My understanding is the different colors have different amounts of pigment and can/do print slightly different.
I’ve noticed that some brands just print really bad without really good tuning. This blue filament I bought seems to fall into that category.
I had some white filament a while ago (true white, not ‘natural’) and it was awful. Or I should say quite different in how it printed. I never got motivated to figure out if there were good printing parameters.
I have one of those ‘crack scales’ but I haven’t been tracking the weight of full spools to estimate how much is remaining. I have one reusable spool for spoolless filament and I measured the tare weight but I haven’t gotten close to the end and needed to make a large object such that I’ve needed to measure the remaining weight. I think subconsciously I only print large jobs when I can eyeball the remaining filament.
I do have a system for the very very end where it’s so low I can count the number of wraps on the hub and multiply by the circumference to get the remaining filament length. Of course this is only good for small parts but that’s most of what I print.
I have had real bad luck with white. The most noticeable thing is little burnt brown blobs on it. It really takes away from an otherwise perfect print.
Not a lot of work left the day before a 3 day weekend, so I snuck out to the shop for an extended lunch.
Put together everything I have parts for for a sanity check on belt/tube lengths. The calculator looks like it produced some accurate values. I was also happy to see that my X axis steppers that I just rewired a few months ago had enough extra to fit the new tubes. I think I’ll finally take this opportunity to re-wire the Y axis now too. It’ll be nice to be able to work on the machine without a soldering iron.
I’m really liking the new Z axis. It’s not much different than the old, but it looks cleaner for some reason. Probably the new parts. I did have to rig up a makeshift setup to drill the holes on the pipes. One day I’ll invest in a real drill press vise.
The core is still printing. 12 hours left assuming everything goes well. We leave at 7 AM tomorrow morning to head to my parents’ house near Houston, so it really is no more work for me at this point. I did consider ripping the controller out of the enclosure and making the X axis move.
Well… The core hasn’t completely failed yet, but something weird happened here…
Hopefully it will still be useable and I can reprint it later.
I’m really not liking this filament.
Good point.
When I get all my stuff set back up I’ll dig into the issue.
Good news… I didn’t run out of filament. Bad news. My printer decided it didn’t want to use its full z height. I guess my core will be a different color. 
Is that skipped steps in Z? Brutal.
That is a bummer.
I am not liking how many people are having printer issues. Such a shame.
Aren’t most of them David? 
Yeah, that really sucks especially when it craps out on the last ~20mm of the print! I’ve been thinking about ways to reduce the print time as much as possible but I may want to rethink that based on all the issues people are experiencing (to be on the safe side). Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast .
No one likes you. 
To be fair, I think I’ve had this problem before, but it was so long ago…
My z screws came slightly bent when I first bought the machine. I’ve modded the printer to compensate, but I think it’s finally time I bought some good ones.
@vicious1 I’ll be honest. If my printer can print your parts, then you shouldn’t have to worry about anyone else.
@niget2002 That print looks like either shitty filament, or you have a clogged nozzle.
IDK. It looks like the Z stopped going up, and the top layers are smashed.
What Jeff said.
Before turning the machine off, I tried moving the Z up and it was stuck. I hit ‘home’ on the Z and it clicked a bunch before going down.
Do you know why? Out of lubrication? Cords taught?
I think there are a few of us around 
From a previous comment:
From what I can see, when the machine gets higher up, the bent leadscrews bend farther then the couplers can compensate and locked up the machine.
If I jog in 10mm increments, it works fine, but when it tries to move a smaller amount during a print, it catches.
It’s a known bug on the machine, I just don’t print that high very often and forgot about it.
What printer do you have? Might see if anyone has made some oldham couplers for it. Like these.
