Uprint chip/dongle trading for cheap material reloads

Bolson Materials is very close to releasing Uprint materials with a chip solution. Note sure how it works, and they will keep it secret,

You'd be surprised, but I get a couple of emails a month from people wanting to trade with me.

they don't read the thread past the headline/title to know that it doesn't work.

Yeah, I think Bolson distributes through Argyle Materials. I had sent Argyle a message asking if they were close, and they just responded that they will be releasing Uprint materials at a 30% discounted price early in the new year (2015).

So it sounds like from your answer, you aren't aware of any other solutions and that right now our only option is to wait for Bolson / Argyle.

I know this topic is 2.5 years old, but I was wondering how you remove the support material from a modeling base in order to reuse it. I reused my first couple of bases dozens of times without even cleaning them, but when I grabbed a new base, the support material is strongly bonded to the base and I can't seem to remove it. Can you put the modeling bases in the dissolution bath?

Thanks in advance for any help!

wow what a crappy greedy company making you use their proprietary cartridges and what a greedy vendor using a hush hush proprietary flashed chip, here is an idea, buy a 40 dollar kit with a ramps 1.4 board, an arduino shield board and an lcd board with print from usb capability then download and configure marlin to run your printer so you can use whatever you want.

bfuller181 this method works well with the bases. you cannot put them in the solution bath.

[youtu.be]

Ive been looking into this for our Uprint SE plus at work. Its about $250 a 1kg spool. What a rip off.

Hi

I use a glue stick like UHU Glue to lightly coat the build tray. Let it dry before printing. This allows easily removal of prints.
You only have to do this once per tray.
Hope this helps.

I haven't been here for a while. .
Kind of gave up on 3D printing after my failed Kickstarter (xtruder) and focusing on family and work for a while.

I still get emails asking about swapping. crazy.
I just reply about Bolson and don't know of another solution.

So, then I talked with the Bolson guys and they are selling spools with 56cu-in for about $200.
When I buy OEM spools, they cost me $160 for 30cu-in, and I only get Ivory for color.
I use PADTmarket to buy less than box quantity, so I don't age out my inventory during slow periods.

I'm anxious to check out some color on my old machine. It still cranks out amazing parts.
I stopped putting colored cheap ABS into my uprint (with a real dongle) after one load gummed up my head due to softening at the pinch wheels.
Bolson mentions some kind of adapter part to print up so their spools work in the Uprint cartridge, so I'll need to see what that is about.

On the bases, I've reused them all for years. Some have scared tops due to cleaning with chisels, knives, etc.
The first pass of support is a fat line with a higher z I think, It can reach down to an uneven surface.
I just make sure there are no chucks left on there that might cause the base calibration to fail in any of the spots it checks.

I tried to clean a dozen or so in the solution bath, and warped the bases from too high of bath temperature.
I made my own dissolver from a plastic kitchen sink, pump and hot water heater element. Probably less than $150 total instead of the thousands they want for theirs.
It should work at low temperatures without hurting the bases.

Just placed an order for 4 rolls yesterday... $820.00 from Stratasys. Ouch.

So i put their adapters on thingiverse. too large for attaching here.
[www.thingiverse.com]

They were provide by Bolson and look like what you'd expect.

I'm anxious to see some prints and have some plastic on the way.

I think they're getting traction with their product now and are trying to sign up distributors and folks willing to buy and sell in large quantities.
That Argyle Materials is one, as someone above mentioned. Pricing will be interesting to watch when a dozen guys are sitting on inventory.

I'd love for Stratasys to be paying attention and send out some kind of software patch to allow color to the original Uprint.
It's like buying a $15,000 car that only turns left. (NASCAR hack)

I have an opportunity to buy a uPrint, but I would like to use non-super-expensive filament in it. I might be missing something, but I don't see in this thread where it says what the EEPROM workaround for using Bolston filament is? Do they provide functional EEPROMs that work in the uPrint?

Also, another major question. Does anyone have an ISO image of a uPrint hard drive? The place I would buy from wipes the drives completely and I'd need to reimage.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2015 02:37PM by mtu_ee.

I've been using the ABS in my uPrint SE Plus from Bolson Materials distributed through Argyle Materials for some time now. So far, so good. You do have to print up an upper and lower adapter for the spools, see link from davew_tx above. I think the manufacturer may be working on changing the spools so at some point you won't need to use the adapters. All of the same colors that Stratasys supplies are available through Argyle, plus they also have a dark gray. They supply a small square circuit board with each spool that you stick on over top of the board found on the spool carrier. From Argyle's website, it sounds like this also allows you to print in all of the available colors on all versions of the uPrints. They also told me that they plan to supply the support material soon, as well as a new PC-ABS material.

