Ultimaker 3 quality control issues

[catlover 1]

So I just bought the Ultimaker 3. While  the prints came out great, I noticed some quality control issues mainly the over tightening of the nuts / bolts causing the aluminium cladding to deform. The nut is 2-3mm crushed into the panel.

This is what my first print out of the box looks like:

This is Benchy after running through x/y calibration and bed leveling:

I got my UM3 at Dynamism and they were quick to respond to my issue. They forwarded me to FBRC8 to have the defect verified. Fbrc8 claims that my unit is within normal parameters.

Am I crazy to say that my unit is defective? I expected higher craftmanship from Ultimaker and within this price range. Overall I am not happy with the crushed slot / aluminium. What do you guys think?

Edited December 16, 2016 by Guest

[illuminarti 18]

Hi catlover, and welcome to the forum. Congratulations on your new UM3 purchase, I feel sure that you'll find it to be an excellent tool, if you give it the chance.

I should start with a disclaimer; a long time ago I was an active forum user, helping folks get the best out of their Ultimaker printers, but sadly I no longer have the time to be very active here, because I'm the founder and President of fbrc8, the company who built your printer, and which will be providing you with tech support to ensure you get the best out of it.

I'm sorry that you are unhappy with aspects of your printer, but I think you're worrying un-necessarily about things which at worst have a very tiny cosmetic impact, but make no difference to the operation of the machine at all. Two of the three nuts are not even visible in normal use, and based on the photos, none of them has been 'crushed into the panel' anywhere near the 2-3mm distance that you suggest.  Your photos are highly magnified - at 1:1 scale, I doubt most people would even notice any movement.

For comparison, the nut is just a fraction over 2mm deep. It is put into the slot, and then the screw is added from the outside. This means that for the nut to have moved 2-3 mm, as you claim, there would have to be at least 1 to 1.5 nut-depths of empty cross-slot space behind the nut after it has moved. Looking at your photos, only the 3rd one shows any appreciable gap behind the nut at all, and that looks to be more like 1mm to me. I agree, it's not perfect, but it is also of no consequence to the operation of the machine, and not normally visible.

In practice, it is inevitable that there will be small movements like this in some cases, given the tolerances in the materials and machining.  The panel material is relatively soft, and with enough natural variation that, even with tightly controlled torque settings, slight movement of the nuts can happen. Avoiding it totally would require so little torque that there would be a risk of the screws working lose, or falling out in transit, which is a far greater problem that we try hard to avoid.

Even with more significant movement than yours, it really makes no difference to the integrity of the printer; indeed slightly tighter is probably better for the rigidity of the frame, and making sure that the screws don't work lose.

So yes, I think our tech support was perfectly correct to say that what you have seen is within normal standards; the printer is not within any reasonable sense 'defective' or eligible for replacement,  based on the issues as you've described them - and your own initial experience seems to suggest that in terms of printing, it's working pretty well.

If there are other other issues with the printer, or if you have questions about how to get the best out of the printer, then please do get back in touch with the fbrc8 support desk. We're passionate about wanting Ultimaker owners to have the best possible experience - it's the reason that the company was founded - and want you to be happy with your machine, and get a good return on your significant investment. But we also have to work within the realms of what we can reasonably control.

[Krasnoyask 7]

So this is the Ultimaker standard? :(

I know how I feel about it, but that's not important, what is important is you being happy with your purchase.

Have you tried printing the Ultimaker bot on his back with pla support, normal print quality and standard profile settings? I know you have found my thread and there are a couple of pictures on there of the same print.

Edited December 23, 2016 by Guest

[fabreax 15]

I agree, I needed to setup my pulleys because the axles were moving !

[FormFaktor 0]

I must say that I had some problems with my UM3. The screws were not tightened and the belt of x-axis was loose. I've found that on/off switch has some issues too, there are some problems with Wi-Fi connection and camera, but after all I'm very happy with my printer - it prints realy well.