Hello!
I am very intrested in buying an Ultimaker 2. I have read many good things about it and I think I have already decided to buy one. I am just curious to hear some comments about this printer from people who have used it!
What can you tell me about this printer? Is it as good as it seems? Is there any cons I need to be aware of? Have any of you tried to print in another material than PLA, ABS or CPE? 
Hello,
It works just fine for me. I have printed PLA, ABS and lot of CPE and even more exotic experimental filaments (up to 280 Deg C)with very good success.
A piece of equipement to recommend!
Best regards
Great printer, and it can print most material only struggles with the materials not well suited to a bowden system, like ninja flex ( however it can still print them.
However if this if your first printer would strongly recommend staying with PLA in the beginning as the hotter materials do cause the machine to ware much faster and clog the head if you switch between say PLA and ABS a lot. however there are lots of tutorials online about cleaning it etc.
Regards,
Bonne
FabCreator
It’s a very good printer ; we used it in our shop all the time 24/7 !!!
I have one and i’m very happy with it. It’s fairly easy to use, it prints very nicely. The community is very active (usefull when you run into problems). It’s opensource, so there is some work done by the community to improve it (dual extrusion, swappable nozzles, improved fans etc…).
You can print any material mostly, things like ninjaflex are harder to print because of the bowden setup but you can manage to print it with some tweaks and patience.
Pros and cons varies a lot between people.
For example: The UM2 works on SD-card, not USB.
Some people like it, like i do.It’s more reliable and doesn’t require a pc stuck next to the machine when you’re printing.
Some people don’t. (i admit i don’t really get why)
Let’s turn it the other way:
What are your expectations for a 3D printer? Ease of use? Reliability? Precision? Speed? etc…
What will you use it for? for fun? to repair broken items?
Do you know how to use a CAD software?
Hey,
I have 2 ultimaker 2 and the both work great. The only con i can think about is flexible materials. Because the feeder is in the back printing ninjaflex and that kind of materials is difficult. You can print it but then really slowly.
My first ultimaker 2 printed for more than 3000 hours within one year! only 4 times it has failed on me beacause the filament got stuck in the feeder. Print results are asome! Hope this helps;)
Hi,
I have the Ultimaker2 and I’m really satisfied.
I tried the nylon and it’s been very good.
The soft PLA was more difficult to manage, but in low speed you can print fine.
I also used various of materials from Colorfabb and it worked fine
The value for money for this 3d printer is very good.
Good luck,
Itamar - AVIV3D
I think it’s one of the best printers for in terms of price/ quality and service.
Nylon (taubmann) is fine and PLA I haven’t printed ABS and anything else on it.
I’m also very happy with mine, the community is good, If you break something you’ll have no problem to find a solution and a spart part on the web. Print quality is great as well. But don’t forget filament is important don’t buy a cheep one, or it’s going to cause you problem.
Have a nice day
im selling a brand new one, boxed, never opened with one years warranty. Email me contact.fiilo@gmail.com
I know that it works on SD-card and not USB, and I like that!
I want to buy a printer for the firm I am working for (a technical/engineering consultant firm). We want to be able to print small prototypes, both visual and practical prototypes. We do not want to spend to much money on the printer, but we still want good results. We know how to use CAD sodtware (since we are engineers ;P).
We want the printer to be easy to use, reliable and have a resolution of at least 0,2 mm. The speed is not important.
Overall great experience with the UM2. You might want to do some of the recommended tweaks, but works fine out of the box.
I printed in PET, Nylon and used a large set of ColorFabb PLA, XT and bronzefill. The only materials that did not work great are the wood fills.
WoodFill fine will work with standard UM2 but it’s true that it’s better with a larger nozzle, which you can put on the UM2 with the so called Olsson block (one of the great hacks of the UM2 done by a community member)
Do you have Ultimaker prepaid card ?
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.
Hello,
At PrintME 3D, we are resellers of Ultimaker 2 and are slightly biased!
Our thoughts on the Ultimaker 2 is that is produces excellent prints, simple to use and relatively stress free. Plus, the versatility on filaments is great, with brands like ColorFabb and NinjaFlex who test their products on the Ultimaker 2. Which basically means that you can use PLA, ABS, Nylon, Metal, Wood, Carbon and Rubber based filaments.
