Ultimaker II servicing

My replacement glass fiber reinforced PTFE liners for the Ultimaker II hotend arrived.
While replacing parts I looked up just how long this Ultimaker II has been printing so far:
machine has been on for 2954 hours
printing for 1855 hours using 1166 meters of 2.85mm filament.

The PTFE is pretty banged up for sure.

In the forum people talk about 300-500 hours before seeing serious degradation.


I replaced the PTFE,
doing a cold-pull cleaning in the process,
Added a piece of aluminium foil,
cleaned the extruder gears
cleaned the bed

...now let's start with the next 2000 hours of printing.


PS:
I just found out you can get them (for a premium price) at Reichelt or
remakes (no mention of glass fiber) at  another German Store and in China too.
Without Fedex.

LPG Preismelder Android app updated

Project history 

1. Previous project: none
2. last step: Improvements to LPG/CNG Price Reporter
3. current posting
4. next step: LPG Preismelder Android app updated again
5. Next project: Android App for Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

After a long time, I have finally found the time to update my old fuelstation finder for GPL/CNG fuled cars to a current Maps API and current design language.
The buggy OpenStreetMap code had to go. For the time being there is only the Google Map now.
The overlays are completely redone,
the layout of cause uses proper fragements,
the geolocation API usage and settings handling is updated as well.

Links:

App on Google Play

Google Code to Github Migration tool failing

Due to Google Code shutting down,
I scheduled the OpenStreetMap Vespucci Map editor project for Android to be migrated tonight (all commits done).
However the migration tool offered seems to consistently fail. :/
And I'm not alone.
Github has identified files >100Mb to be the most prominent cause but since my and other people's entire repository is considerably smaller, that isn't the case here.

Kevin Lee

I just found this excellent blog by Kevin "0x7D" Lee.

Must reach these later:

• A Guide to High Quality 3D Prints
• https://0x7d.com/2014/07/improved-ultimaker-2-material-extruder/  (Revision F)
• improved Ultimaker 2 Fan Mount

• 3D Printed Precision Paste Dispenser
• https://0x7d.com/2014/08/41-gearbox-for-nema-17-stepper-motors/ (with "Guide to Designing Gears for 3D Printing in Autodesk Inventor")

He seems to be using the same printer I am (Ultimaker II) in the same way (very high precision parts at maximum reliability).
Not just "buy a printer and print trinkets I found from Youmagine or Thingiverse"

Ultimaker II issues

I'm using my Ultimaker II a lot and I'm taking good care of a clean nozzle.

Now I'm starting to get underextrusion issues.

1. I cleaned the bed of any glue stick residue
2. leveled the bed
3. cleaned the nozzle using cold pull until I could see through
4. Extruder tension was at minimum, I tightened it until the indicator was in the center

The issue is still there. Just with a bit more skipping then before
It started last week with an object that requries lots of retraction and happened after hours of printing.
Usually my objects need no or nearly no retraction. So I didn't think much about it.
How it happens in a perfectly cleaned and recalibrated printer within the first layer.

Next steps
I fear my PTFE liner may be completely used up.
I did order 2 new ones but since they get delivered with FedEx, they may not reach me.
(No delivery after work hours and no possibility for me to pick them up.)

I'll loosen the extruder tension again and redo the cleaning.
Maybe I just over-tightened the extruder.

Results
The underextrusion returned within minutes in the first layer.
I lowered the extruder tension and set my first layer to run at 50% speed until my replacement parts arrive.
This helped a lot.

Ultimaker Pro and Contra

3D printer (Ultimaker II) working on another 26h build...
That's a small one by my standards. While I'm away for the weekend it will do another 3 day job and I have even run extremely detailed 40 and 100h jobs without any hickup.
...at 20 Micron, that's 0.02mm compared to 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.25mm in other printers.
...out of the box with good quality filament.

