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I’ve had mine printing pretty much constantly for 18 months now and I have only had to relevel the bed a couple times. The belts are still tight and the thing performs day after day. Tolerances seem to differ from lots of other people when I share STL files, but I think that is normal, some people are less tolerant than others about it though 
I spent a great deal of time comparing it with other printers in its class, and in my opinion, I made the best choice, even though the promised dual printing head never materialised and never will. The heated bed, for me, is the real clincher. I don’t print with anything on the glass any more and I always get a solid print and very minimal warping/lifting (a bit of an elephant foot though, but nothing too bad). The biggest downside for me is that it doesn’t do “small” very well. This could be just down to how I’m doing it, or my unrealistic expectations, I haven’t decided yet. I have learn’t to live with it though, as everything else is awesome. I have tried a few of the exotics. Woodfill, I’ve had 2 new spools of this and got cloggs continuously. The way round this seems to be to print fast… which means print big. I’m scared to print the bamboo-fill which doesn’t have as big bits so shouldn’t clog as easily but I will get round to it soon. I have tried the brick-lay and never got a print out of it as it was so brittle and would break all the time at the extruder feeder knob. I’m a huge colorfabb fan so I’ve used the XT filament and I use a cup I made with it every day. I have also tried the carbon fiber and it produced some nice little test pieces. I’m not sure I’ll use it much as they say it wears the brass print head. I’ve wanted to try some of the flexible stuff, ninjaflex and filaflex for example, but these don’t seem to work with the UM2, so I have left them alone. There are some less flexible ones out there but I haven’t tried them.
Yeah, I did some prints with Colorfabb woodfill fine printing 200+ micron layers fast.
But much higher risk of clogs and other challenges. Also except woodfill fine from Colorfabb all other resulted in clogs pretty much within the first 10-20 layers.
In comparison, my Rostock MAX with .6mm does not have that challenge. So not impossible, but would not recommend UM2 for this.
If you have never used a 3D printer before, then you are in for a shock, because 3D printing is really very, very hard beyond the simplest of things.
Having printed around 2000 hours on the Ultimaker 2, I find that it rarely fails on a print and can handle quite a broad variety of materials, including PLA, ABS, Nylon and NinjaFlex. But I suppose as is the case with every printer, if you want really great results the greatest skill you need is infinite patience and print things really slowly.
I’ve had one for 18 months and love it. The only negative is customer service which is amateurish at best (at worst, they simply ignore you until you kick a fuss). Having said that, there are lots of great people on the Ultimaker forum which somewhat compensates the poor service you receive from the manufacturer.
DISCLAIMER: I might be biased as I just got a job at Ultimaker (as of this month, I’ve had an Ultimaker 1 for almost 4 years )
pro:
- very good printer working out of the box.
- ease of use (if you can overlook printing via SD card, I’ve recently switched to SD card based printing(on my um original) and must say I don’t care much either way, until we have a printer that you can just send a file via the network it’s slightly inconvenient anyway)
- support open source development of the next better versions of cura, marlin and more.
- fast
- accurate (when not printing super fast) (has better x,y,z resolution than some other printers)
- reliable
- support, they can help people with problems etc.
- large and helpful user base
- upgrades, at least potentially (the ultimaker original got a whole bunch of upgrades)
con:
- the bowden tube makes it more difficult to print stuff like ninjaflex/fillaflex, as mentioned below it’s still possible though
- the feeder of the 2 is not as good as the current original (it is still light years ahead of the first version)
- price, it’s not the cheapest printer out there
there are printers that can beat it in say price (for example printrbot), or quality as some resin printers do, but resin is quite messy and far more toxic than PLA and often they don’t beat Ultimaker on multiple aspects imho.
I only can tell you about the Ultimaker Original. The Ultimaker does print the most filaments well. BUT the ULTIMAKER printer and the heated bed has the worst quality i’ve ever seen before. Much wrong parts, damaged parts, wrong connected cables, bad solderings and malfunktions. I have my Ultimaker since 9 month and its the third time that the printer is out of order. I’m very angry about the Ultimaker Company for that poor quality. Better by another Printer! Best Regards Pampetante
bonjour, ce là ne fais que deux mois que je la possède ,mais j’en suis très satisfais
je la trouve fiable ,je regrette juste qu’elle ne sois pas fermée pour certaine pièces
assez complexes que j’ai réalisé en ABS.
Whatever you get, make sure it’s open source! I didn’t think that was important until after I got my printer. Can you imagine the manufacturer telling you that you can’t use other people’s filaments?
I have 3 UM2’s and a UMO. They are all great. Since you are a ME you should be fine with it. Get on the forums after you order it – tons of good stuff there.
It’s not like a 2D printer. It’s more like a CNC lathe or something on that complexity. But once you learn the issues with your particular typical parts that you print, by the 20th print you should be a pro and getting consistent successful results.
The biggest failing of the UM2 I believe is that at temps above 240C the teflon coupler wears out too fast (something like every 500 hours maybe?). I know people who print regularly at 290C but they have modded their printer with parts from 3dsolex.com 1 So although it will print almost any material it is best at PLA by far. If you get the printer - bookmark these links:
And no matter what you get, read the “designing for 3d printing” guide cover to cover (should only take an hour or so).
Ultimaker Prepaid card :