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Jun 2017

Looks great, except I bought a 2+ only a couple of months back, and I’m not interested in coughing up that much cash for a replacement so soon.
If it had been available at the time it would have been a serious contender.

From what I’ve seen so far: Overpriced. Boring.
-Jesse

Priced as you would expect for an Ultimaker but I have one on order anyway. Trading up from one of my two Ultimaker 2+'s. I have had a dual extruder in the past and gave it up as not worth the hassle so will be interested to see if Ultimaker has gotten it right. Probably should have waited for some other folks to jump in first…but…what the hell, boys and their toys.

I think it will be a good machine for the professional market. But it won’t be for tinkeres and people that are just starting with 3d printing. The dual extrusions looks well engineered

I have been lucky enough to be part of the test group before the launch so i had the opportunity to use it for around 3 weeks now.

It’s a very good printer, dual extrusion works perfectly, the wifi/network connectivity is very usefull.

The print cores work flawlessly, i printed PLA, ABS, CPE, NYLON with no issues with the AA Core and PVA with the BB core

I agree that the price is a bit high, but really it’s worth it

It’s Awesome.

i also think a lot of people are missing the point here. this is not an UM2(+) replacement. it has a different audience…

if you need a reliable 3D printer for use at home and printing every now and then, or even on a very regular basis, and you are not afraid to do maintenance on them, then the UM2+ is the printer for you.

if you need a printer you can run 24/7, have high demands from and everything needs to be plug and play, the Um3 is for you.

so the prosumer/universities etc. of the world, they have a definitive benefit from this printer. for most peop[le at home, it’s nice, but I don’t see many advantages over the UM2+.

so I think it’s super exciting, and not overpriced at all…

Simply beautiful as all Ultimakers. I’m evaluating to sell my Ultimaker 2+ and get this one :slight_smile:

As espected from ultimaker, it is designed to be “perfect”. As they said a while back that dual extrusion needs to be done right, I think they nailed it with the UM3. Even the swappable printer cores is well designed.
As for the tinkerers there is still the UMO and the UM2. The UM3 looks to be made for the people who want a reliable printer without the hassle of having to tweak it yourself.

The price,… yeah it’s high. Too high for me too. But that also counts for apple products :stuck_out_tongue: and yet people still buy them because the quality is good.

The initial design and read up looks like they’ve ironed out some of the issues the Ultimaker 2 and 2+ had. I have a 2+ and I must say I’m looking forward to trying the 3. Dual extrusion was always a must for these machines.

I’m “this close” to ordering it, right off the bat. However, the price point is a bit steep for me, as an out-of-work student, so I’ll have to give it a month or two. Hopefully time for Simplify3D to come out with profiles for the UM3, as well as for them to fix any bugs in the firmware associated with rushing the product to market (which they admit doing).

It’s not going to replace my UM2+, rather work along side, providing me with remote control and most importantly of course the no-hassle dual extrusion, mainly for PVA support. I currently spend quite a bit of time cleaning up customer prints, due to the surprisingly large amount of overhangs people really seem to like. Looking forward to just dunking parts in water and seeing my problems dissolve. :smiley:

The one main issue I have with the Ultimaker 3 is the build volume. I’d really like to see Ultimaker come out with a 30x30x30 (12" for you Americans) or even slightly larger build volume printer, instead of just the height extended versions. Especially fabricating robot components sometimes needs the larger print bed, in my experience. Currently I do a _lot_ of PLA welding on components - I have a dedicated dremel just for PLA welding, which says a lot.

- So if anyone can recommend a larger dual extrusion printer with the same reliability of an Ultimaker, I think I won’t be bound to the brand.

I agree with you 100% on the fact that it’s not an UM2(+) replacement. It’s quite a different animal indeed.

The price point is up there, for sure, but again, it’s not a tinkertoy but a prosumer/professional machine. A lot of printers I’ve been looking at are priced either very similarly or at closer to the 6K or 9K mark, without necessarily having the reliability, build quality or HUGE community and support that the Ultimaker name provides.

Agreed. I’m keeping my UM2+ come hell of high water, but I am considering putting a UM3 next to it in my workshop, or possibly at the office I just rented for my association, with remote monitoring.

Its a nice machine, very good quality as usual from Ultimaker which will handle long and continuous print runs, dual printing at long last although I’m not sure if just the nozzles can be replaced or it’s a whole nozzle assembly, I would hope the nozzles can be changed and for different sizes aka the Olsson and match less. There are a few improvements overall which I would hope will be upgrades for the UM2, the stiffer build platform for one.

The price is a bit high for the home hobbyist so likely aimed at small business/small workshops, but I’m sure it’s worth the price.

It seems to have good connectivity, with LAN, WiFi and USB, and I like the integrated camera. And I would hope the camera could be another upgrade to the UM2.

I’m not sure that the UM3 is as user modifiable as the UM2 with the added complication in the print head.

Would I want one? Based on my experience with my pimped UM2, HELL YES, but with the pound at the moment I’ll have to wait a while.

