Premium Innovation: The Ultimaker 3 review!

What happens when you have to improve an already great 3D printer? Ultimaker 3 happens!

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Models shown:

[QberryShortcake]

top quality dad joke there at the beginning.

[sasjadevries]

In some way you're right, if someone asks "what 3d should I buy" you can say ultimaker 3. But that's mainly because people who will ask such things don't have much knowledge about 3d printers, and those people want an easy to set up solution.
However I think that if a person in interested in technology (like me) he will prefer more tinkering and more options over easy set up, just because it's cheaper and it's interesting.
Simply put, this printer is great for beginning consumers and not bad for engineers.

[MegaMaking]

The review is amazing, you covered pretty much everything that are important. By the way, You can configure the dumb spool colour in cura as well if you really want to. Regarding PVA being very expensive, yes, but in cura 2.4 beta, the support material can be configured to only print the dense support layer and print the rest of the base support structure with cheaper the primary filament (pla and such). It also helps in reducing the time needed to dissolve the PVA.

[e]

After 3 years with an Ultimaker 3 at work now I have to say, that this is a really robust machine. It (almost) always delivers. But, as always with these integrated products, you can't really mess with it. Auto-levelling always messes up my Buildtak surface and software/hardware doesn't allow for modifications. For stuff like that, we now have two Ender 3 Pros that are heavily modded for specific jobs (e3d hotend, other extruders).
So the Ultimaker 3 is a great workhorse for general stuff (and people who are not that printing-savvy) and the beautiful prints (within reasonable print times) are done on the Ender Pros.

[RentableSocks]

I feel like "feature creep" got the best of ultimaker on this revision. Instead of improving their kenimatics system, they added a bunch of features that most people won't even use. The USB port is a welcome addition, as is the better Z platform, but except for those, I don't really see an improvement for most people over thhe um2 or um2+.

[MakeItWithCalvin]

I hear the Ultimaker PVA trades off dissolve time for moisture resistance. Other brands of PVA tend to dissolve faster but are crazy hygroscopic!

[Mecha_Monster]

Many of those upgrades are things already standard for a Raise3D printer; which have touch color panel, bigger build volume, smartphone app, closed chamber and better price.

[johnz]

I bet the hotend carriage is the reason why they seemed rushed for delivery, that must have taken them forever to get perfect. I have no money and thus use kit or homemade machines so I have no horse in this race, but I can appreciate the amount of time the engineers must have spent getting the swappable, click in place, filament moves out of the way, leveling sensing, hotends. Pretty cool, even if it needed a little patching.

[TomK]

That's me at 10:14 with that blue synth case :D

[yonutz]

Well, good review, covered most of the important stuff. I would have added that since they switched over to printcores they no longer supply replacement nozzles. Also that printcores are considered consumables and aren't covered so well by warranty

[bmemike]

Thank you for pointing out that the UM3 is not a "successor" to the UM2.

They're obviously similar for all the reasons that you stated, but I think it was a mistake brandingwise to label it the "3" as if it's just an "upgrade" from the 2/2+ because the two printers are largely targeting different audiences.

There is no real "upgrade path" as the naming convention implies. Add that confusion to the price differential between the 2+ and the 3 and it's easy to see why so many people were upset when the UM3 was announced.

[JATMN]

Great review Tom, did I notice a change in format here? :)

Looks like Ultimaker did well with the UM3. Hope to see more of these in the wild soon.

[ManWithBeard]

I like the bed levelling probe. That's a clever way to do it.

[karandex]

Tom, thank you for giving us under the hood look into the mechanics of u3

[GeorgMierau]

I have access to an Ultimaker S3 and quite happy with prints it produces. It's well built and really easy to use (almost like an apple product) but the price tag (~4k) makes it definitely a "premium" product for schools or small businesses, not for a home user.

[avd]

i work with 2 fortus 450 printers for my work, they start at $135, 000 dollars each (mine were 175k each)
print dimensions are 14x16x14 inch
the ultimaker is a pretty decent system for enthusiasts. However, the fortus can handle running 1 week long without much service

[FranklyWry]

As always, totally articulate, comprehensive, and spot-on analysis.

[LegoJamTrain]

The Ultimaker looks like a printer for people who do not want to tinker, a very professional product, but if you want to get your hands dirty, it's not your printer.

[Gryphus-R]

Thomas, which one do you prefer, Ultimaker 3 or Prusa i3 MK2?

[harambeexpress]

Damn that print head assembly is awesome.