So my first bold step into the 3D printing world using an M3D micro, was successful but not really of the size and speed to produce anything truly useful, so I've moved over to an Ultimaker 2. A much larger and far more capable machine.
So far an amazing piece of hardware, and after having it for a month I've become more aware of the common issues with the printer and ways to address them.
Producing so far a mixed bag of prints, some outright failures, some truly useful and a few just for fun.
Unboxing it and getting it up and running was no problem at all, levelling the bed was simple and swift, once done it's been true ever since.
The build quality of it is super, very precisely designed and assembled, with a heated bed for a wide choice of materials. It's setup using an upgraded Olsson Block nozzle for fast switching of different diameter nozzles. This has proven to be a fantastic feature as I had frequent blockages and dropping out the nozzle was much easier than removing the already inserted filament. The block seems to run a little cooler than the stock one as the default temp of 210 for PLA caused blockages, upping this by 10 degrees or so really helped the flow.
Onto the bits that weren't very good, the feeder mechanism at the base of the filament tube has difficulty when moving between different brands of filament due to the 2.85mm tolerancing on the filament diameter. This is easily tweaked with the preload on the mechanism being adjusted to cope with the change in materials tolerance.
Under extrusion!
Seems like everyone has had it at some point on these printers.
After a run of fantastic prints I had some big issues with under extruding. see the failed part above.
Turns out the material was not being pulled in at a correct rate and is laid down in sparse blobs not a smooth layer..
After some head scratching it was clear that the feeder motor just had issues overcoming the friction from the heavy 1kg spool and the reducing diameter of the material as it was consumed accelerated this.
Fortunately the open sourced community has already addressed this using a ball raced spool holder For silky smooth action since fitting this there's been no issues at all.
Although i still feel that the small filament deflector is poorly placed and suffers from a good deal of friction, I'm working on replacing this with a nice ball raced deflector wheel, when I get a suitable design it will be printed.
A fast and rough print, but still looking super this machine is truly fantastic.
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