Edit: the small square circuit board is called a Dongle Repair Device (DRD). Per Bolson website: "The uPrint dongle is intended to fail (not be resettable) after it is run down to 0%. Our solution is to provide a Dongle Repair Device (DRD) that allows an old dongle to function as new." DRD installation instructions here: [www.bolsonmaterials.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2015 02:18PM by checktest.

I think I have a purely software solution for the uPrint, but I don't have one to test (I have a 1200es SST). If someone can make an image of an uPrint hard drive and send it to me I will give it a try! PM me or [email protected]

Thanks!

busy summer is over and I'm ready to use some Bolson material, but.......

my Uprint is now dead. Gets warmed up, might print about 10 layers, then it just rams the head against one side (left) and errors out.

Code is something like 14/129 which is Toggle head failure.

Seems to just fly past the extents, which is odd, like it forgot it's own limits.
It wakes up and calibrates, seeing all end stops and moves around like you'd expect.

If I try to do a support unload, it just goes past the extents and crashes.
Also if I get it printing (intermittent issue) it will go for a while, switching between both filaments fine.
Then it just crashes and stops. Not the same layer count every time, and sometimes while in support or model material, while toggling or in the middle of a layer, random from what I can tell.

Sometimes, it runs like normal. I can do a purge on either material, so I know the extruder motor and encoder are fine.
I've replaced the tips and shields, and it will act normal during some of the loads and unloads. sometimes not.
Then, without reason, the head just shoots off to the left corner.

I think maybe I'll take it apart and replace the main harness. Maybe there is a wire fatigued in the bundle?
I can Digikey the wire and terminals to go into the connector bodies (or buy those too). Looks like common Molex stuff.

I've given PADT and Stratasys my config file to investigate (massive file with minute by minute recording of my machines every moment since it's existence).
they just want me to replace the toggle head for $3 to $4k, with no guarantee that's it and it would be non-refundable and requires the core-charge/return of my existing head.

This is a good tip: if you're interested in buying a machine off of Ebay, you should ask the seller for this file. No joke, you can see everything in it, and the seller should be happy to send it if the machine is running well.
The Catalyst software outputs it, when connected to an idling printer. Rightmost tab, export configuration.

anywho, this sucks.

sorry to hear that, that sucks!

you should donate its body to science. since you're tearing it apart anyway and will have access to the electronics, hard drive, etc...buy a eeprom chip from argyle, you or an electrical engineer from upwork figure out how to replicate it or somehow work around the material chip, open source the design mods so people can get their own to use 3rd party materials. hell, even sell the chips for a nominal price to cover your time / costs...

all of that is certainly a great idea. except the donate my big investment and money maker to science.

I saw in Ebay where a guy was selling a reprogramming box for $400.
I think it did the chips others than Uprints.
He probably was making a pretty penny, but the pitch was you could recoup the investment on just a couple of rolls.

Never heard of Upwork, but checked out the website. Cool source if needed.

First priority is to get my machine running again.
If I can add color capability AND a savings, it's a win win for me, without me solving anything.

Dave

Quote
davew_tx
I saw in Ebay where a guy was selling a reprogramming box for $400.
I think it did the chips others than Uprints.
He probably was making a pretty penny, but the pitch was you could recoup the investment on just a couple of rolls.

No need to spend $400 - all the software is on github for free: [github.com]
There's even a version ported to Windows: [github.com]

Really annoys me seeing people on Ebay repackaging other people's hard work.

---

[haveblue.org]

that looks pretty simple.
I don't think it works on Uprint chips, am i right?

Quote
davew_tx
that looks pretty simple.
I don't think it works on Uprint chips, am i right?

Correct, it doesn't work on uPrint chips. The code is there, but without knowing the MAC used for the uPrint EEPROM, they can't be written to.

---

[haveblue.org]

Having just bought a secondhand uPrint plus, this is suddenly interesting to me, so please forgive re-awakening an old thread.

It occurs to me that if you get a brand-new spool, extract its EEPROM and copy it, you can then plug a fresh EEPROM into a spool each time you refill it. If people have appropriate EEPROM programmers, then there's no need to physically mail EEPROMs around the place; just share chip images.

Is the printer smart enough to know that a spool that it has used has suddenly returned to being completely full? If not, then there's no need to erase the machine's log.

Incidentally, there's also [www.argylematerials.com] as a supplier of spools and DRDs