Tutorial "How to successfully print with an Ultimaker 2 and different materials"

[s.ki 3]

Hello dear Ultimaker-Community,

in the past few months I had the pleasure to work with an Ultimaker 2 during an internship.

Among other things I did a project about different materials, the tolerances and shrinkage and I put together a tutorial for printing successfully with an Ultimaker 2 and different materials.

The tutorial is something I would have been greatful for, when I started getting into 3D printing and working with the Ultimaker. It includes settings for the materials I printed, helpful tricks and/or tips, links to the the most helpful guides, other helpful links and websites and techniques as well as a presentation about my project and the results about my project.

I think it will be helpful and interesting for advanced makers and users and should be a great help for beginners. Hopefully my work and collection is useful for some of you and I hope to give something back to the community, which helped me getting started with the topic, printing ,etc.

Any comments and feedback is highly appreciated and if there are any questions - you may think I could answer - feel free to ask me and I will try my best to answer them.

Kind Regards from Germany and Happy Easter!

S.Ki

I did not know if it was possible to upload the files directly to the community or my profile so I uploaded them somewhere on the interwebs, where they should be active and available for ever...

Please let me know if there are any issues. For example if the files are no longer available, etc.

If its possible to upload the content directly to the forum/my profile I would be thankful if someone could tell me as well and point me in the right direction

Download the Tutorial and the files here:

http://ge.tt/1Q81AmD2?c

 

[fernando-rocha 4]

Looks like you have put a great amount of time on this man, I'll check it out for sure!

Thanks!!

 

[yellowshark 153]

I hit the ABS link but McAfee listed it as a site with dangerous behaviours

 

[drayson 75]

Same with ESET Endpoint Antivirus

Could you pls. mirror to dropbox, rapidshare or something like this?

 

[reibuehl 42]

Or maybe convert it to PDF and put it on Youmagine.com?

 

[xeno 108]

Buy a Mac guys

I converted them all to PDF for you

Download the Tutorial and the files here:

Tutorial:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8108870/Tutorial_for_Forum.pdf

Presentation:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8108870/3D-Printing_final_Forum.pdf

Results for tolerances and shrinkage:

ABS:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8108870/Summary%20-%20ABS.pdf

Nylon 645:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8108870/Summary%20-%20Nylon%20645.pdf

(Please copy the files, they will be deleted from my Dropbox in a few weeks)

 

[yellowshark 153]

Thank you Zeno, all downloaded now.

 

[paban 4]

Hello S.Ki

Thanks for this interesting and extensive testing results. Since there are various (often contradictionary) recommendations - specially concerning print bed adhesion- available, I started myself some testing (in a little scale).

As a newbie (just about 160 print hours on my UM2) i feel quite comfortable with PLA in the meantime. My recommendations:

- KAPTON tape for smaller PLA parts (parts with a large contact area stick very intensive on the tape and are even after good cooling very difficult to separate from the print bed)

- for large contact surfaces I use 3DLAC (a modified hair spray developed by a Spanish cosmetic firm). This too gives a very good adhesion and it is easier to separate the part as from KAPTON tape. When its very difficult to separate, then it can be washed away, which helps very good (the water goes appearantly between the part and the adhesive through capillary action).

When no wash is needed, the coating can be used at least 5 times. Just one quick spray coating is necessary. Don't spray to much ! Maybe that ordinary hair spray would be as efficient when you use the right product (since nobody in our household uses hairspray, I didn't like testing various products ... )

My results with the STAPLES glue stick (from ULTIMAKER) were no good and I don't use it anymore. This is in contradiction to your recommendations.

My own tests with a PEI plate were not quite successful, so I don't use it anymore.

My next steps include ABS and TAULMAN Bridge (I would prefer nylon over ABS due to the nasty ABS fumes and its interesting mechanical properties).

I have the following questions to you:

1. You wrote in your tutorial, that you supply the dried nylon from a "Dry Box". Could you specify this somewhat (what kind of jar do you use for the filament, do you use silicagel in the jar ...) or place a picture in the forum ?

2. I'm interested too, how you constructed the housing for the UM2. I was thinking about that too, but had no good idea so far, how the free moving of the bowden tubing could be achieved. Did you measure what temperatures arise during a long printing process ? I had some doubts about overheating of the stepper motors or the endstops too.

Many thanks in advance for your information and I wish you happy Easter holidays.

 

[s.ki 3]

Sorry for the inconveniences guys!

Thanks Xeno for having my back man, haha! Great and kind move from your side!

