why is ultimaker filament crazy expensive?

[lance-greene 7]

So I've put a little over 1200 hours of printing on my UM2 and throughout all of that the only ultimaker filament I've printed with is the spool my machine came with. the reason for that is the insane prices of their filament, why is it so expensive?

in canada here i can buy a run of the mill spool of abs from any of a few different manufacturers at a price of $25 - $30 per KG, where ultimaker filament here costs $65 for 750 grams.

filament quality shouldnt have anything to do with it as practically all filament these days is of a high quality. is that price because of the costs of getting the filament here? cause if that's the case then they shouldn't really bother bringing filament up here when it requires more than doubling the normal price of it.

am I missing something?

[Nasimovy 1]

in belgium the price for spools of ABS filament from ultimaker are 38.12euro

[lance-greene 7]

Wow that's $56 here in canada. still crazy expensive compared to the normal $25 for a spool of most other brands.

[neotko 1,417]

Unicorn blood it's hard to source.

Spools made outside your territory are more expensice just from transport and taxes. But also good filament it's more expensive. Faberdashery, diamond age, colorfabb. Good stuff with quality control will always be more expensive than filaments with less color, dimensions and print quality. I never used ultimakers filament but comparing a brand with another it's more than just the price.

I buy the good brands to have the same colors between rolls, repeatable print quality and less troubles.

[donmilne 2]

Jeez. Some people are never satisifed.

Seriously folks, many other consumer level 3D printing companies force you to use their branded filament cartridge system, so they have you over a barrel. With Ultimaker, if you don't like UM prices you are free to shop elsewhere!

[valcrow 144]

UM filament is expensive in comparison, not just in Canada but everywhere.

Currently it's $59 CAD http://shop3d.ca/product/ultimaker-pla/,

If you look at American sites, it's also $59, but USD. http://www.dynamism.com/filament-accessory/ultimaker-accessories.shtml So it's actually 30% cheaper in Canada right now

I've used a lot of UM filament and many other brands and there IS a difference in quality, colour and reliability as Neotko said. The most important difference I've noticed is the bare glass sticking quality and controlled stringing. If you're printing regular sized objects, no problem for $30 rolls. But if you regularly make smaller footprint or detailed objects, you'll feel the loss in productivity due to lower quality filament. The ability to 'stick' onto clean glass is for whatever reason (probably unicorn blood) is much better on UM filament than others that I've tried (with the exception of innofill).

From a practical standpoint this difference translates directly into time/cost. I usually run large prints (i try to go for 16 hours) overnight so I come back in the morning to shiney new pieces. Which often means many pieces on one build platform in all at once mode.

If I use cheap filament, I will need to use a brim to ensure it sticks, and will expect a little bit of stringing cleanup in the morning. The brim on complex, small footprint objects will take me a while to clean up. If I use Ultimaker/innofill it can likely print it without a brim and stringing is almost totally controlled. If I need something FOR SURE to be done the next day, I will not risk it with cheap filament. The risk of failure is just not worth the cost at that point.

So while it's more expensive, you could be saving a lot of cleanup time in the end. If you factor in the time for failed prints and cleanup you'll see the value in good filament.

If you're looking for Ultimaker quality filament at a lower cost, try Innofill, we just got them, and have been using them a lot in the past few months. Same spools, performance, and glass sticking quality. I think they're almost exactly the same as Ultimaker filament.

http://shop3d.ca/product/innofil-3d-pla-filament/

Anyways, choice in filament is always good, choose the right tool/price point for the job and enjoy all the perks! Low cost filament for large draft things, and premium filament for print jobs that you're making money on. If it's too pricey or too low quality, you can always choose to buy something else.

[umagi 8]

Maybe to avoid problems such as this one:

https://ultimaker.com/en/community/20351-damn-filament-vendor-175mm-filament-roll-has-283mm-fused-section-in-it

[mayo77 5]

You don't need to buy the expensive utimaker filament I bought the cheep stuff i have ZERO issues with it, prints fine and is less than half the price. The brainwashing of "you must ultimaker everything crap"  is exactly that crap, buy 1 roll of the "cheap" stuff see what you think. This is the ultimaker website so obviously they try and push their product.. but is it superior, in my opinion no.  

I have 8 rolls of the cheap stuff (i got 1 kg for 29$ shipped) printing daily and i find the cheap abs is better than the ultimaker 65$ per 750 grams ABS in fact lol.

I will never buy a roll of filament from ultimaker unless they cut their prices in half.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Guest

[IRobertI 520]

The brainwashing of "you must ultimaker everything crap"  is exactly that crap

 

Where are you seeing this "brainwashing"? I've been to plenty of trade shows/fairs where we've been selling Ultimakers, and one of the things we push is that Ultimaker has an open filament system. It's actually one of the biggest things we emphasize.

[donmilne 2]

Yep, I have to agree that I don't recognize this claim. If we are talking about the forums then if anything it's IME ColorFabb and Faberdashery filaments that get the most talk. I don't recall anybody ever touting the UM filament even though the quality is acknowledged to be good for the most part. Then again I don't read every post so a link would be useful.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Guest