You might want to go the hard way (and easy on the short therm) and get a umo+ kit. You will learn in the assembly process a lot of how everything works, and specially how to fix it. There's no easy printers. I had a davinci aio and a duo and when they are in theory click and print, they are in the short therm the most horrible experience one can have.
In my personal experience I did go for an ultimaker (now I'm about to have 3 in total) because:
- This forum. Many users with great experience and knowledge share their opinions, hacks, mods, improvements, etc.
- Ultimaker brand has a great support. I did call before buying to sales and they are quite sincere and realistic.
- I could improve my machine to other nozzles, heads, change belts, motors. To make it better. For example an umo+ with gt2 belt/pulleys it, mind the different head and wood frame, almost like a um2 (umo+ and um2 has the same board).
- After searching for examples of high quality prints I always found googling that the best ones where most of the time from ultimaker users.
- I wanted something that could print for 24h without having problems.
Ofc you can find problems on an Ultimaker, or any other printer. The important it's 'how to fix it'. On ultimaker since its open source you could even build it yourself (even the um2) and that means that you don't depend only of the parts that you can get from the seller but from many sources. So if you have a problem you know what motor model to buy, what belt size, etc etc. So in the long run when the warranty expires (ultimaker it's one of the few that gives a full year warranty, check that prior buying because many say the do but not for some parts). So if the warranty expires you can still have good support through the forums (and the support of ultimaker) and buy parts from other sources or ultimaker distributors. This it's for me a very important aspect because on the long run you will be able to keep improving your machine and keep it like new.
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SandervG 1,521
Hi @Neone,
Thank you for your elaborated post and good questions.
Hopefully you will find the answers you are looking for and others may find them useful as well.
I am an Ultimaker employee, so I am probably biased but I may be able to give you some more insights. I am sure you will get replies from the rest of the community as well.
'Super user friendly'; I think this kinda depends on your frame of reference.
If you compare it to a Senseo you might be right. There is some getting to know the machine needed, but I personally don't see that as a con. It is not a catchy way of saying the machine is
unreliable or something.. it just literally means, get familiar with 3D printing. You are going to producing things with mostly thermoplastics. There are a lot of different thermoplastics available, you have to get to know how these materials behave and what lies within the possibilities or not. Learning what is possible goes for materials, but also the 3D printing in general. Not everything can be 3D printed. A lot.. but not everything. Usually there is a workaround.
For Senseo, you just have pads.. that's it. And you can only make coffee.
On the other hand, if you compare it to the entire 3D Printing scene, I think we are pretty user friendly. (go ahead and read our reviews, or ask others).
In regard of maintenance, we have developed the Ultimaker in a way it is maintenance friendly.
Maybe the video you saw is scary now since everything is unfamiliar, but that will soon change
Besides, with Ultimaker you are not alone! You have us, you have this huge community and we have support pages.
We started off with a kit (Ultimaker Original), which we had to design so everyone could build it, with just a screw driver. That same experience went in the Ultimaker 2.
Community Activity; I guess you just have to find out for yourself
Since the new forum was uploaded a lot changed. Last week we enabled e-mail notifications again and in approx. a month we will do another upgrade. The community has always been active, and with each streak of improvements it grows and grows.
Price wise; we are not the cheapest printer around. I think there is a price-quality ratio.
Not claiming cheaper prints are bad, but you have to give in somewhere, whether build volume, reliability, support, heated bed's. With the Ultimaker 2 you have it all
(plus a reliable track record, which never shows up in any specs but is a crucial point).
We have an open filament system, this means you can use our own filaments if you want to stay safe in the Ultimaker products, but you are free to experiment and play around.
There are a lot of good other suppliers available as well, like Colorfabb.
This means you have a say in what you spend on materials, but remember.. you need quality input for quality output. So sometimes the cheapest material is not the best.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
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