Reliability

I just love the reliability. Never seen anything like it with RepMan 3.0/3.2, ThingOMatic (on the contrary), Makibox. For exactly that teason I'll never, ever again buy a Makerbox Industries product.
(Apart from "Takerbot")
I hope Makerbot will get a lot of competition, now that Ultimaker has extended from Europe to North America.

Maintenance

You should regularly

• check extruder tension. The indicator on the side should not be in the upmost position. Insert an allen key/hex key in the top and turn left (out) to make it tighter, right (in) to make it loose
• check bed leveling
• clean your nozzle with a cold pull (manually push filament through, then cool to 70-90°C and pull it out). Don't pull or push too hard as the PTFE liner is only held down by a spring and downward filament movement. It's als called the "atomic method" but it was known long before there was a U2 forum.
• clean the bed of residue glue stick with a wet paper towel, reapply a very thin layer of new glue

Maximum spool size





Given that reliability, it's printing A LOT. 750g spools are extremely inconvenient.
These 2.2Kg spools from Colorfabb from are great.
I'd have loved 5Kg or 20Kg spools (both sizes I used before, stored next to older printers using garden hose holders)
but 2.2Kg is the maximum the Ultimaker II can hold.
Everything else would be wider and lower then the body of the printer itself.

The Near Future


I can't wait for the Ultimaker II Extended, that I already preordered!
The increased hight combined with the reliability of an U2 is exactly what I need for my parts.

Spare parts and shipping

The only downside is that is demanding steep prices for the wear parts (PTFE liner, nozzle, hot end pack), dubling the price with their enourmous shipping fees and seems to use express curiers.

(Of cause if this is a minor issue and if it's the only thing I can complain about, that says a lot about the quality and reliability. I'm using this printer nearly constantly day and night.)

Express meaning it takes twice as long and may not reach you at all if you just so happen to work during the day. Curiers don't have post offices everywhere where you can pick up your packages after hours.
They often don't have storage locations in the same city reachable without a car and they don't deliver or offer pickup on weekends.
So for me they are evil as I work Monday to Friday in different cities.
Express curier services are for and ONLY for deliveries to businesses that have offices open 9-5.
NOT for delivering to private citizen who work in these offices 9-5 and are thus not at home.
They are NOT replacements for postal services. They where never intended to be.
With the new Ulti-Quality setting the first layer needs a lot of attention and benefits from reduced speed and increased filament flow.
After that it's great. I don't mind that that it takes ages as it reduces the time I spend in sanding and other post processing after the machine has finished it's job.

Free OpenFx plugins for Resolve

Since Resolve (and the free Resolve Lite) doesn't support one OpenFX method,
the Openfx-Misc set of free plugins needed an update.
After a discussion in the Blackmagic forum, this has now happened.
I was able to compile them without any issues and they do show up in my Resolve 11 Lite on MacOS.

On a side node: openfx_yadif (for deinterlacing) is still crashing in export after 5-20 frames. It does work in the color tab. Even with playback running.

Searching for a monitor

I'm thinking about a wide color gamut display for Color Grading in Blackmagic design - Davincy Resolve.
It will also be used in Final Cut Pro X.
...and VLC. ;)

Options

The HP Dreamcolor Z27x (720eur 2048 x 1556)
sems to be more affordable compoared to
the EIZO ColorEdge CG247-BK (1500eur 1.920 x 1.200)
or EIZO ColorEdge CG277-BK (2000eur 2.560 x 1.440).
You save 100-200eur for the calibration device but both need the Ultrastudio Mini Monitor as an added cost factor.

NOT the smaller Z24x (400-550eur 1920x1200) because
* that doesn't calibrate without a PC like the Z27x does and the software only exists for Windows.
(http://www.liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-hp-dreamcolor-monitors-4k-capable.2694/page-6)
* it doesn't have the same kind of panel or the same precision as the Z27x
http://www.liftgammagain.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-hp-dreamcolor-monitors-4k-capable.2694/page-8

100% sRGB Coverage
100% Adobe RGB Coverage
100% BT. 709 Color Coverage
99% of DCI-P3 Coverage

Setup

I'm planning to use the
Blackmagic Ultrastudio Mini Monitor
to output 10bit 4:2:2 YUV
since the newer Z27x supports the DreamColor Engine with YUV and not only RGB now and the Mini Monitor is limited to YUV only.

