Quality print Ultimaker 2+

[JJ79]

Hello! I'm new here, and I'm new in 3D Printing World. First I would like to thanks Drvax for his involvement in helping so many people including me.

So, I have Ultimaker 2+ and I'm trying to get prints with quality. Thanks to Dr Vax, I did some hudge progress. But i still thing there is some wrong settings in prints.

I've change bed temperature to 55° from 60°, and nozzle to 205° from 210° after strange wraping.


Today I'm printing some tests.



1 - Bed calibration - really strange result. Lines around looks great while printing, but when filling seems to be too much filnament and sticking over printet lines. What can I do here?


2 - Flow test - looks ok for me. Only those line on the place when nozzle moving to next possition. Is the nozzle too low?


At the moment I'm printing tollerance test, so I will write later about results.

Attaching also my Cura settings, not so much modifiet

Thanks in advance for any ansver.
J.J.

[JJ79]

Tollerance test done... but none of this pins moves ... 😏

I want to belive it is me who can't set this parrameters wright

[Alan]

Congratulations on the new machine! As a general reference to printer calibration, check out TeachingTech's website, especially the First Layer tab. (Have you run through the Assisted manual leveling procedure?) It appears as though your Z-offset is slightly too high, resulting in some of the lines laid down in the square not sticking to the bed and raising off the bed to be hit by the nozzle in some cases. Are the skirt lines sticking well? Also, what layer height are you using and what height for the first later? It looks like the calibration part has Elephant's foot.

Did you calibrate the eSteps for the extruder (see the "Extruder E-steps Calibration" tab)? Over extrusion would contribute to the failure of the tolerance test.

Cheers

[JJ79]

Hi Allan!
Thank you for reply. So, that printer bring my Boss to work so I could learn about 3D Printing and set this machine for quality prints. I read about Ultimaker 2+ and it should be very good printer. Unfortunately, prints are quite bad. Pictures here, shows what my Boss has printed last week, top should not have this texture. He make it with support, but I think that could be done with bridging when printer is set correctly

Thank you for link, I’ll study that.
I did run through leveling procedure… twice 😊 Skirt lines are fine and stick well.
As on the picture in first post, Layer high is standard from Cura for Normal profile 0,15mm.
First layer Height 0,27mm. This time, Elephant’s foot is there but not so strange and huge like before. I decrease temperature of bed from 60° to 55° and nozzle from 210° to 205°.
Printing speed set 30mm from 50mm before.

Did I calibrate the eSteps for the extruder… No .. I even didn’t know I have to 😊

Once again Thank You !

[Ender5r]

For 1st layers I normally use this procedure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZRY6kunAvs

I agree with Alan about the extruder E steps. It looks like you may be overextruding.

A layer height of 0.15mm is not ideal. The layer height should be an even multiple of the nozzle width. Assuming you're using a typical 0.4mm nozzle, that would mean layer heights of 0.12, 0.16, 0.20 etc.

[Alan]

Glad you are making progress! You are close to getting a great first layer (the most important layer) now that the eSteps are set and the skirt lines that stick, print a one layer bed leveling print, like the one you did in your first post or this one by DRVAX. Sometimes we have to do dozens of them while live adjusting the z-offset to get the perfect amount of squish to the extruded plastic. Because you are close, you'll want to focus on the squares--see the pictures on TeachingTech's website to help diagnose what to do.

Supports bring another set of problems and not having the extruder steps not properly calibrated doesn't help. Also, make sure your walls and top/bottom layers are thick enough to hide the infill structure. (start with 3 walls and 1 mm top/bottom thickness). The Cura default setting should be pretty close, but you may need to adjust them for your particular machine and save the settings in a new profile.

Once you get that machine dialed in, it will be off to the races!

Cheers


P.S. -- Ender5r I agree that a 0.15 mm layer height is an odd choice for the UM2, which I believe has the typical full-step "magic number" (height) of 0.04mm (ignoring micro stepping), but I'm not sure what the precise relationship is to nozzle width. What am I missing?

[Ender5r]

Alan, as I understand, it has to do with the micro-stepping of the motors. A 0.15mm layer height supposedly leads to the motor drivers trying to position the motor inbetween full steps. I haven't personally done the math, but I've seen this advice given on many different sites.

[JJ79]

Alan and Ender5r thanks a lot guys! I'll try all of this today and tomorrow. Till i get great first layer I'll come back with results You make my day!!!

[Alan]

Alan, as I understand, it has to do with the micro-stepping of the motors. A 0.15mm layer height supposedly leads to the motor drivers trying to position the motor inbetween full steps. I haven't personally done the math, but I've seen this advice given on many different sites.

Thanks. Looks like we are talking about the same thing. Here is DRVAX's video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsKNWezYT20k

Cheers

[JJ79]

Hi again.

So I'm ready for tomorrow test. If I got all of this right I should try level bed and print with this settings on Cura:

Nozzle 0.4

Layer height: 0.12mm

Initial layer: 0.2mm

Wall thickness: 1mm

Wall line count: 3

Printing speed: 30mm/s

Nozzle temp: 200°

Bed temp: 55°

[irvshapiro]

JJ79 Thanks for the shout-out. While I spend a lot of time on the videos posted on the YouTube channel, my real passion is creating a community of folks making stuff with the help of desktop manufacturing tools. Basically, after spending 40 years in the software industry, I now have the opportunity to do what I love each day. Learn something new and teach people about it. Thanks again.

[Alan]

Hi again.

So I'm ready for tomorrow test. If I got all of this right I should try level bed and print with this settings on Cura:

Nozzle 0.4
Layer height: 0.12mm
Initial layer: 0.2mm
Wall thickness: 1mm
Wall line count: 3
Printing speed: 30mm/s
Nozzle temp: 200°
Bed temp: 55°

What material are you printing and what type of bed does the UM2+ have? 30mm/s is a bit on the slow side, but there is nothing wrong with that and advisable when sorting out problems.

Good luck!

[Ender5r]

Alan, agreed -- when having issues, slow down, get the issues resolved, then work on getting the speed up.

[JJ79]

Alan PLA 2,85mm , there is a glass bed on Ultimaker 2+. I'll start with standard 50mm from Cura. I will start with standard 50mm/s and as Ender5r wrote I'll work on speed if needed. Thanks a lot guys! have a great day!

EDIT:

So I make 3 bed calibration prints.

I am very grateful for your help! I'm quite happy with this.

What I have notice is there is some different in layer height in the middle front (as on picture). Best see on the first contour line printed (also on picture). Contour is thinner on the left, but when box is filled, is thinner on the right side.
Glass in flat, I’ve check it.

Here is measurements of all 9 squares where 1 is back left corner, 9 front right.


1 – 0,3____ 2-0,16____ 3-0,3



4-0,3___ 5-0,3/0,15___ 6-0,4



7-0,25___ 8-0,3/0,09___ 9-0,3


5 and 8 has not this same thickness on all surface.

Any ideas great people?

[Alan]

The only time I've experienced something similar to this is when I had small bits of plastic in between the print surface (in my case it was a magnetic removable plate) and the surface of the heater. Try taking off the glass plate and cleaning (lint free cloth) the contact surfaces. I'd also reach out to Ultimaker support with your findings. There may be something machine specific going on here. It almost seems as if the glass plate itself is not uniform in thickness (unlikely).

As a work around, try increasing the z-offset gap (say, by 0.03mm) and increasing the Initial Layer Flow by 5-10%. The idea for this is to smooth over the irregularities that you are finding. This approach is something of a band aid and probably won't be helpful if you are concerned about tight tolerances.

Cheers