvements as they only affect the antenna.
You didn't answer the question about travel speed. What was your print speed and what was your travel speed?
The robot is not the easiest thing to get to look perfect because it has quite a few overhangs. I spent some time trying to get the perfect robot once. This was the best I could do after about 10 attempts (on a UM Original which prints as good as a UM2 I think as long as nothing is wrong with it):
This post shows my print settings for the above - and I printed 2 robots so it took a long time:
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Hi,
Congratulations to your new UM2. Great machine. Good choice. Don´t know where you hosted the picture, but I am unable to view it fullscreen, says "no permission to view image", to see the details better. Perhaps you can upload it in your gallery and and link it with the "my media" button.
Can you give more details about slicing? The UM2 is a great machine and can definetly do much better than that. Might be a slicing issue.
Didn´t you have this robot and other test prints on the SD card on delivery?
Regards,
Philip
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