Calibration

One problem I have is that the cheapest, supported calibration device (HP DreamColor Calibration Solution(B1F63AA)) for the Z27x seems to be half the price of the entire monitor (200eur). :/

A Spider4Pro or Spider4Elite that cold also calibrate my other displays and laptops would not work with the internal LUT of this display. :/
On the other hand the  B1F63AA is much more accurate then the Spider will ever be.

Evaluation

Z27x
720eur + 100eur + 150eur = 720eur

• less quality control
• no sun shade
• 4K downscaling, 1:1 4 corners + center + dynamic panning
• 2 DisplayPort 1 HDMI
• 100% sRGB Coverage
  100% Adobe RGB Coverage
  100% BT. 709 Color Coverage
  99% of DCI-P3 Coverage
   

CG247-BK
1500eur + 100eur = 1600eur.

• 100% sRGB
• 99% AdobeRGB
• 100% Rec709
• 95,4%DCI

CG277-BK
2000eur + 100eur = 2100eur.

• 4K downscaling and 1:1 4 corners
• 100% sRGB
• 99% AdobeRGB 
• 100% Rec709
• DCI: 93%

About screws and screwheads

I just found this interesting posting about different types of screw-head and -drivers in Google+.
"When a Phillips is not a Phillips!" by arcticpenguin

OpenBCI

After doing some initial ECG experiments with a simple Arduino shield,
I got my OpenBCI from Kickstarter just in time for 31C3.
For the time being, I'll use this blog posting to collect some links and notes until I get things sorted out.
Much of the OpenBCI documentation on the official site and source code repository is still unwritten,
so I need to do a lot of hunting, gathering, guessing and experimenting.

Results so far:

• I see clear signals with lots of SNR for muscle movements and eye movement
• The OpenBCI_GUI app has way too little in the ways of signal analysis.
• I'm having trouble using my Olimex EEG designs in BrainBay with the OpenBCI

Getting started

• Tutorial 01 (feedback)

People/Talks/Blogs

• EEGhacker Blog by Chip from the US
• Attention and here too
• EOG
• ECG
• No OpenBCI group on Google+
• Open-BCI.org (different project) on 28C3 and on 31C3 (3 years later)

SW

• OpenBCI github repositories 
• I didn't try the OpenBCI input module of BrainHacker yet (Windows only)
• I honestly need to look at the Android software connecting to the OpenBCI via Bluetooth.
• Binary MacOS version is newer then binary in github (has 50Hz option for notch filter)

HW

• bottom pins vs. top pins
• Getting a 50Hz notch instead of a 60Hz (TODO) 

Headware

• Where to store the battery pack? (TODO)
• How to assemble the SpiderClaw (note that V2 is not for the OpenBCI V3)

ECG/EOG/EEG experiments

I'm a backer of OpenBCI  but they still haven't delivered.
(Other people have, 3 days ago)
So I just ordered myself a "Shield-EKG-EMG" from Watterott.

I managed to get my heatbeat.
(That's the easiest you can do.)
Next step shall be tests of Electro Oculography (electric eye tracking).








Just some notes for myself:

EOG

Signal is in the range of 1mV peak to peak .
Eye-blinking artifact is very strong.
50Hz line noise must be removed (of cause). (notch fiter)
low-frequency cutoff to 0.02 Hz
high-frequency cutoff 50Hz

• getting started with ECG
• progressing to EOG
• settings and recorded data
• more EOG
• OpenBCI GUI software (Processing)
• BrainBay software (Windows only)

Accuracy tesing 3D scanner

I want to know how well the Sense 3D scanner together with the Skanect software (since the Sense software only works on one computer per scanner and is pretty much crap without CUDA) captures mechanical dimensions.
Both in terms of absolute dimensions in millimeters (scaling of the entire part) and in terms of relative sizes of components to each other.

