Bed Not Level

[inventabuild 5]

I have a TAZ 4 that has about a 0.16 mm difference in height between the center of the bed and the four corners, so in other words there is a significant bulge in the center of the bed.

This bed height differential makes it difficult to successfully print all over the bed.

So I'm thinking about buying an Ultimaker 2. What is the typical high to low bed height difference for a UM2 bed?

 

[chrisr 18]

It's glass so it should be perfectly flat so far as prints are concerned. Although there have been a few forum members who received glass that wasn't perfectly level. UM as far as I know, were very good in replacing those. Have a look through the forum posts.

imho the UM2 is a fabulous printer. Personally, I wouldn't hesitate. Go for it ;-)

 

[swordriff 119]

Yes ChrisR!

And in my experience, the difference all over is in the region of 0.1mm.

It is a one time job to correctly level it, remember there is actually a 3d screw too,

in the back.

After that, only re-level "electronically" (after disassembly of head, etc) , since the inter-bed-level does not need

re-adjustment, almost ever.

 

[chrisr 18]

Actually that's one other aspect I also so like about the UM, is that once you've leveled the bed, it doesn't need adjusting again. It just stays 'put' :-)

illuminarti has an excellent alternate method for bed levelling over the official paper method, here:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/topic/8330-best-procedure-for-leveling-the-bed/

Description at Post 5.

 

[inventabuild 5]

Thanks for the info.

 

[gr5 2,265]

DHL appears to employ elephants that sit on the printer edge to edge such that for a few people the X axis (or Y) rods aren't parellel when you open the box (and the 4 feet don't all touch the table at the same time). This gives the impression that the glass is saddle shaped from opposite corners (hold two pencils parallel and then tilt one and imagine what the print head does - one pair opposite corners high - other pair are low). You can fix this by putting the printer in a vice or something and straightening until both pairs of rods are parellel.

Also sometimes the screws under the glass aren't set all the way down (trivial to fix!) which warps the glass until fixed (the glass springs back to flat once fixed).

But for the most part you should have .05mm error at the most after leveling repeatedly (with the screws - not with the leveling procedure - that just gets you close) if you get a "normal" UM2. This is just from my own experience and reading stuff on the forums.

 

[swordriff 119]

Funny!!

Mine stands on 3 feet. Ive put piece of ivory under the 4th.

Never had a problem with it.

Ill find a rhino in the local zoo and just have it sit on it to make it straight,

maybe..

Gonna draw huge circle and see how it prints

Thanks, gr5

[inventabuild 5]

Thanks, 0.05 mm error is a good number to work with. I've been spending half my time trying to get good prints with the large error on my TAZ 4.

 

[nallath 1,124]

You could also employ a bigger ' initial layer thickness or a bigger raft. That can fix the problem with the bulge aswell.