It’s been mentioned a couple of times, but this really isn’t meant as a replacement for the UM2(+).

Ultimaker will keep selling the UM2+ as well as the UM original, alongside the new Ultimaker 3. - They are all aimed at different audiences.

Looks like it’s everything everyone wanted the UM2+ to be? Compare this to, for example the Felix Pro 1 (or newer Pro 2??) which has a very familiar feature set but a bigger build volume and a much better price, my choice would be simple. Also because I’ve seen some very impressive prints of the Felix Pro 1 printer, and with dual materials.

Running two UM2+'s at the moment of which I’m very satisfied with, I don’t think the UM3 will take place in my office very soon…

My understanding is that an 800 micron nozzle is planned first. This will be a whole core (95 quid) though not just the nozzle. I have asked about a 250 micron nozzle.

I am going to wait for some real youtube reviews, but I suspect I will buy one. I am not against tinkering with my UM2+ but the idea of a more reliable machine is appealing.

It is just about 3 month that I bought an ultimaker 2+ 3D printer, but now I realize that I had to wait.

The thing I liked most was the dual extrusion and that they use PLA to support the pieces which melt with water.

I already asked to ultimaker whether they have an update to my printer and the answer was this:

“Sorry! we won’t be able to offer an upgrade kit for the Ultimaker 2 series, as too many parts have been changed between the two models.”.

How reliable would to add a dual extrusion with ulticretr? Can I invest $500us for this?

I know people who’ve made custom dual extruder set-ups for the UM original series, and I am sure it has been done for the UM2 as well. Go check out thw Ultimaker forums, I’m pretty sure there’ll be good documentation on the procedure.

I’m really not blown away by it, and while I don’t doubt Ultimaker’s quality, I am a bit skeptical of some of the design choices.

Dual extrusion via separate heads is a trend that is being moved away from in the industry for good reason. I am surprised to see them go down this route so late in the game, and I’m more than a little concerned about the longevity of the nozzle lifting mechanics. There’s a reason other manufacturer’s haven’t gone down this route; something like that requires very precise mechanics to get right every time. It is entirely possible that the nozzles “move” hundreds, if not thousands, of cycles per print (each could have to raise/lower multiple times per layer - imagine a couple thousand layer print at high resolution). It’s definitely the engineering brain raising a red flag with that - maybe I’m wrong and I hope I am, but I just don’t see that mechanism working precisely for a long period of time. Time will tell I suppose, but I’m not jumping at the gate to make a decent investment for a printer that may not work for that long.

Inclusion of the NFC also makes me a bit wary; this makes future implementation of DRM in the future very easy for the company and not something I want to deal with. Hopefully, they learned from the mistakes other companies have made with DRM and won’t even try going down that road.

My other issue is the build volume. It’s smaller than competing, similarly priced dual extrusion machines which I find kind of disappointing. I was really expecting a big volume with the UM3! I’ll make a final assessment after seeing this unit out in the wild for a couple months, and seeing how it stands up to wear and tear over time.

Once again, Ultimaker have blown our expectations out of the water with quality, features, design, and functionality.
The approach to Dual Extrusion is very interesting and definitely a lot easier than an E3D direct hotend with pneumatic connector seperated above it (An equivelant comparison to the UM3).
The webcam feature is interesting, I haven’t been able to find much information about it however the remote connectivity aspect and remote monitoring feature is something long overdue on the Ultimaker brand in my opinion.

The average price of a decently sized industrial-grade system would allow you to purchase more than 20 UM3’s. Which would give you more than 5x the build volume of the industrial system. Having multiple printers in your workshop/manufacturing line gives maximum flexibility (if 1 Ultimaker is out of use all other devices are still available, if one machine is down for maintenance the rest is still running). It can also be seen as a faster way to produce big objects, by splitting an object in different parts and printing it on multiple devices a cluster of UM3 is faster than any other big volume additive-manufacturing system available.

Upgrading UM2+ to dual extrusion is not good idea. You will have lot problems (non printing head hit object, oozing…)

Where are you from? Maybe you can try to sell UM2+ and buy UM3. UM3 is not upgrade, it is completely new machine made for new things. UM2+ is still better in many aspects (speed, material diversity, reliability)

It looks like a great semi-professionnal machine. Looking forward to get reviews of the machine. I’m especially interest in how the UM3 compares with the BCN3D.

I think that the dual extruder is the single best feature of the machine. Being able to have clean overhangs is the holy graal of fdm machines.

I have a UM2+ and I usually have to decline orders with very complex parts with nasty overhangs. Hubs with a UM3 would be able to accept a lot more orders.

The price of the UM3 seems high compared to the UM2+ but if you take into account the amount of work needed to clean parts with overhangs (many hours per month in my case), then it is not that expensive after all.

A 0.6mm nozzle for the UM3 would make the printer perfect! 0.4mm nozzle is too tight for Woodfill filaments.

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.