As a first test I scanned my camera. It's a small object and I had an error of about 10mm for a 130x70mm part in all 3 dimensions. Not very good.


Then I scanned my face.
Cleaned up that scan in Skanect, then NetFabb, then Meshlab (because the free NetFabb version doesn't allow you to fix some errors unless you buy the pro version).
Then imported that mesh into Geometric Design (my CAD program with 3D scanner and -printer integration).
Designed a mask with no allowance (not even under the nose or in the eyes).
Printed that mask on my Ultimaker II using default settings.
result?  It fits my face perfectly!

I'm currently waiting for a FabScan Cube to also scan small objects, where the Sense failes and am waiting for Skanect to support my higher resolution Kinect V2 for Windows. (I'll try the libfreenect2 software on MacOS/Linux next week.)

Im Labyrinth der Telekom

Ich habe einen Business-Tarif. 3 SIM-Karten, nutzt viele Daten (>2GB), nutze ausgiebig die Telekom-Hotspots in den DB Zügen/Bahnhöfen/Mc Donalds, LTE ist mir egal, iPhones auch, telephoniere kaum 5 Minuten im Monat und verschicke keine SMS.
So weit so einfach.
....bis man mal auf der Website von T-Mobile seinen Tarif vergleichen und ändern will.




Ok, ich kann nicht mehr.
nach Wochen kann ich in diesem verd****** Labyrinth von Website bei T-Mobile mich weder einfach mal als Kunde einloggen,
noch meinen Tarif ändern
noch die Hälfte der Tarife ohne "nur für Neukunden",
weder mit "Mit Surfstick", noch "Mit Tablet zum Basic-Tarif"  noch "Mit Tablet zum Premium-Tarif"

 überhaupt sehen.

Geschweige denn mal sinnvoll vergleichen.

Man wird mit seitenweisen PDF Formularen zum ausdrucken ,ausfüllen und per Brief schicken belästigt um sich im Business-Bereich einzuloggen obwohl man schon 3 Logins hat.

Ich will keinen Lieferstatus für ein verd***** iPhone, LTE interessiert mich nicht die Bohne,

es interessiert mich nicht was ihr für bunte Preise gewonnen haben wollt,

ich will nicht noch ein neues Handy,

ich will keine @t-mobile oder @t-online Addresse,

kein Adressbuch, kein Spotify und keinen Kalender!

Ich will einfach nur meinen Tarif für meine Nutzung mit den aktuellen Angeboten vergleichen und bequem ändern können, wenn mir das Vorteile bringt.

Und zwar ohne mich erst zu Arbeitszeiten in's Auto setzen zu müssen, zu irgend einem Laden zu fahren wo ich stundenlang warten muss und dann nur einzelne Details von Tarifen an den Kopf geworfen zu bekommen ohne übersichtlich die Kosten mit allen für mich nötigen Optionen gegenüberstellen zu können.

Das kann doch nicht so schwer sein das Kerngeschäft eines Mobilfunkanbieters zu betreiben.
Jeder schmierige Versicherungsvertreter kriegt das besser hin!

• Thread im T-Mobile "Blinde helfen Einäugigen" Forum
  

Micro Mesh Pad Holder

I'm using Micro Mesh mini sanding pads (regular and MX) extensively.
So I designed myself a pad-holder that would

• keep them sorted
• allow them to dry (wet sanding)
• tell me the coarseness
• have symbols to roughly compare the coarsness of regular and MX pads
• interlock to extens this sorting system
• add a module for bottles of Mr Surfacer while I'm at it anyway

I printed these on an Ultimaker II. Every module needs about 7 hours using the Cura medium quality default settings.

Adventures with a Sense 3D scanner

I have a problem.
I got a used 3D Systems "Sense" 3D scanner as an Amazon warehouse deal.
(Same manufacturer as my CAD Software, so they integrate perfectly.)