The only cons would be that like all 3D Printers, they do require maintenance. It is effectively a tool to heat and extrude plastic, so there will be on occasions issues with the hot end, but all of that is manageable.
They have also released the Ultimaker 2 Go and Ultimaker 2 Extended, effectively a smaller or larger version.
If you need any further help or want to order any products, feel free to email us at hello@printme3d.com
Thanks
PrintME 3D
Hi,
Ultimaker 2’s are great printers and it sounds like you have your mind made up to get one. It isn’t too loud and can print relatively quickly.
I’ve done some printing with flexible filament (Ninja Flex) as well as many types of PLA and ABS suppliers. It does jam up sometimes and will print in the air, so it’s always good to put a raft on your piece.
We have some on our website as well as options to purchase filament. https://robosavvy.com/store/3d-printing/filter/manufacturer/ultimaker.html
Let me know if you have any more questions, and enjoy printing!
Joe
Robosavvy
Well, i think the UM2 will be perfect for you.
It’s reliable and has a really good price/quality ratio. The Cura software is really intuitive and yet, very complete.
The minimum resolution is 0.06mm, well below 0.2mm.
I use the UM2 in the same context as you described and it works perfectly. If you have any questions or problems operating the machine, the official forum is always here to help you.
The only issue is the feeder system *though it does work, issues are only witnessed at higher speeds*. There have been some slight improvements to the PTFE coupler inside which has improved things greatly. There are also versions that can be printed which work very well.
Note that the PTFE and the bowden tube will eventually wear if you do a lot of printing. I suggest ordering extra if you are planning to do a lot of printing.
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 :
I would advice the ultimaker 1 + @first i was happy with my 2 u2,s But they are having more problems So i.m a bit sorry igot them U1 + works exelent
Hello Annika,
My recommendation would be to buy this printer. It is a very stable printer that gives good results. I have printed mainly with PLA, so can’t tell you much about the other mtaterials.
Hi buy it ! It’s a funny experience.
I have an Ultimaker 2 and a Makerbot clone Wanhao Duplicator 4S. They are in two different classes from a price point which is a major con from the UM side. The beast is expensive! On the other hand you are getting quality for that money. The printer looks really nice, almost Apple’ish in terms of design.
The UM2 comes out of the box ready to print and do so at high quality. I was not particularly happy with some of the tuning options that Cura provides, in particular around bridging, but that is me being particular. I have moved to using Simplify3D and finally have a profile that I really like so I am happy with bridging!
Speaking of Simplify3D, and I am not marketing it just making a point, you normally should print from the SD card for reliability and even quality reasons, however, with Simplify3D you can print across the USB connection.
Whatever printer you get stay away from proprietary solutions. As someone else said…you need to be able to choose where you get your filament. I have cheap stuff that prints as well as expensive stuff. in that case you have to love the cheap stuff.
My one concern around the UM2 is whether you want to print ABS. IMHO the UM2 is really geared to printing PLA. No open printer is going to be as good at printing ABS as a closed printer. You can get stuff to close up the UM2 (even a bin liner can work) or you can keep it in a hot no draft closet, but if you should think about how much ABS you want to print before you buy the UM2.
Bottom line is that I would buy the UM2 again.
This is the truest of statements that I have ever read on a message board: “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. …if you want really great results the greatest skill you need is infinite patience and print things really slowly.”
So very very true. It is lucky that I am retired because I have spent countless hours calibrating my two printers (UM2 and a Makertbot Clone) to be able to print a stupid calibration object (#3DBenchy). To the point of obsession. My wife would say beyond. But it is a beautiful thing when you see something go from your modeling software into reality and it is worth the pain.
hi Annika
good choice, i have one Ultimaker 2 and 2 Ultimaker 1 and while i like the UM2, I still sometimes prefer the UM1 because everything is easier to fix and more hands on. The print quality is also pretty much the same, the single andvantage if the UM2 is that it has two fans, but you can easily add a second one to the UM1.
So if you are inclined to tinker a little bit i would recomend the Ultimaker 1+ (comes with a heated bed and the bed is a little bit “steadier” ) and you could also save some money
greetings
b
