Just started the review process, open for suggestions.

[gerardgarciaxyz]

Eike,

Ultimaker makes things pretty easy for you. For simple projects just use Cura 2, with their own Ultimaker PLA if possible, and you will have flawless results. Talking from experience Doing it this way saves money and time in the long run!

From the pics attached looks like your printer is fine, so the issue is either in the settings or material quality.

[edreesen]

Hey guys, thanks for your answers! I had another go last night na d guess what, I used Cura and the original Ultimaker PLA that came with it, ditching the “Das Filament” PLA I was using before. They state temperatures from 205-230° on their website. Anyway I was going with 200° degrees with the Ultimaker PLA and I am a lot more pleased with the results.

[Pippo1]

Hi Eike,

Also I agree with the others, try to reduce the temperature of the filament. Too high temp means too liquid PLA that will form blobs/overextrusion everywhere.

Also try to have same speed for printing infill, outer layer and inner layer. The closer they are they better is the result you will get (I normally have them all set at 40 mm/sec). At this point you can start lowering the temperature of the filament (steps of 5 degrees) until you are satisfied with the results.

[Alexandre_16]

Sand paper ))

[Hoffa]

I use S3D with my UM2+ and it gives much better results than Cura, when all the settings are dialed in right. It looks like that’s probably UM silver PLA, I suggest going to 210c on the temperature, there is some pretty clear overtemp. signs on the print. Try slowing the print speed down a little and experiment with switching off wipe for instance. Last time I printed a Marvin, I used 3,3,3 layers and 15% infill (fast honeycomb)- so a bit less than you, but that’s just to save filament and time, really. Furthermore, just out of habit I always use the heated bed at 60 for PLA, as well as gluestick. This isn’t something that this will make a difference to print quality here, but in case you were looking for other hints and tips. I’ve found 50 to be a bit low and especially larger prints will want both the heat and glue, at least on my machine. To be honest, those are not bad looking prints, and with a little tweaking, you’ll get those settings dialed in just right.

[will_kostelecky]

Dont give up on the filament you were using. Pretty much all guidance on PLA is going to state a range like that…and there are times when you might use it. Like a go fast print with a big nozzle.

[Hoffa]

Definitely worth using better quality filament! You paid a good bit of money for the machine, don’t start being tight when it comes to filament, or you will get to spend even more fixing issues that the poor quality filament causes… When you consider near 100% success rate with a higher quality filament vs something as low as 70% with cheap stuff, you will probably save money pretty fast.

[edreesen]

I consider “Das Filament” Filament to be very good quality, quite sturdy for PLA from my experience. I wasn’t pleased with the Verbatim brand black PLA i got initially.

[IzzySID]

As most of the guys are saying, your Nozzle temperature is a bit on the high side, if your using a standard brass nozzle you should be at about 200-205’C if your using a Ruby Nozzle, add about 5’C.

slow the print speed down a little, 40-45mm/s.

it also looks like you are using the std fan duct, as you have uneven cooling on the two sides, noticeable about the ears and the eyes, several of us have designed improved ducts that improve the cooling fan flow balancing it to both sides, check them out on YouMagine and give them a try. This should help with the uneven cooling, although as some are very effective you will need to reduce the fan speed a little, ?

The top loop is a cooling problem, too much heat and dwell time can cause problems, but yours isn’t too bad, I’ve see worse.

you could always create a small file to play with the top and the loop that only takes 5 minutes to print and then play with the settings as swordriff mentioned.

good luck, Izzy

[3DRepublika]

My experience is completely different about Cura vs. Simplify 3D quality of prints. Probably because you always need to make perfect fit settings to object

[SLR3D]

Bonjour,

Pour moi la température est trop élevée

Température : 195°C voir 200 °C

Vitesse d’impression 50 mm/s

Ventilation : 100%

Sylvain

[AryaVenugopalan]

I agree - lower your nozzle temp. But if you do that, change you fan speed to 55-60% and have the fan turn on after 4

mm. This calibration has given me great success

[Hoffa]

What I’ve found is that Cura oftentimes simply ignores some surface details when it reads an .stl file. That is my biggest gripe with the software. For ease of use, sure it’s good, but it tends to get hung when manipulating large objects, as it tries to constantly slice rather than allow one to change the object orientation and adjust all your supports etc and only then slice the final piece.

[redbear]

I would recommend the following:

- To high print temperature for your filament, try 190-200°C

- layer height should be ok with 0.1 - but it looks like 0.4

- extruder width 0.48? are you sure?

- infill with 20% should be allright (lower)

- raise bed from 50 to 60°

I would try to print it with Cura 2.3.1. I had bad results with simplify3d and my ultimakers. On the other hand it works nice on my prusas.

[PRINT3DUK]

Hi,

We would recommend turning off coasting and also turning off wipe at end.

lower your retraction speed to around 1600. But first turn off retraction and then keep testing and turning your retraction up by 0.02 until you get it right - this is linked closely with the extruder temperature you should be able to find the ratio between them it just takes time. There is also a setting that says avoid outline, set this up so you minimise how often the print head needs to cross the outline.

kind regards,

Taylor

THE PRINT-3Duk TEAM

[lion_heart69]

extruderWidth,0.48 Do you have a special nozzle? Normally the value is 0.4.

[Hoffa]

I believe it’s what the standard S3D profile gives when you input .40 for the nozzle diameter and have the automatic multiplier selected. It looks fine to me.

[Miguelpropss]

I printed mine on normal quality, nozzle 0.4 infill 20%, I can’t remember the rest of the settings using cura 2.04, rigid ink pla and it came out fine, I think I still have the photos on my hub, check them out

[edreesen]

Could you recommend one of the fan ducts?

Regards,

Eike

[AryaVenugopalan]

Just print some fan ducts off