I'm an engineer at Primary MFG in Humboldt, SD. We do a lot with Carbon 3D and 3D Systems machines. We finally got a "cheap" FDM/FFF machine to do simple jigs, fixtures, and cheap customer orders. We picked the Ultimaker S5 pro bundle over the Raise 3D Pro2 and Zortrax M300 Dual because the vendor claimed that it was more capable, more reliable, had better quality, and better support than the Raise and Zortrax. The material station was an added bonus since it would simplify the material selection and loading process.
Now that I've been running the machine for a couple months, I have determined that we would have been better off with a Prusa i3 mk3. The quality is on-par with my Anet a6 at home. The capability seems to be similar to other machines until you plug in the material station, at which point you have to fiddle, trick, and bamboozle the machine into doing anything that isn't an Ultimaker or generic material. The reliability hasn't even been good enough to utilize the entire print platform.
The errors I've been encountering include, but are not limited to:
failed auto leveling (either too high, too low, or just failed outright)
Flow sensor error
Failure to unload material back to the material station
Material run out message despite plenty of material being left on the roll
Machine aborting prints with no warning or message
Jammed nozzle
Grinding extruder gear
I've been having to babysit the printer until it starts printing and even during printing. A few notable scenarios are when I was printing XStrand GF30-PA6 and the flow sensor would cause the machine to error out even though I was using the profile, settings, and temperatures recommended in the material alliance. This would happen every 30 minutes. Lately I've been trying to print an ABS part for the past couple of days. It's a 4 hour build, but either the nozzle is too high, too low, active leveling error, or the part just doesn't build beyond the first layer and it starts making a spaghetti mess.
My question is did I get a lemon? What can I do to make this worth the $9.2k price tag, or is that not possible? I want to know what you guys think because I've never had a printer so finicky, yet so expensive.