Totally agree with Daid, the small brass tube gets violated by users all the time, to a point where UM should simply drop 2 into each box... PEEK is the most annoying should you decide to burn it up, together with ripping the TC out with brutal force, since they are difficult to find&replace. everything else can be found everywhere.
Warranty? Might want to read their disclaimers on the site. My printer is about four months old and I've replaced a huge number of parts, most within the first 6 weeks. I'm on my second nozzle, second aluminum heater block, second heater wire, second temperature sensor, second Peek, second brass tube, second nylon tube, second Bowden tube, second wooden top plate, third set of horseshoe clips, second build platform, and second main board. I had a nightmarish sequence of mechanically destructive events on my first print attempts, which resulted from following out of date assembly instructions on the Wiki.The only thing I didn't have to pay for out of my own pocket was the main board, which was just obviously bad. I'm still waiting for the replacement set of cables for my Ulticontroller which they promised a week ago.
Personally, I would suggest paying extra for an assembled Ultimaker so you don't fall victim to bad instructions during assembly, like I did. In the end, I paid far more than the price of the assembled unit with all of the parts I had to replace. If the assembled unit had been available when I bought mine, I would have purchased that instead of the kit.
If you are bent on buying the kit, in addition to the items others have listed, I'd also pick up an extra knurled drive shaft, an extra nozzle, and an extra Bowden tube. The tube gets chewed up over time by the locking mechanism and cutting off the chewed part really only works once before it gets too short to use. The knurled shaft is often poorly machined and getting a second one will improve your odds of getting one that feeds well. The extra nozzle just makes it easier to clean the hot end. I swap nozzles and clean the clogged one while I continue printing using the clean one.
The knurled shaft is often poorly machined and getting a second one will improve your odds of getting one that feeds well.
Seriously? You are basing an "often" claim on a sample size of 2 with 1 being bad? I know your customer experience was bad. But generalizing your problem as if it happens a lot is just bull.
I've never seen a bad bolt in real life, and I've only seen 1 on photos. And I've seen a lot of printers, with all kinds of problems. Joergen helped out at the 3DEA store, so he knows what breaks down when you have 12 printers running none-stop. So our sample size for knowing what usually goes wrong is a lot bigger.
The thermocouple comment from Joergen is right, you better add one of those to be sure, they are hard to source as they are not sold as spare part trough the normal shop and damage quite easy. So see if customer support can add one of those to your order.
(The horse-clips have been replaced by better quality ones, also solving the problem with chewing up the bowden tube)
Thx, I was able to find all the parts and add them to my order.
Horse Shoes and the corresponding plastic rings. Quite annoying if you cant print because of such a tiny piece. Just ask UM in your order to put in a spare in your kit.
Seriously? You are basing an "often" claim on a sample size of 2 with 1 being bad? I know your customer experience was bad. But generalizing your problem as if it happens a lot is just bull.
Really Daid? What I said is bull? Sample size of 2? You say you've only seen one(!?) in pictures?!? Why lie? Every picture I've seen on here shows how that shaft only has one tiny strip of usable machining on it. I see you on the forums, so you must be reading at least a few of the posts. I've only been on here 4+ months and I've seen a lot of posts from people who have reported issues which ended up being either aggravated or wholly caused by the incomplete machining on those bolts. I've also seen a lot of pictures of the bolt surface posted. Usually they have an arrow pointing to the ONLY usable portion of that entire shaft. Every time I see one of those posts, the replies are filled with many OTHER people, including myself, who once had the same issue describing how they had to move the shaft around using spacer washers in order to find the tiny "sweet spot" that would reliably feed filament.
In fact, Mr. Arrogant, answer this: Why is there only a tiny sweet spot on that shaft to begin with? The entire axle surface is machined. Why not machine the entire axle surface the same amount? Who was the brilliant person who decided to only make one tiny patch of that shaft usable? Seriously, is it saving you maybe 10 cents per shaft to half-ass machine it? If the shafts were properly machined, people wouldn't need to spend a lot of time moving washers around to get the exact spacing in order to carefully position the filament on that tiny 2mm wide patch which is machined well enough to grip the filament. Why not machine the entire bolt surface as well as you are machining that 2mm patch? Then, you'd never see this issue in the forums again. Then again, you apparently don't see it now. Or perhaps you just don't care if others are having trouble as long as yours works fine. Either way, you and I obviously have a completely different definition of properly machined. We also have a completely different definition of sample size.
It appears that Ultimaker had decided to return to blaming everything on the owners again. Ultimaker is, after-all, without fault. Problems are never the result of poor design or poor manufacturing practices. The public lying, covering up, and lack of concern for customers are the reasons I called Erik a liar on 3Ders.org when he said Ultimaker has higher quality and better customer support than the Chinese Ultimaker clones.
