I have to say I’m not that impressed with what I’ve seen. The decision to go with two nozzles seems odd given that other manufacturers are looking more at single nozzles with multiple delivery systems and I’m concerned about the complexity of the lifting system (just one more thing to go wrong) and how effective it actually is. I’m also a little surprised they’re not full metal hot ends, and the emphasis on the 2.8mm size seems odd to me, like they know there’s an issue there and are forestalling complaints; it’s just an odd thing to put in a first release text.
On the price point, I have to compare it to the Prusa i3 Mk2. OK, that’s much more of a home user machine, but what does that really mean? The whole purpose of these things is to produce high quality prints reliably and if the Prusa can do that (and it sounds like it can), then why is the Ultimaker almost four times as expensive?
There is more to it than the two nozzles. Full metal can be added since the cores are easily swappable. Also the lifting mechanism has been tested for more than 10000 times (without any wear) according to Daid on the Ultimaker forums.
The wifi connectivity and the availability of the web-api on the printer makes it easy to use in a farm.
Check out the video below
And can you ship 1000 prusa i3’s Mk2 to a company and be sure they deliver thesame high quality? Ultimaker promises that, and that is why they are more expensive.
To be honest, @Rob_Leufkens, all that video says to me is that Ultimaker made a very poor job of planning and testing the machine. How did they get to production without properly testing the RFID reader? If they made that mistake, what others did they make?
As far as quality goes, I don’t know of any company that ships any product with the understanding that some of them might be poorly built and there’s absolutely no guarantee every single last one of the Ultimaker 3s will be perfect any more than any other printer.
As for order numbers, why should a product be more expensive simply because they can ship more of them? Surely prices should reduce with higher volume production, not increase, as it does with any other product. Not that I’m convinced they’re any more able to deliver a 1000 machine order than Prusa are; the video itself shows parts being printed, cleaned and assembled by hand, not an automated production line.
I get that there are going to be elements that mean this is a more expensive printer than the Prusa and that it’s probably more suitable for a farm/larger business, I do. But it’s four times more expensive, and that’s an awfully big hike.
Don’t get your expectations on PVA too high. It’s a difficult material to work with. I also have had a UM3 for 4 weeks now and I really love it. The hardware is great. The new Cura was very frustrating but eventually I learned how it all works. One critical understanding was the difference between “profile” and “settings”. In the old cura it was the same thing. In the new cura “profile” is a list of json formulas that set every parameter and “settigns” are the user overrides. not understanding this makes all the pop up messages useless.
But by my 8th print I found Cura to be just fine.
Again PVA is difficult. PLA sticks on top of PVA just fine (I love pla more than ever - I never quite appreciated what a wonderful material it is) but PVA barely sticks to itself let alone on top of PLA. But it works. Barely. You will figure it all out - there’s just a bunch more things to learn.
PVA with Nylon worked AMAZING. I love it. I think I might just stick to those materials. I never was all that happy with Nylon in the past (made around 30 prints in various nylons in the past) but UM nylon is great. Easier than Taulman Bridge I think.
Overall - hardware was fantastic. Software was frustrating - but by the time people get printers Cura should be in much better condition.
We just bought one for work and I can give you a viewpoint. It is largely turnkey; input a model and it produces parts w/o much specialized knowledge, as long as you stay on the reservation. It is amazing to have parts produced, w/o regard to overhangs or holes or other limitations with this ease. It works that well for material pairs it has programmed into it. If you need something else, you are on your own again.
Three items as warnings.1) the build volume listed is NOT for dual builds as that costs some space between heads. Also there are some keep-out zones that reduce usable space a bit for some shapes. Convincing it to print near the size limit is arduous. 2) The software can be uppity, single minded, and uncooperative if you need to do something the programmer had not thought of. 3) The niceties are subject to the rule of unintended consequences. The very convenient front cover of the print carriage, with its magnetic catch, makes changing hot ends easy. Up until a large part lost adhesion one night and somehow popped the cover loose. By the light of day, the failed part was not the ball of fishing line we have come to love, but because the partially open cover blocked the extrusion, it had backed up, filled the print head with molten PETT, overflowing back up into the release mechanism for both heads. I have a new appreciation for just how strong PETT is now. Also an aversion to the whole “easy to open” concept, I’m going to wire it shut with a bail. Trust me, the easy change feature failed here.
Live and learn. Other than that, yes a nice machine for business.
Just FYI there are others that have some kind of lifting mechanism and I only know of the diamond hotend that is different though very unpractical for multiple different material types. To what other manufacturer’s were you referring? Even if there will be advantages to using UM materials with RFID you will always be capable of selecting a material type manually… Because UM wants to be open for experimentation. Though marketing did want tracking of matrrial to tie it to a customer via RFID, we talked them out of that one We also tested the lifting mechanism extensively, we had printers doing nothing but nozzle switching for weeks, to verify wear and tear and reproducibility of position. But it is always good to see for yourself and I do agree with others is is not made or priced for home use.
Yes the 0.8mm nozzle is veing tested ATM and some smaller then 0.4 mm nozzles will be comming in for testing soon, ofcourse I have no idea what and when it will be released by marketing. The advantage over something cobbled together (there is a retrofit of a um core you can put your choise of nozzle size on, find it on the um forums) is that the machine will know the nozzle size and adjust accordingly (for instance during xy calibration) and notify cura of the size. Same goes for material type, that is also synced to cura and that is one of the advantages of RFID imho.
Ny Collogue just printed woodfill on the UM3 with the BB core as that lacks the flat bit inside the core, it flows a bit more easily it worked fine. (A BB core also oozes more easily, btw)