The package did not include the activation code.
Some former user has already activated the software, so I can't activate it.
Amazon has no information about the former owner, so they can't contact him/her.
3D Systems does not answer the phone on their German hotline.
So I just sent them an email about the issue....maybe they can reset it or give me an activation code.

Update: Wow! After 17 minutes I git an email with an activation code asking for my user-name, so it can be associated with my account. That's damn fast customer service!

Notes:

• I'm using 3D Systems Geomagic Design as my CAD software. Since they don't have a MacOS version, it runs in a VM with Windows XP.
• The Sense software installs on XP but crashes on start. Only Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 are supported. :(
• The Sense scanner registers with Windows as a Carmine Primesense and works with Skanect just like a Kinect but has MUCH BETTER RESULTS then an XBox 360 Kinect V1 sensor. (My Kinect V2 for Windows is not supported yet.) Also more ergonomic to handle.
• The MacOS Sense software is not signed by a registred developer, so at first MacOS refuses to execute it unless you enter the system settings and add an exception for this program. 
• On MacOS the Sense software FREEZES MY MACBOOK during entry of the activation code. No mouse or keyboard anymore. Not so on my desktop iMac.
• The Sense software looses track every 2 seconds where Skanect works just fine, display a white page instead of the scan result and offers only ".ply" as an output format, no STL.
• Displays a static image on the iMac. The movement commands for touchpad and 3-button wheel-mouse don't work (with a 1-button mouse).

VisualSFM

After Autodesk 123D Catch didn't work at all even given a perfect series of photos,
I'm now trying to get VisualFSM to work.

...stay tuned.

• VisualFSM
• workflow
• MacOS installer script that didn't work because of a missing libgtk+ 2.0
• second MacOS installer script ended up in a ruby endless loop inside some configure script all night long, but after that the first install script succeeded.

FabScan

I just found the FabScan project of RWTH Aachen.
Aparently back in January it was still quite buggy but nowadays you can get complete kits and there is a very interesting 2-laser + Z stepper spinoff being developed.

This blog post is basically for myself so I don't forget these links. ;)

Rooting Jiake P6

I finally managed to root my Jiake P6 non-camera phone.

"Root Genius"  (worked)

http://www.gizchina.de/downloads/viewdownload/3-flashtools-firmwarebearbeitung/34-root-genius.html
http://www.gizchina.de/downloads/viewdownload/3-flashtools-firmwarebearbeitung/33-universal-adb-treiber.html

ADB method (did not work)

using the MTK or the Google driver
MKT Driver won't be offered as a driver for this phone after install
http://forum.fairphone-freunde.de/Thread-MT65xx-Android-Phone-Treiber-nicht-gefunden
http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html#top
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2247537

Kinect V1 with diopters

Intended use

My CAD program of choice is Geomagic Design (started out as Alibre Design). Since the last major release it can import meshes (and even directly use 3D scanners of the same manufacturer) and convert these into solid geometries.
I already used these features heavily for 3D modelled meshes of organic, artistic parts.
What I want to do is use it's advanced features of reconstructing technical parts with flat surfaces, right angles and precise holes with an affordable 3D scanner.
So based on the promise that Skanect will support the Kinect V2 on the day of official sale, I preordered one with Microsoft half a year ago.

Current status 

Skanect still didn't deliver the promised Kinect V2 support and i am tired of waiting with my Kinect V2 in hand.
Thus I got myself a used XBox 360 Kinect V1 and am testing Skanect on MacOS with it to get some first experiences with 3D scanning using this device. Hopefully these will help me get better results with the Kinect V2 later.

...the 3D scan results are terrible so far.
Small object (size of a hand) are not much more then a blob with heavily rounded features.
It may be useful for object the size of a human, maybe barely useful for entire faces as long as dimentional accuracy is not important (no masks that actually fit well) but not for smaller objects.
I'm looking into hacks that may improve this by reducing the minimum focus distance and thus concentrating the low resolution fully onto the  (small) object.