Here's a big surprise. After pointing out Erik's lies and listing my own experiences with Ultimaker on 3Ders.org, I suddenly got decent customer support for a couple weeks from Sander. They finally replaced the dead motherboard, So, thinking I was finally getting their normal customer service, I apologized on 3Ders and on here. Big mistake. Since that apology, I've been waiting weeks for parts for my dead Ulticontroller. Between that and being told that calling their bolt poorly machined is bull, it looks like I was right the first time about their customer service.
Hi Bill, I am just going to reply on a small part of your post because the majority contains a hostile tone i am not fond of;
Like i told you in a personal message, we ran out UltiController parts in the beginning of last week because
of a delay from our supplier in China.
We got them again Thursday or Friday if i remember correctly, but because the production department was preparing a large batch of Ultimakers for shipment, and easter-holliday, they have planned to ship out support orders (so your replacement cables) tomorrow. I will sent you your tracking number when it is available.
I assumed they would ship your replacement part last Friday, but i was not fully up to date of their schedule.
I would like to ask again to keep a friendly attitude on the forums.
Hi Sander,
[Calmly explaining]
The supply problem at the beginning of last week was over a week after you told me you would send the cables out. From my perspective, it looks like you forgot about my cables for an entire week, before even attempting to send them. Then, you found out there was a supply problem and still didn't contact me to let me know. The reason it looks that way is the fact that I had to contact you a week later to find out what happened to my cables. Here is my constructive suggestion for how you should be handling situations like this: If you find out the day after you promise something that you can't deliver on that promise, let the customer know immediately. Don't wait a week until the customer eventually contacts you to find out what happened.
Regarding my hostile tone, my tone gets hostile when I feel like I'm being jerked around or attacked. In this case, I feel both. To paraphrase you, I was not fond of the tone of Daid's message or yours. Why are Ultimaker employees allowed to be condescending, pompous, and entirely dismissive of problems while customers are forbidden to react to being treated that way? In nearly 40 years of dealing with companies and even running a couple, I've never encountered a less professional company. I just can't understand that. Perhaps it's a cultural difference where people in your country are accustomed to being dragged along for months when they purchase a several thousand dollar product which doesn't work. People in the U.S. simply don't accept that sort of behavior when they spend this much money on a product.
Personally, I see keeping my complaints in this forum as me trying to give you a chance to finally make this situation right without going even more public about my experiences. If you're actually reading the forums, you should also have noticed that I try to help as many people as I can because I understand how alone they feel to have a non-functional, very expensive product. All I ever hear about is my unacceptable tone. I never hear about all of the positive help I offer others.
Bottom line: I just want everything I paid for last year to finally be working. Months later, that still hasn't happened. How could I not be more than a little bitter about that fact?
[/Calmly explaining]
Dear Bill.
it is very sad, your Ulti isn't working yet. And it is very unfortunate there are so many defects in one machine. I've never met someone with that amount of bad luck. Sorry for that. I hope your problems will be solved asap.
If not, I would be happy to buy the machine from you, given you the opportunity to buy another fine 3D printer from another factory if you weren't so far away as you do. Maybe this one isn't just for you in this life. So my advise would be: try to find a nice guy or woman for that matter, who is willing to buy your troubles and look for a model that suites you fine, no mess or troubles like these.
I was lucky to build mine without any problems from the Ultimaker at all. The things that broke or didn't catch up immediately where just because of not reading TFM properly. The first big run stopped after 3.5 hours because I didn't double-check all the screws. But I was able to manage the problem and within 45 minutes, she was up and running.
It is bad luck, you guys in the US don't have the excellent opportunity like we Dutchies have: an excellent workshop to build your own in 2,5 days, learn how to manage problems and keep the software doing what you want it to do and not the other way around.
I would be very happy if you are happy, I don't know the bad lying Dutch people you're talking about, but I also don't know a professional company that gives me that amount of credit if breaking so many parts as you do/did. Please consider being and staying a nice person, we will try also. Ultimaker is a young company and their employees are a very very hard working, nice bunch of people who'll do anything to please their customers, so please be patient.
I'm just a customer, just like you, and my Ulti was just like the other 54 ones happy to produce the InMoove robot parts last saturday. I've never met so many happy and satisfied owners of a product, build by theirselves, happily accepting the out of date manual, because that ment, your machine was already upgraded to a higher plan. Did you uploaded the outdated data digitally, so UM is able to collect all of these input to be able to update the manuals asap?-)
And please, a phrase as:
People in the U.S. simply don't accept..
is completely out of order as far as I'm concerned. Thank you for reading my comment and best of luck.
Boy
PS if anything I wrote is not clear or offending, please feel free to ask, because that is not on purpose and I'm not a native English speaker.
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Daid 306
PEEK and the brass tube are most common to break (during assembly or a temperature sensor connection failure)
I've never seen the alu-plate being damaged.
Electronics can be damaged, but they are quite expensive to have "on stock". Spare stepper driver might be nice to have, as sometimes they break (but not very often)
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