Putting this plastic part in the back of the printer proved to be the most difficult part of the process. My colleague Erin Carson and I had to shave down the end of one side with scissors to fit it in the hole.
Before each print, the Ultimaker heats up the filament and then tests some of it on the corner of the build plate. It’s a waste of plastic, which is one of the biggest problems with 3D printers.
The extruder had to be calibrated at first, but that didn’t take long. The entire set up for the printer (besides the shaving of the plastic spool) only took about 30 minutes.
One of the problems with the printer is that when the extruder was knocked off course, or the plastic didn’t stick to the glass plate well enough, it continued to print. That problem could be fixed by some sort of sensor in the nozzle head.