Not enough material extruding before print

[LePaul]

I've had this annoying issue for several months...and really, since I bought the UM2+

And I've simply made hitting the Maintenance Menu, hit Heat up Build Plate, select 61, then select Move Material a regular habit

I've been chatting with one of the gents from Ultimaker about it and even done a firmware upgrade to my machine, to see if that did anything.

Not really.

I had a 3 hour print finish. Once everything had cooled down, I removed the print and started another one. I could see the filament move in he Bowden but not enough was making it to the hot end. I left it alone and since i had a lot of skirt lines on the print, it eventually put out a few dots, then eventually (by the second pass) material had begun to flow.

But that's not normal. There should be a healthy blob under the print head at the start of the print, the print head moves away and off it goes.

Since Ultimaker sent me two Ultimaker 2+ Extended's (and two Ultimaker 3's) for an upcoming comic-con, I have had a chance to try this out on the UM2+E's on hand

They do the same thing.

I had them doing a print last night and when done, I powered them off. This morning, I had each of the UM2+E's start a new print. Both had the same issue extruding material at the start of the print.

Maybe I'm not crazy

Anyone else notice the same with their UM2's?

[Xeno]

I have a UM2+ at work, and don't have that kind of problem,
when it starts it comes to the front extrudes an amount of filament out of the nozzle before starting.

I could be that that firmware reverses too much after a print, any way to check that ?

[LePaul]

I'll check the version(s) i have

[Anders Olsson]

I have also had that issue, but only on the UM2Go as I can remember.
As I remember it only happened at first print after power cycling?

I have a feeling that it is related to Cura rather than the firmware as I was playing with Cura 2.x when the issues happened.
Then I went back to Cura 15.x and the problems disappeared then I think.
There is a setting by the way, at least in the tinker-firmware, where you can adjust the retraction when the print is finished.

[reibuehl]

i have the problem on my UM2 too - i even doubled the amount of priming but it didn't help. One thing I noticed is that if I go to the Move menu and try to move manually, I hear the clicking from the firmware when I turn the wheel, but if I touch the filament, I can feel that it is not transported. If I then stop and reselect the move mode - just hop out of the distance selection in Tinkergnome firmware and back in without leaving the Move menu - the second time the filament is moved instantly. If this happens also during the print start - which I assume - it would explain why the priming does not work and later it extrudes if the nose is not already clogged.

[LePaul]

I've been doing some printing with Simplify 3D as of late....but both slicers have the same result.

I don't have any clicking (unless I spin on Move Material really fast, since the extruder probably isn't used to pushing so much/so fast)

I just wish I knew the fix. It's really weird

[reibuehl]

Maybe the audio feedback is a Tinkergome feature then - I thought my stock UM2 firmware did that too.

But does your filament move immediately if you switch on the printer, select the move material menu and move once it has heated up? Mine seems to fail first - it behaves like "the clutch is not engaged" Only after disengaging and reengaging "the clutch" it moves...

[Neotko]

Men you can change the S3D starting sequence to prime more... Gcode just make it E more.... And change the values, when using S3D you are using reprap values, not the firmware values, so change them.

[LePaul]

Well I've been chatting with Jeroen @ Ultimaker and he indicated they are indeed working on it

[jonnybischof]

With my UMO I always heat up manually, turn the UMO extruder's nice large gear and extrude some material (about as much as fits into the whole hotend -> purging any "old" material inside the hotend) and then, when everything is ready, start the program from SDcard. If I just turn the UMO on and start the print sequence, it will "dry" extrude for at least 30 seconds until there's any actual material coming out of the nozzle. Then the first few lines aren't thick enough and get dragged around, messing up the whole bottom layer. Don't need that.

I never bothered because I don't like the default heat-up sequence anyways. And I never leave the printer to start a print unattended. Always make sure everything gets off to a good start. Don't wanna waste hours of printing time and material when the print actually failed within the first 3 minutes...

[LePaul]

Yeah the UMO was nice in that you were just used to always cranking away and getting what you needed!

Since there's no means to do that on the Um2 and Um3, you sort of rely on their firmware to do it each and every time. For some reason, it doesn't seem to work and I've just always done the manual bed heating and priming.

[Neotko]

Change gcode E to increase purge
Forget about ultifavor and use reprap
Use tinkergnome superior firmware
Build your own firmware
Use um2 in reprap mode
Print a tool to release the lever & push filament
Use a coin to rotate the feeder while motor is released

Plenty of options

[LePaul]

Or....let Ultimaker fix it so it works right for everyone

[jonnybischof]

Or....let Ultimaker fix it so it works right for everyone

Which is how it's supposed to be with the Ultimaker 2 / 3 printers. They are not that much "tinkerer" machines like the UMO but should really be able to do that from scratch, using the original firmware and slicer program from the manufacturer.

[PeggyB]

just push the white lever at the feeder motor up and push the filament until it stops... and wait for a software solution from UM...