What Marius Breuer said, sound advise 
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Hey Robert!
After a long decision Process, I went for the Ultimaker 2 and I don’t regret it at all. The machine is sturdy and delivers awesome Prints! The only problem I had at the beginning was nozzle clog, but that resolved itself after a few prints!
The printer is sturdy and really well produced, the interface is intuitive and the Setup is almost as easy as plug and play!
The prints are really good and high in quality and on the highest setting, layers become almost invisible!
I have found out, that the white Innofil PLA is very runny, even at 180°C, so the print of my Marvin has a few Problems with overhangs, but that’s material fault, not the printers.
Even the really fast and high-speed prints at the lowest quality come out sturdy and without any defects or problems. I have been printing at up to 150mm/s on some quick parts I needed for a project and the printer handled it without any problems and motor skips.
Another thing that Marius already pointed out is that the Ultimaker can run almost any Mod and Filament. I have even printed with a Polyethylene-Copper Compound that we developed at the University and it prints that without any problems. I am sure that you could stick almost any Thermoplastic Polymer in the Printer (that isn’t too soft) and it would deliver a good print!
If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!
Grtz,
Tobias Brinke
Ultimaker 2 the best the quality of its printing! accuracy. no competitors. printed layer was 20 microns
Their customer service is terrible. If anything breaks on the machine, they are almost impossible to get a hold of. I certainly wont be purchasing another Ultimaker 2.
I am also a new owner of a U2 and do not regret it in the least. I started with a Prusa I3 and also have a Wanhao Duplicator 4S. A test print done at 70 microns, and probably in ABS, is going to be pretty smooth…particularly if the printer was slowed down as speed kills. The U2, as I am sure you know, can do 40 micron resolution. The time it takes to do prints at that level of detail is staggering though!
One of the things that I like about the U2 that I don’t like about the Cube 3 is the whole cartridge idea. I like the idea of being able to decide how much I want to spend on filament!
Good luck!
Wow. :-o I did not know it could do 20 microns. How the h— long did those prints take?
You must have had bad luck then. I’ve had no problems at all so far, they were really nice and support was great for me!
I would suggest that you print the improved spool holder and guide wheel, as this helps massively when you start to up the speeds, it reduces the resistance from the spool to the feeder helping to prevent under extrusion. can be found on the youmagine website.
oh and to help the over hangs, junk the standard cooling ducts and make one of the improved ones again from youmagine, you will be amazed at the difference it makes!
Ultimaker 2 is a great machine. Down to 25µm layers. Massive experience around. Works with any 2.85mm filament.
If you still doubt, you can test the printer at www.3d4you.net 12
I also had some bad experience with customer service and also relatively long lead times to get parts.
HOWEVER: I spoke to their head of customer support at the London 3D Print show, as well as the MD of Ultimaker GB and the head of customer support for UM GB and my mind was put at ease that this was a temporary situation.
Ultimaker support in NL had been going through some growth changes, training new team members, etc. Also anyone reading this in the UK (& Ireland I think) be aware that you should be getting support from Ultimaker GB now. I wasn’t forwarded to their site correctly when I had these issues. Ultimaker GB also keep spares.
I have had good experiences with Ultimaker GB support since, I cannot speak for other regions.
Hi Steven,
There are several spool and fan duct upgrade available. Is there a most popular / accepted standard choice for each? If not which did you go for?
The ubiquitous feeder upgrade is this one which is an improvement on the original. Print one before you need it, I was using one printed with under extrusion for ages 
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/alternative-um2-feeder-version-two 3
i use this spooler with my color fab rolls.
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/low-friction-um2-spoolholder 5
and this for a guide
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/um2-bearing-filament-guide 3
for the cooling fan I use
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/ultimaker-2-fan-mount--2 3
I also have only just fitted a new feeder (after 1000 hours printing!), so I would say do the others 1st, starting with the guide.
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/alternative-um2-feeder-version-two 2
I have experience no with Ultimaker or Cube 3 but I own a cubepro trio, among three other printers. It’s beautiful, solid, easy to set up and use and has some smart features that none of the others do. I show it with pride because of how pretty and important it looks in my office but it’s always off. It’s by far the most expensive and useless decoration printer.
My advice is that you stay away from 3Dsystems. You will be limited by their small color palette and forced to use only their highly overpriced proprietary cartridges. Slicer is horrible, customer service is useless, super expensive to run. And no, I have never ever had a good quality print.
8 days later
Thanks everyone for the replies. @bgreenslade, the samples I’m talking about are actual samples on the floor, not photos online.
I decided that I needed to tighten up on my budget a bit, and bought the Prusa i3 Hephestos. The print quality has been quite good, and I’ve been able to make great progress on my prototype. I just ordered a Flex3Drive to help with speed and quality, and if it works out I want to try a dual extruder flex3drive setup.