First print is a disaster. What to do?

[gauss256 0]

My Ultimaker 2 arrived today and I was excited try it out. After carefully following all the instructions in the manual I was ready for my first print: Ultimaker Robot, in ABS.

It started out badly and got worse. A lot of blobs building up on a shapeless mess. Then the extruder moved over and started printing in the air. Things got to the point shown in the image when I aborted the print.

I'm new to all this and have no idea what to do to figure out the problem. All suggestions are welcome!

 

[illuminarti 17]

The printing in air might be caused by the first part of the print warping and curling, and the head catching on it.That could then cause the motor to skip steps, and lose track of its position - and then once it's printing totally in the air, all you're going to get is a mess.

So what I'd do is start over, and post some photos of the first part of the print, so we can see how that goes.

Until you get the hang of things, you might try printing with PLA - it's a bit easier to work with.

 

[gauss256 0]

Thanks, illuminarti. I'll experiment with PLA.

Ultimaker's support team has also been in touch with me and I'm working with them.

 

[gauss256 0]

Thanks to the Support team I am up and running now. And making some amazing prints.

The solution to my problem was to just tighten the pulley on the Y motor.