Bossler

Regarding "conversion core" - that's what I was thinking about. It may works to feed 1,75mm through a 2,85mm but I can imagine trouble ahead where cold & hot end meet... Anyway, guess if I take the UM3e, I will start with 2,85mm filament just to eliminate trouble;-)

Wow - thank you all for so much information! Sending back my R3D tomorrow so I'll have a clear view then - and space for a replacement;-)

Hm, das ist aber in der Tat etwas, was mir auch fehlen würde. Der Slicer IdeaMaker kann das z.B., wenn ich nicht irre. Wie gut man den mit dem UM zum laufen bekommt, weiss ich allerdings nicht.

Kman, thanks for emphasizing your satisfaction with the UM - always good to see that there are happy users of the product one is about to purchase. Sander, thank you very much as well for detailing UM's approach reg. customer care. Understood. Reg. igo3d - I am not really concerned, I just read/listen and get some feeling... I do not have a final picture yet. Please don't get me wrong - I do absolutely not want to need support for my next 3D-printer... But I learned the hard way how important it is to have a reliable partner for this kind of machines. In the past I did repair nearly everything myself (I do have a background as mechanic and electronics engineer from the past;-). But - at least for the R3D - one does need some special equipment and Know-how to repair it. The intended use of the 3D-printer was initially to produce a variety of spare parts which I mainly construct myself. I am not a senior CAD-guy but get along quite good with it, I'd say. One major area are replacement parts for old-timer cars but I also "redraw" nearly everything that's needed. When asking for the R3D in particular - I did mainly print test-objects and have a bunch of useless plastic in a big box now... Some functional parts went okay so far, when you ignore "cosmetic" defects. I have seen that the UM3e does currently have some 2 weeks lead time? Is that the normal lead time?

Hi gr5, wow, lot of answers;-) Thank you for all the info & tips. I understand the point reg. 3mm material being much more suitable for a bowden type extruder. Makes perfect sense. What kind of mod did you have in mind? I do not yet have the UM3e here but would be more than happy to investigate into ways of expanding the possibilities regarding material usage in the UM3. While "crossing the bridge" as Sander said is a one time thing and is not a real showstopper for me, it would be a plus to be able to use 1,75mm as well. Let's keep in touch until I am "converted" into an UM3-User;-) I've also read your statement regarding igo3d "carefully" - since I already have been told, well, let's say alerting things about the support one can get from there... Need to investigate a bit further - if I get the feeling that these are for real, I am afraid I will have to look for something else than an UM. Because I am not willing to pay for an expensive product but get treated like a beggar when the sold product has defects. In the end the support & after sales care is the thing I am willing to pay a premium for - otherwise I could buy a lot of cheap Chinese kits for the same money and "help myself". I think that is something especially the 3D-printing-industry has to learn from the "old economy" - how you deal with production quality deviation, customer experience management and the like. I hope Ultimaker makes a difference here compared to the things I've seen "somewhere else". Let's see. If I were managing at Ultimaker I would carefully watch the performance of my partners and adjust as needed... Polyflex by the way printed quite okay with the Raise3D N2 (with bondtech upgrade, by the way). It required some tweaking with the settings, especially retraction was a bit of a struggle to get right. But it did work quite okay in the end. Unfortunately my N2 produced some ugly artifacts in the lower areas of prints (due to defects in the Z-axis) but in general the prints came out quite good. Stringing was an issue. Need to look into the technical data for TPU95 to judge whether that could be a replacement for Polyflex. I used Polyflex for seals mainly - and I must admit that I am still not done with testing the reliability of Polyflex-printed seals exposed to oil/petrol/diesel... Oil on the filament sounds somewhat strange to me. Maybe different PTFE-tubes can solve that as well?