+3 diopters didn't help at all.

Stock Kinect

Minimum focus distance in normal mode: 80cm  (1/0.8m = 1.25 dioptrien)
Minimum focus distance in near mode: 40cm  (1/0.4m = 2.5 dioptrien)
Near Mode is Kinect V1 for Windows only
Accuracy: 2-3mm in a distance of 1.5m
IR resolution: 640x480 but only 1 depth value per cluster.

Kinect V2 has a slightly lower IR resolution (only the color camera is FullHD) but 1 depth value per pixel.

Reading glasses hack

Literary taping +2.5 reading glasses (technically a dioptre[UK]/diopter[EN]) in front of IR-projector and IR-camera seem to reduce the minimum focus distance from 40cm to 35cm. Object appear 1.2x larger. (Based on the report in the thread below)

Normal Mode:
+2.0 result in 1/(1.25+2.0)  = 31cm  minimum focus distance, 1/2.0=50m maximum focus distance
+2.5 result in 1/(1.25+2.5)  = 27cm  minimum focus distance, 1/2.5=40cm maximum focus distance
+3.0 result in 1/(1.25+3.0)  = 24cm  minimum focus distance, 1/3.0=33cm maximum focus distance

Near Mode: (Kinect V1 for Windows only)
+2.0 result in 1/(2.5+2.0)  = 22cm  minimum focus distance, 1/2.0=50m maximum focus distance
+2.5 result in 1/(2.5+2.5)  = 20cm  minimum focus distance, 1/2.5=40cm maximum focus distance
+3.0 result in 1/(2.5+3.0)  = 18cm  minimum focus distance, 1/3.0=33cm maximum focus distance

I know that these also exist in higher quality as "near filters" for macro photography. I even used one of them on the Raspberry Pi camera to make it focus on closer objects to mount it on a Makibox 3D printer.

Single lens diopters cause color-halos.
Dual-lens diopters, called achromatic lenses correct these issues. (Obviously made for visible light while we are working in infrared)  There are achromatic lenses for the infrared spectrum.

You should not use a diopter stronger then 20% of the focal length of your lens.
The Kinect IR lens has a field of view of 57.8°, putting it in the 40mm ballpark.
So everything below +4.0 should be fine.

Links

• About Near Mode
• About diopters (German)
• Original(?) hack
• Original discussion thread
• Some results and photos
• Kinect Glasses holder on Thingiverse inspired by the reading-glasses hack
• Another Kinect lens holder
• A turntable steppe mount

Settings for ReconstructMe 

(I'm using Skanect where I can't use them)


camera_size_x: 640
camera_size_y: 480
camera_fx: 514.16
camera_fy: 514.16
camera_px: 320
camera_py: 240
camera_near: 100
camera_far: 2000
volume_size: 512
volume_min {
x: -250
y: -250
z: 400
}
volume_max {
x: 250

y: 250

z: 900
}
integrate_truncation: 10
integrate_max_weight: 64
icp_max_iter: 20
icp_max_dist2: 200
icp_min_cos_angle: 0.9
smooth_normals: false
disable_optimizations: false
extract_step_fact: 0.5

Geomagic Design - Mesh to Solid suddenly missing

Update: FOUND IT!  You can scan meshes in the parts and the assembly editor but only in the parts editor are the other tools visible. Very confusing UI inconsistency. There's no reason this wouldn't just create a new solid part in the assembly editor.


My Geomagic Design suddenly decided to no longer allow me to convert Meshed to Solids.

That's the sole reason I purchased the last update.
I had positive email confirmation that the features would be in there (they where not on the website then, only in the promotional video for the new version) and based on that information I shelled out the money for the extended support contract that would give me that update.

My license states "Geomagic Design".
(Not "Geomagic Elements")
The website states that this feature is included in Geomagic Design.
I still used that feature extensively in May after having extended the support contract in March.
Now in October this most important feature is suddenly gone.