I would really appreciate it though if everyone would download the original files I provided. I just checked the pdf-files from Xeno and somehow the formation seems to be off. Plus there are no comments in the excel-charts. I added some words to a few results to make them more understandable.

I reuploaded the files to a more legit website. They will be deleted after 30 days though. I think I will reupload the files again after that and maybe again after the next 30 days if your feedback is good and people ask me to reupload it

For sure I put some effort and work in the project and the different files. Hope you all like it!

Kind Regards!

 

[s.ki 3]

@Paban

Thank you for your kind words

I will provide pictures of the drybox and the housing during next week. I don't have any pictures right now but the drybox is a very simple plastic box with a lid and an exit-hole for the filament. The filament is on a spool and the spool is on a spool-holder inside the box. I taped the inner edge of the box with blues tape to make the lid fit airtight over the container. Additionally I've added bags of silica gel to the box, which I dry out from time to time as well (usually when I get some new Nylon and dry it out anyway)

The housing is a very simple construction as well and features an open back for the bowden tube and the movement of the print head. Its a plexiglass construction. The door is plexiglass or makrolon and fits exactly over the open front. For the top-part of the housing an other associate and myselfe measured out the hight we would need and the overall length of the edges (leftside edge, front edge and rightside edge) and added like 6cm or something to the overall length to make sure we could bend the makrolon to form a U-like shape. We cut a piece of makrolon to the right sizes and bent it. After that we measured out the length from the outer edges of the makrolon U-shape and made a lid to fit over the top. The back part is usually completely open. I made myself a special lid to close at least half of the open back though, because I thought this might come in handy one day but I never really use it...

I will provide pictures next week if you want. However its nothing too special!

As for the Staples glue stick: Well the glue stick is a standard office product and the quality of the product may vary and its not guaranteed that the glue has the same properties and "ingredients" every time. I've read a few times that people tried to use the Staples glue and it never worked for them. For me it worked very well. Thats just what I can say. Pritt and UHU sticks on the other side did not work and would cause warping on my prints. I think I wrote in the tutorial that there are lots of other options to make a print stick to the bed. I used Kapton tape on some cheap-material ABS for example to make them stick properly. As far as I can remember right now I mentioned the notorious hairspray method as well. I for myself never used or tried hairspray because my results with the glue sticks were completely satisfying

The Staples always did the best job for me. When it came to an end, I read on the forum that Robert uses the Tesa Eco glue stick so I ordered some of these through our office supply departement, haha.

I had some trouble with the first print but after cleaning the glass plate with Isopropanol (first step) and warm water (second step) I applied some Tesa glue and spread it out with a moistened rag again. This worked very well and the results were warp-free prints like I had before, while using the Staple glue.

 

[paban 4]

@ Kilian

Thank you for your quick and comprehensive answer. There is just one point missing: What temperatures will develop during a longer print in a "housed" UM2 ? I have the background of this question specified in my comment to the tread "Real bad chewed filament" where moderator "gr5" mentioned, that a quite hot stepper motor (for the feeder) may lead to failure of the feeder when the filament throughput is low.

In the meantime, I've found the contribution "Housingcover Ultimaker 2" in Youmagine. His design seems to work too. It's not complete closed (like yours), so it won't get to hot (?). The Kühling Brothers have even installed a water cooling system for their RepRap Industrial in the (closed) build chamber to protect the printer system from overheating.

For me it's not necessary to post pictures of the dry box and the housing. Your description is good enough. But informations about chamber temperatures are very welcome (from other members too !)

Kind regards from Paul

 

[s.ki 3]

Here are some Pictures of the Drybox and the Housing.

Sadly I have never measured the temperatures in the housing during a print so I can't tell to what extent the temperatures might cause grinding/ chewed filament. Unfortunately I never came around to do this. I wanted to do it when I started using the housing but actually never did. Sorry I have to let you down there.

All I can say is that I did not have more grinding issues with the housing than I had before without the housing For me the causes of chewed filament were most times wrong pressure on the feeder, burnt filament pieces/residue in the nozzle --> so a (slightly) clogged nozzle, plastic particles on the feeding-wheel or in the bowden tube.

I think I know the thread and post you talk about.

The temperature of the stepper motor for sure could be a problem for materials with lower melting temperatures, like PLA, and cause grinding as well.

I'm sorry I can't answer your questions regarding this topic!

 

[paban 4]

@Kilian

Thank you again for your answer and the pictures.

Kind regards from

Paul

 

[fxmouton 0]

Thank you S.Ki, those tests are really interesting. I met some troubles with ABS, I will try this kind of configurations and I will definitly quote you when I explain this things to my students.