Hello SandervG, thank you for your reply & the infos! Regarding the experience with Raise3D - that is something I do not want to have again. So I'd be interested in learning how Ultimaker has set up it's product care? Would I always need to contact the reseller? Does Ultimaker have a fixed partner for that per country? Which then would have to contact Ultimaker? Or can I contact Ultimaker directly to solve (hopefully never happening) defects? Having to send in the printer to a reseller who then may or may not sends it to the manufacturer and vice versa is a time consuming procedure. As I am mechanically and electrically experienced, I quite often would be able to fix things myself with the right parts being made available by the manufacturer. But when it comes to major mechanical defects, I will depend on the manufacturer for sure (e.g. exchanging and re-calibrating a Z-axis might be tough;-) Do you know PolyMaker's PolyFlex? Is that printable with the UM3e?

"I backed off the N2Plus because when I asked about manual leveling, they said it would never need it. I love my tech, but I do not have that much faith that it does not need a nudge here and there." You actually would not need it, if you can tolerate height differences of around 0.1mm across the print bed - that was what I did see at the print bed of my R3D N2 ... And boy, I did level it. And boy, this was a longer operation since I had to find that it was not only a setting issue of the bed leveling screws but the glass plate itself was not completely even. So tuning the plate was not eliminating the uneven surface...

kmanstudios, so how are your experiences with the UM3e? Regarding Raise3D - due to my own experience with them I am not an evangelist for them (anymore).

Ich beziehe mich hier (Zitate) auf den Post von 3Dimension vom 24.07.2017 um 10:38: ----- Also auch wenn das schon ne Weile her ist, muss ich da ob eigener Erfahrungen jetzt doch was zu sagen ... "was hier über den Raise3D geschrieben wird, kann ich beim besten Willen nicht nachvollziehen." Was hier über den Raise3D geschrieben wird, kann ich absolut nachvollziehen! Abgesehen von diversen Qualitätsproblemen/-schwankungen ist das Handling von Produktdefekten bei Raise3D einfach nur unbefriedigend. Am Ende haben sie zu mir gesagt, sie könnten die Probleme leider nicht lösen - und ich darf das Teil gegen Rückerstattung retournieren. Ein Ersatzgerät hat Raise3D leider nicht liefern wollen - vielleicht haben sie keine fehlerfreien Geräte mehr? Und ich habe (noch) die letzte Version davon, einen N2 von Oktober 2017 (V2 Hotend). Worst buy of the year 2017 for me. Nothing but trouble. "Dass PVA anscheinend nicht druckbar ist, mag an multiplen Problemchen liegen. " Die "diversen Problemchen" sind im Wesentlichen im starren Design des Feeders begründet. Ohne Bondtech-Upgrade sollte man Themen wie PVA oder gar Flex-Materialien von vorneherein gleich mal vergessen. Doof nur, dass Raise3D bei installiertem Bondtech-Upgrade gern mal davon spricht, dass dies "3rd Party" sei und man daher keine Support leisten könne... Probleme bei MEINEM Raise3D N2 waren: - (Defekt) sichtbarer Verschleiss an den Führungsstäben der X- und Y-Achse - (Defekt) knacken/Sprünge bei Abwärtsbewegung der Z-Achse - (Defekt) intermittierend Versatz auf der Y-Achse (Problem Motioncontroller-Board) - (Defekt) Thermal-Runaway-Error -> komplett-Ausfall Drucker/Stop - (Defekt) intermittierend "black-screen" Bedientablett (komplett-Ausfall, schwarzer Bildschirm, aus-/einschalten Drucker erforderlich) - (Design) Die Einstellung der Höhe der beiden Nozzles ist 100% manuell und erfordert Schrauberei - bei eher weichen Gewinden eine Zeitfrage, bis das nicht mehr klappt. Zudem verändert sich die Z-Höhe der Nozzles über die Zeit gern mal "von allein" -> diese Einstellung ist extrem kritisch! Nozzle-Hits sind etwas, dass der Raise3D-Kunde mögen muss... - (Design) Justierung Druckbett: extrem aufwändig und keinesfalls optional - (Design) Justierung Z-Gap: verändert sich bei geheiztem Druckbett, manuell, fummelig, nicht verstellsicher (zumindest nicht ohne Hack) - (Design) wegreissen der Druckplatten-Klammern bei Druckstart möglich - (Design) beworbene Druckfläche X/Y 305x305 auch bei Verwendung von nur einer Düse nicht nutzbar! (again, die Klammern...) - (Design) Druckstart-Gcode vom Raise3D-Slicer IdeaMaker ist ein Witz - fast immer bleibt ein Filament-Faden hängen und killt u.U. den ersten Layer - (DruckQualität) Überhänge kann der Raise3D N2 / konnte mein N2 eher schlecht. Eigentlich konnte der das überhaupt nicht richtig. Sah immer sch...lecht aus. - (DruckQualität) Immer wieder schlechte Layer, lose Filamentstränge im Druck -> wahrscheinlich (Vermutung) Schwankungen der Nozzle-Temperatur So sehr mir auch der "Build-Factor" des Raise3D N2 gefällt - das Teil ist ein teures Möbelstück mit Frustfaktor - zumindest für mich. Für den Preis erwarte ich mehr - egal, ob 3D-Druck eine junge Technik ist oder nicht. Und die Handhabung von Gewährleistungsansprüchen durch diese Firma ist unerträglich. Für mich gilt: Raise3D - Never Ever Again! P.S.: Ob Ultimaker besser ist, versuche ich gerade herauszufinden...

