Bowden tube too tight for supplied PLA.

[concreteturtle 0]

Hi all,

I've just finished the build of my UM. and was getting set to do a first print but neither of the supplied filaments (PLA or ABS) fit in the bowden tube provided.

I can get about 10cm of black PLA filament into the tube and then it's too hard to push in even by hand! There is no blockage I can see, it just gets progressively harder to push until the friction is too high.

I've checked the bowden tube is mounted correctly, with the blue taped (opened out) end toward the geared extruder. And the filaments both measure the correct 2.89mm diameter.

I've sent an email to support, but does anyone have any advice to get me up and printing?

Cheers,

Angus.

[Daid 306]

If you have calipers, could you measure the inside of the tube (from the hotend side)?

Filament of 2.89mm should just slide in there without any force really.

[concreteturtle 0]

Hi Daid, thanks for the reply.

I measure the hotend inner diameter of the bowden tube at around 2.78mm.

I can't fit filament in this end at all.

Maybe I've got a bad bowden tube?

Angus

[joergen 2]

I measure the hotend inner diameter of the bowden tube at around 2.78mm. I can't fit filament in this end at all. Maybe I've got a bad bowden tube?

Is it possible you damaged the end of the bowden and it is simply squished down to 2.8mm? do you think cutting off some mm (i.e. 5mm) would help? (the bowden has an official ID of 1/8in (3.175mm))

[Daid 306]

Bit annoying to ask everytime someone has bad parts. But by any chance, did you get your kit from ebay?

Anyhow a 2.78mm inner diameter is not going to work. Even if you squished it a bit it still way to small. If you want to look for a replacement part yourself, you need atleast 65cm of 1/4in outer diameter, 1/8in outer diameter PFA tube.

http://www.mcmaster.com

sells it for example.

[sinar 0]

I have the same issue, also with a brand new ultimaker. (Check this topic: http://forum.ultimaker.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=902)

I've contacted ultimaker support and they are sending me a new bowden tube. I suggest you do the same.

[concreteturtle 0]

Thanks for the speedy advice guys,

Daid,

It's an official kit, delivered last week. Thanks for the suggestion for replacement part, but sadly McMaster won't deliver to Australia so I'm a bit out of luck there. Also, Cura is fantastic, so thanks for that.

Joergen,

I had a look and the tube is a uniform inner diameter and outer diameter throughout the whole length. The geared extruder end is a bit wider after the countersink but still only a few inches of filament will fit until the friction becomes too high to force more in. :x

Sinar,

Good to know I'm not alone in this problem. I sent support an email on the weekend, hopefully they come through with a replacement soon.

It's a shame because the rest of the build was great and the machine seems really well engineered. To get to the last step of loading filament to find out it doesn't work is a bit disheartening.

Anyway, here is hoping support straighten this out ASAP.

CT

[joergen 2]

Joergen,

I had a look and the tube is a uniform inner diameter and outer diameter throughout the whole length. The geared extruder end is a bit wider after the countersink but still only a few inches of filament will fit until the friction becomes too high to force more in.

The PFA/PTFE tube is an extrusion also, which means that there can be accidents during production, and measuring the OD is easy, measuring the ID during production is difficult... there is a probability that it is simply a bad batch of tubing.

1/4in OD - 1/8in ID PFA or PTFE tubing should be possible to find in australia - it is used for small devices as water supply line: water coolers, coffee makers etc... you might be able to find it in a large plumbing supply store, or the equivalent of mcmaster in AU.

[concreteturtle 0]

Thanks guys,

I've looked around a few of the local stockists. They will get it in, but only for a minimum of 50ft spool... :roll: Don't really want to spend $250 on replacements.

Got a few more to get in touch with yet and Ultimaker are sending me a replacement tube on Wednesday anyway.

Cheers,

[floush 0]

Hi ConcreteTurtle & Sinar, and everybody else with this problem:

Please contact [email=support@ultimaker.com]support@ultimaker.com[/email] and quickly address your issue. We've tracked down the problem to a spool of faulty tubes. Imagine a spool of 100 meters of tube, with some 2m long faulty parts right in the middle. We've never seen it before and need to talk to the supplier what's going on here.

Of course you get replacements shipped to you as soon as possible.

Cheers

Florian

[Currently Intern at Ultimaking Ltd.]

[sinar 0]

I received my replacement part yesterday and it's all working fine now

There was a visible difference between the inner diameter of the old and the new bowden tube. The old one I measured at about 2.9 mm and the new one at 3.5mm.

[dscheyh 0]

3.5mm as inner diameter is astonishingly wide. Officially, Ultimaker gives the dimension of 1/8 inch (= 3.175 mm).

Good to know that 3.5mm also works.

[concreteturtle 0]

Hi guys,

Support finally dispatched a replacement Bowden tube yesterday, looking forward to the first print as soon as it arrives...

No luck finding an Australian distributor who can get short lengths of the PFA tubing, plenty of places can order it in from overseas, but the smallest minimum order so far is 20m of tubing (@ $13AUD / meter :shock: ). So that's a lot of money sight unseen.

Thanks to everyone for the help, it's most appreciated.

CT.

[concreteturtle 0]

Still waiting for the replacement bowden tube to arrive from Ultimaking.

I don't suppose anyone has a spare tube they'd be willing to sell me?

CT.

[rewolff 0]

I was promised a new tube as well. This was june 12th I think. I'm about 50km away from them. I can imagine shipping to australia being a bit more expensive to do quickly but here inside the Netherlands, if it doesn't fit in the mailbox it costs only EUR 6.50 for next day delivery (almost always, sometimes the day after).

Although in your case I think he's right the guy at "support" is not good at diagnosing problems.

When I described the problem: "It's not hardware, I think it's software: I can extrude just fine with the tools menu in replicatorg" I got the answer: "Thank you for describing your problem so well. your bowden tube is bad, I'll send you a new one".

[benoit 0]

Hi all,

I've been struggling for weeks with my Bowden, so I finally went and got new PFA tubing OD 1/4" ID 5/32 for my Ultimakers... it effectively fixed all my problems (over/under extruding, circle roundness, grinding...) ! The larger ID also means I can now use any 3mm PLA/ABS from PRC without any jamming or having the Bowden cable pop (although i use Owen's little gadget to keep it in place, thanks btw).

Also, to get the creaking noise to stop and to give it a bit more slack in the front-left (0,0,0) corner, I cut it to 75 cm (instead of the stock 67 cm) which seems to have made things a lot better as well (smoother bends and less friction)

I paid S$ 175 for 50 FT (around 145 USD or 110 euros). I have about 40 FT left and since i'll never get around to using the rest, I can sell portions of it (at cost + shipping) to anyone who wants some.

Just let me know, you can email me bowden (AT) rnd.sg

FYI, I'm in Singapore.