Where I work, at Venom Technologies & Inspection Services, we are diehard fans of 3D printers. Our technology department proudly maintains its own little printing farm: two FlashForge Creator Pros and one Ultimaker 2 Extended+. Since a good number of our parts are submerged in water, a large majority are printed with InnoPet. For more than a year now, InnoPet has left us more than satisfied. Lately, however, we have been pushing our 3D prints to the limits, and InnoPet’s brittleness left us seeking more.

It left us seeking a more durable and flexible material; one that we could print using our Ultimaker; one we wouldn’t have to upgrade the nozzle for. This desire to take it the next level led us right into the belly of the beast: Nylon. And boy, has it been interesting.

In fact, printing with nylon has proven itself so tricky that we have decided to play a trick of our own: We replaced our Ultimaker’s factory-shipped extruder with the Bondtech QR Extruder Upgrade – Ultimaker 2 +, giving us the advantage of a powerful dual-drive gear system. We have officially said goodbye to stripped filament and hello to more reliable prints.

Should you upgrade your extruder?

Yes, especially if you hate it when your filament strips.

We’ve been satisfied with our Bondtech extruder upgrade, even when we’re not printing with nylon. A dual-gear system provides advantages for all materials.

I must warn you: Upgrading was… slightly difficult. But I think we worked out most of the issues. Hopefully the guide below will help fast-track your extruder installation and help you avoid the same difficulties we encountered.

How to upgrade your Ultimaker to the Bondtech QR Extruder

1. Follow Bondtech’s Installation Guide to install the hardware and electrical components.

Once you reach the Software Configuration section, halt.

2. It’s decision time… and time for you to join the Wild West.

Upgrading to the Bondtech QR Extruder requires that your machine’s settings be adjusted to handle the new system. The E-step / Extruder-step value must be be changed to 492.45 steps/mm and the current for the extruder motor must be changed to 1000 mA. It is also ideal that the feeding speed be adjusted as well, though this is only necessary if you still want to use the “Material Change” functionality on the Ultimaker.

Bondtech’s Installation Guide recommends that you install their customized firmware on your 3D printer. After installing, you are to perform a factory reset of your device to use the new values. After the reset, they claim that the E-step is set to 492.45 steps/mm, the loading speed is now 50 mm/sec, and that the rotation direction is as for UM2 (ungeared).

Unfortunately, at least one of their claims is FALSE. It is true that the rotation direction has been inverted to account for the new gearing system; I am unsure about the loading speed. But I am absolutely positive that the E-step value is set to 311 steps/mm after the reset and NOT the appropriate value of 492.45 steps/mm.

And this, my friends, is where you must make a decision.Will you be the same, boring person you always were? Or will you take your life into your own hands and become the filament-wielding, nozzle-heating, g-code slinging revolutionary that your 3D printer needs you to be?

I am asking you to NOT use the firmware that Bondtech provides. It’s just not worth it. First off, as mentioned above, the E-steps value is not set properly, which means that you will still have to follow the steps below to update it manually. Secondly, you will be stuck using older versions of the Ultimaker firmware until Bondtech decides to modify the newest available version; you will be at their mercy.

3. Hello, and welcome to the Wild West. Let’s get your Bondtech Extruder working.

The E-step / Extruder-step value must be changed to 492.45 steps/mm. To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Connect to your 3D Printer via USB using PuTTy. Use the following options in PuTTy.
   1. Plug the printer into your computer via USB
   2. Launch PuTTy
   3. Use the following settings
      • Serial
      • baud rate = 250000,
      • Terminal/Local Echo = Force On
      • Implicit CR in every LF = checked.
      • Note that PuTTy does not list the available Com ports, so you must find which port is assigned to the USB by using Window’s Device manager.
   4. Click “Open” in PuTTy to connect
      
2. Set the E-steps value. Execute the following g-code commands:
   M92 E492.5 <enter>
   
3. Save the E-steps value to the EEPROM.
   M500 <enter>
   
4. Ensure that the value has been properly set. The results of the M503 and M501 commands should show identical settings of E492.45.
   M503 <enter>
   M501 <enter>
   
5. Cycle the power on your Ultimaker and verify that the results of the M503 and M501 commands are still E492.45.
   M503 <enter>
   M501 <enter>
   
6. Set the current for the extruder motor to 1000 mA. For this step, use the display on the Ultimaker printer.
   Maintenance > Advanced > Motion settings > Current E
   
7. Swap the polarity of either phase at the motor connector to make the extruder run the proper direction using the default firmware from Cura. To do this, swap PIN1 & PIN4 or swap PIN3 & PIN6.
   
   Use a small screwdriver to lift the white tab above the pin while gently pulling it from the connector body. The pins should click into place when re-inserted in their new positions. Use caution not to lift the white tab too far.
   
   Note: This step is not necessary if your extruder motor is already running in the proper direction.

4. Modifying the Firmware Source Code

After completing the steps above, your Ultimaker’s “Material Change” function has been rendered unusable. This operation stalls the motor because the Bondtech extruder uses a planetary gear reducer, making it unable to match the feed speeds of the original feeding system.

To make the BondTech extruder compatible with the “Material Change” operation without using BondTech’s firmware, the printer’s “Material Change” feed speed can be reduced by changing the firmware source code, recompiling, and then installing in the machine. Updating the firmware to a new version would negate this change, so all new versions would have to be modified via source code before installation.

At Venom, we skipped this step because it is merely for convenience and not absolutely necessary as the printer’s Move Material function can be used instead.

Two main flavors of source code are available:

Cura’s version of the Marlin 3D Printer Firmware ~ https://github.com/Ultimaker/Ultimaker2Marlin TinkerWare version of Cura’s version ~ https://github.com/TinkerGnome/Ultimaker2Marlin

Happy printing

You’re ready to start printing again!

If you run into any troubles at all, please do not hesitate to contact me. I’d be happy to fill in any blanks I’ve left out.

Sources