hey druckpunkt3d, would be very interested in your findings/impressions regarding the UM3e as a successor for an Raise3D N2 - because I did have the same "journey" so far. I have bought a Raise3D N2 in October 2017 but did have nothing but trouble with it. It has also been returned for rework but came back with other defects. The worst thing was that Raise3D refused to replace the bad machine so they left me with no choice but to demand return for refund. Very strange business acumen and a real pity cause the concept/build of the Raise3D was looking promising "from a distance". But with the quality issues they have and the way they handle defects - I'll stay away from that company in the future. Currently I am looking for a replacement and the Ultimaker 3 Extended is a hot candidate. The other alternative might be a BCN3D Sigma or Sigmax. So please share your experience with the UM3e. Is it faster/slower/noisier than the Raise3D? What about the print quality?

Hi there! Some 3+ month ago I went into 3D-Printing and my choice was a Raise3D N2. To make a long story short - despite some design flaws (which one can deal with) it does have multiple defects which seem too hard to fix for Raise3D. Since they refused to exchange the defect machine I have no other choice than to finally cross Raise3D off my list. Despite the defects - which can always happen - I must say their behavior of refusing a replacement really p... well, was a strange experience for me. I am now looking to the Ultimaker 3 Extended as an replacement - but I am open for other ideas, as well;-) One thing I worry about - I have quite some 1,75 mm filament lying around here and would love to use that with my next printer. So a natural question: Is there a proven and reliable method to convert the UM3 to the use of 1.75mm filament? I also have increasingly seen infos, that 2.85mm filament is sort of phase-out stuff? By the way - can one use 1kg spools? The spool-holder looks a little "on the small side"? Another thing I wonder - is there a kit with a lid and a closed door for the UM3 available yet? I have just seen kits for the UM2/+ or a door only for the UM3? Because I know from my own experience, that 3D-printing produces quite a bit of dust and harmful leftovers, do want to minimize that flowing around my office... Since the UM3 uses a Bowden-Extruder: Any experience printing felxible materials? I frequently need stuff made of that, used PolyMakers PolyFlex until now. Another filament I like is PolyMakers PolyWood, good for "artistic models". Does it work in the UM3? Not to forget that one: Curious to hear how your experience was with Ultimaker handling defects, if any? Do not want to have the "Raise3D-Experience" again... So far for now - already thank you very much for your answers! Have a great day, Bossler