This is NOT a guide for those who are new at 3D printing!
My Simplify3D profile can be found here while calibration STLs can be downloaded here
THIS GUIDE IS NOW OUTDATED WITH THE RELEASE OF SIMPLIFY3D v3.0. Please reference Simplify3D’s troubleshooting guide instead.
Getting a perfect 3D print is notoriously difficult, even with a fairly expensive top-of-the-line consumer printer such as the Ultimaker 2. While there are some very good guides out there (see IRobertI’s guide in particular), many of these guides don’t go beyond the basics for calibrating a 3D printer. To address this, I’ve decided to write up a fairly comprehensive troubleshooting and optimization guide tailored for the Ultimaker 2 with Simplify3D (v2.2.2) as the slicing engine. Most of the information in this guide however can also be applied to other 3D printers. All of the following notes and tips are derived solely from my experiences. Detailed macro photographs are provided to back my observations and also serve as a comprehensive visual aid.