A Tea between friends :-) How was Your Day

[Izzy]

Just decided to have a sort out of my test pieces as my box was full

[Titus]

I just threw away the misprints from the first job I did. 3 kilos of PLA produced 500 misprints minimum, due to bad plastic and being a first time with second had printer. Now I rarely have a misprint

[jonnybischof]

I started out having massive troubles and bad prints as well with my UMO. Then I switched to a PEI heated build platform and good quality filament (Faberdashery & Diamond Age) and now I don't have any failures anymore - at all. Except if I mess up the spool and it snaps - but that's not the printer's fault.

[LePaul]

What heating bed did you have previous to the PEI?

I bought some Matterhacker Gold PLA Pro a year ago, still sealed in the vacuum bag, etc. Did some prints with it that came out ok. Time to remove the filament and it kept breaking off inside the Bowden tube. Never had filament do that...pain to remove.

[jonnybischof]

None, just the UMO acrylic platform with blue tape. Now I have an MK3 alu heatbed and a thin PEI sheet (first generation PEI plates from a german engineer guy) just slapped onto the acrylic sheet with a 1mm cork sheet in between. Works like a charm. The acrylic plate underneath the heatbed keeps everything flat and the cork / acrylic prevent heat loss towards the bottom.

[MTVDNA]

Yesterday I received the flex3drive I ordered . I did some test prints and so far I'm really happy with it. I printed a couple cylinders and a voronoi bust with tons of retractions, which turned out really nice. Any suggestions for other stuff I should try are more than welcome.

[LePaul]

How hard was it to make work with your Ultimaker 2?

[MTVDNA]

Depends on how comfortable you are doing stuff to your machine. I've (partially) taken it apart before, to see how it fits together and how it works, so it wasn't anything new to me.

TL;DR: unscrew a bunch of things, unplug and plug some connectors, rescrew a bunch of things.

I had to replace the feeder motor because the original has 400 steps/rev, while the flex3drive requires 200 steps/rev. Also, the z motor and the extruder motor are swapped on the pcb (which means just swapping the plugs). I also replaced the heater so I took the sleeve off all the cables and I had to redo that. The flex3drive itself came assembled. (Though of course I had to take it apart to see what is inside). You need to take off the old carriage of the printhead and install the flex3drive on that. I did it by removing the 2 center axles and taking off the printhead. I unscrewed it all, attached the hotend to the flex3drive and inserted the linear bearings. The most difficult part was guiding the cables for the fans, heater and thermistor through the printhead, but with some tweezers that was no problem at all. For all of this you don't really need much technical skill.

To make it work you need an adjusted version of Marlin, which mutley3d provided. You can just install that using cura, piece of cake.

I did make a couple mistakes here and there, but the owner took plenty of time to help me solve any problems through chat. E.g. I managed to screw up the firmware update by canceling it midway, and the printer did not boot at all anymore. Fortunately he knew exactly how to fix it and within no time I was back up and running.

I'm going to be playing around with settings etc. a lot the coming days and I will try to find the limits of the machine. When I'm done with that I will definitely do a write up of my experiences, pro's, cons, etc.

[Blizz]

I'm going to be playing around with settings etc. a lot the coming days and I will try to find the limits of the machine. When I'm done with that I will definitely do a write up of my experiences, pro's, cons, etc.

I for one will be waiting on that. Very curious!

[LePaul]

9/11 day here....lot's of memorials on TV and everywhere.

Hard to believe 15 years have passed already

As for me...I am debating doing the Extruder upgrade to the UM2 today, once I get some errands done. Hope you guys are having a good day too

[Dim3nsioneer]

I refitted my 1.75mm extruder (Robert feeder) with a MK7. Doing really great now...

@LePaul: Get that upgrade done... a whole new printing world is waiting for you!

[Neotko]

I refitted my 1.75mm extruder (Robert feeder) with a MK7. Doing really great now...

@LePaul: Get that upgrade done... a whole new printing world is waiting for you!

After a year of bashing about the need of mk7 for 1.75 someone believes me! A year...

[Dim3nsioneer]

I refitted my 1.75mm extruder (Robert feeder) with a MK7. Doing really great now...

@LePaul: Get that upgrade done... a whole new printing world is waiting for you!

After a year of bashing about the need of mk7 for 1.75 someone believes me! A year...

I'm glad I could make your day...

[LePaul]

@ Dim3nsioneer - I worked out clearing off the workbench for the upgrade this week. I also want to time-lapse and record, so all 4 cameras are charged up and the studio lights are in place. I just need to lock up the kitten and start on it when I have a free evening this week.

[Dim3nsioneer]

I'm looking forward to the director's cut of that movie...