Upgrade your Ultimaker 2 with the Extrusion upgrade

[joelmongeon 39]

$35   Geared Feeder Motor

$20   Geared Feeder

$109  Oslon Block Kit (with nozzles)

$28   Temp Sensor

$31   35W Heater Cartridge

$18   PTFE Couple (TFM)

$20   Steel Coupler

$10   Bowden Tube

$18   Fan Shroud

$3    Better Bed Clips

$6    Collet & Retaining Clip

$24   Cooling Fans

$15   Print Head Block Set

$35   Print Head Cables / Wiring Loom

$500  UM 2+ Sticker

 

I'm so mad right now. I just spent $500 on my "+" sticker not two weeks ago!

[drofnas 15]

LOL

Come on people its 2016... you should know by now the price of a product is not determined by the cost of it's components ...

 

We should be happy Ultimaker doesn't follow Apples pricing strategy:

Cost of Materials + 99% Markup = Almost there

[jameswood 8]

$500  UM 2+ Sticker

 

Ha ha!

Don't make me laugh when I'm trying to be outraged. Huff!

[Giddi 6]

I just bought this 5 minutes ago, I hope this $400 investment is worth it, because my printer has been a $2500 brick unable, to print a single thing for the past few months. I think ive spent more time trying to fix all the issues, than actually printing.

 

For me its more like, you fix one thing and another on flares up, but yeah I think my Girlfriend will leave me if I spent another night infront of my UM2 fixing it.

[WinterCeltic 0]

I don't understand all the hate for the price, when I priced it out based on all the spare parts you get, the kit is half the cost of the individual parts:

$35   Geared Feeder Motor

$20   Geared Feeder

$109  Oslon Block Kit (with nozzles)

$28   Temp Sensor

$31   35W Heater Cartridge

$18   PTFE Couple (TFM)

$20   Steel Coupler

$10   Bowden Tube

$18   Fan Shroud

$3    Better Bed Clips

$6    Collet & Retaining Clip

$24   Cooling Fans

$15   Print Head Block Set

$35   Print Head Cables / Wiring Loom

$500  UM 2+ Sticker

???   Rods

$877  TOTAL (+ what ever the rods cost)

I couldn't find a set of spare X/Y rods sold anywhere, but I guess I didn't look very hard. Of course most of these costs were related to the UM2 original spare parts, being that the new ones aren't sold (yet).

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we do need to buy both the Extruder Upgrade kit AND the Olsson Block kit to convert to an UM2+? Or does it include the Olsson kit? I'm confused by that part, and it's not quite clear.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Guest

[Labern 774]

It includes the kit

[ultiarjan 1,223]

It's not only included... the whole head is pre assembled. ...

[neotko 1,417]

[neotko 1,417]

Hey @SandervG ferrite core for the motors!?? So all the long hours of chats about ferrite cores with @nicolinux didn't fall on deaf ears?...

Edited March 14, 2016 by Guest

[ultiarjan 1,223]

 

@sandervG So if you guys spend money on an extra component I assume you tested and saw an improvement? What problem is it solving?

[Nicolinux 288]

Hey @SandervG ferrite core for the motors!?? So all the long hours of chats about ferrite cores with @nicolinux didn't fall on deaf ears?...

 

'Sup Yo!

[neotko 1,417]

That was epic @nicolinux

[korneel 176]

I'm also interested in hearing what the ferrite core is improving...

on a plus note (see what I did there?)

I upgraded my 3 Ultimaker 2s to Ultimaker 2+ printers..

been testing with different stuff for a while but it became time for all my printers to go back to stock.. and the + upgrade package was exactly what it needed..

so my starting point was a set of 3 Ultimaker 2s, I run them 24/7 and I need total reliability. to do that, my printers were all running the UltiArjan Rail System, the UltiArjan Feeder, my spring replacement, some current and amperage changes to the Feeder Motor, custom fan shrouds and some smaller changes... All in All, very far away from stock..

But I was getting a 99 percent succes rate.. something I needed since most of the prints I do are 24+ hours long.. for instance, I'm printing special light covers that are 36 hours a piece.. that's going to be expensive failures if I get less than 99 percent..

anyway, The UM2+ upgrade di have the things that I needed.. The improved fan shroud, the low noise fans, a convenient spring replacement, reliable feeder, heater upgrade and even better, a reliable temperature sensor..

so first the bad..

the temperature sensor is a blessing and a curse.. the blessing is that it is very very accurate. I put a Fluke temperature monitor inside the nozzle and got a difference of max 1 degrees with the new temp sensor.. so that's fantastic news! now why is it a curse? the old one reported a low value.. so if i set it to 260.. the actual temperature could ran up to 275.. and while reporting 260 the temp could fluctuate between 272 and 278.. so that will not help print quality at all.. so the new temp sensor has indeed improved my print quality.. but the drawback is.. can't reach 275 degrees anymore.. which means printing with Colorfabb XT has to be done at 260 degrees now for a 0.2 layer height and i could actually use some extra degrees.. guess I'll need @TinkerGnome firmware for that..

anyway, that was the only bad thing.. perhaps the retractions have gotten a little bit noisier..

but is it worth it? no doubt.

yes, it is expensive as hell.. and yes, a menu style buying of upgrades would be nice.. but that's coming..

the upgrades are good, well thought out and very very reliable.

so from a happy UM2+ upgrader.. you won't regret it.

@SandervG .. perhaps you want to mention the temperature learning curve on the upgrade package.. if you are used to printing at 230 for instance.. you would need to at between 8 and 10 degrees with the new sensor or you will get symptoms that look like underextrusion..

[esteban-pacheco 33]

Hey @SandervG ferrite core for the motors!?? So all the long hours of chats about ferrite cores with @nicolinux didn't fall on deaf ears?...

Hey! is that Ferrite Core of an Special sort? my U2 came without that. Can i use a Standard one?

thanks

[meduza 191]

The ferrite is mainly for EMC reasons, will probably do no noticable difference

@Korneel: you can change the temperature limits if you compile your own firmware, and if you start with Tinkergnomes firmware it is really not that hard.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Guest

[korneel 176]

The ferrite is mainly for EMC reasons, will probably do no noticable difference

@Korneel: you can change the temperature limits if you compile your own firmware, and if you start with Tinkergnomes firmware it is really not that hard.

 

i don't really want to compile my own firmware.. would love if Ultimaker would just up the limit..

[gothampixel 10]

anyone in the U.S. able to purchase the upgrade Kit? Everywhere I look I'm told it's 2 weeks out.

[drofnas 15]

anyone in the U.S. able to purchase the upgrade Kit?  Everywhere I look I'm told it's 2 weeks out.

 

Hmm, I had ordered mine from 3D Universe, but it looks like they are weeks out as well:

http://shop3duniverse.com/collections/ultimaker-3d-printers/products/extrusion-upgrade-kit

Mine comes in today (where are you UPS DRIVER!!!!!!), but I had ordered it the day it was released. Looks like they didn't quite anticipate how quickly they would be sold out.

[das_enginer 2]

anyone in the U.S. able to purchase the upgrade Kit?  Everywhere I look I'm told it's 2 weeks out.

 

I ordered the day it was announced from 3D Universe as well, and it showed an expected ship of the 18th at the time, but we'll see. It's good to hear that drofnas' actaully shipped!

[drofnas 15]

yay, got mine in and installed. It works SOOOO much better after installing the $500 "UM2+" sticker... the other upgrades are nice too ;-)

Might need to make some sort of "lock widget thingy" to keep the feeder open when changing material though, since it does require a good amount of force to keep it open. That's one thing I really liked about the iRoberts Feeder, very easy to change materials.

Was also very glad I had one of these cheap little screw driver sets (http://www.harborfreight.com/33-piece-precision-screwdriver-set-93916.html) when doing this upgrade, since those back 2 screws for the circuit board are a PAIN with the little hex wrench it comes with. Also came in handy when I had to loosen the set screws for the axles during the alignment step in the instructions.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Guest

[korneel 176]

The ferrite is mainly for EMC reasons, will probably do no noticable difference

@Korneel: you can change the temperature limits if you compile your own firmware, and if you start with Tinkergnomes firmware it is really not that hard.

 

side question, would you be able to do that for me? i have never messed with the firmware... i always messed with the mechanical side of things

[Blizz 53]

Might need to make some sort of "lock widget thingy" to keep the feeder open when changing material though, since it does require a good amount of force to keep it open. That's one thing I really liked about the iRoberts Feeder, very easy to change materials.

Indeed, I hope someone comes up with something like that... I mean, they obviously listened to the customers about a quick filament change solution... If it was tested and deemed needing a lot of force adding a lock seems fairly easy to add I guess. Guess we'll have to buy the ++-edition for that.

[drofnas 15]

 

The ferrite is mainly for EMC reasons, will probably do no noticable difference

@Korneel: you can change the temperature limits if you compile your own firmware, and if you start with Tinkergnomes firmware it is really not that hard.

 

side question, would you be able to do that for me? i have never messed with the firmware... i always messed with the mechanical side of things

 

It looks like it would be as simple as changing the value on line 79 from 250, to your new max temp (275):

https://github.com/TinkerGnome/Ultimaker2Marlin/blob/geek_mode/Marlin/createTemperatureLookupMarlin.py#L79

But since this is the the UM2 firmware, and not the UM2+ one, we will have to wait for the Tinker Gods to shine some light on us.

[ultiarjan 1,223]

Don't think that's correct... think you need to change the heater max temp in configuration.h

[drofnas 15]

Don't think that's correct... think you need to change the heater max temp in configuration.h

 

Hmm, there might be a few places that need to be changed, since the official firmware source has it set to 275 (same with TinkerGnomes):

Line 166:

https://github.com/Ultimaker/UM2.1-Firmware/blob/UM2.1_JarJar/Marlin/Configuration.h#L166

But either way, I'll wait on TinkerGnome to do the tweaks, he knows much better than I ;-)