Ultimaker S5 | impressions & opinions

[Xalara 6]

I think the issue with remote monitoring, is that to implement it in a relatively secure way would require a ton of resources from Ultimaker. They could allow remote access directly to the printer but that's a giant security headache waiting to happen. I suspect then, Ultimaker would want to follow the model of ChefSteps. Where ChefSteps Joule device connects to ChefSteps servers in the cloud, and then when you want to monitor your Joule, your app connects to ChefSteps servers and not directly to the Joule device.

 

The problem with this approach is that it would require a bunch of developer resources, and by developer resources I'm not sure how many distributed systems/cloud engineers Ultimaker has on its staff, but I suspect it's not many given Ultimaker's area of focus. So they would likely have to do a bunch of hiring for a type of engineer that's not cheap to hire.

 

P.S. You can already enable remote access in dev mode, but it's heavily discouraged for security reasons.

Edited August 12, 2018 by Xalara

[Bigbrit 8]

33 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

This is an assumption that you will be using a support filament. You most definitely can put any other core in there for two color prints. That is why you got the  extra AA core....not just a replacement.

 

Oh so the AA is if you are using dual filaments and the BB is for support filament? This is not written anywhere in the literature provided and I am glad I now know that because so far I have been printing PVA in the BB nozzle and would have put another filament in there without thinking

 

 

33 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

 

From Cura Connect? This has been mentioned in other areas and is a known issue. One thing to try is to reboot your wifi setup. I had a situation where Cura Connect would not see either the S5 or the two UM3Es. Reboot solved that one. But, the S5 has been noted.

 

From cura connect and from the app (again the printer is connected) I really think at this price point there should be a way to montor this remotely.  perhaps the VPN is the answer but I would have thought this would have worked out the box.

 

33 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

 

There are ways to do this with a VPN. I am not the one to ask though.....

 

I find this to not be an issue simply because it is such a solid printer in my experience. There are other issues thought that do raise that comment up to high validity. But, I just do not worry about the issues you mention. The other ones I do worry about. However, this does not invalidate your opinion....just a varied opinion on that statement is all.

 

The prints I am pulling are amazing in consistency and I like to make big things.....of course, that means a great deal more in expense when it comes to filament..... ?

 

I have been exclusivley printing with Nylon and PVA so far, and its been amazing! consistency and accuracy are very high and at the end of the day thats why I bought this printer.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

24 minutes ago, Bigbrit said:

I have been printing PVA in the BB nozzle and would have put another filament in there without thinking

This is correct in that the BB core is only for PVA.

 

25 minutes ago, Bigbrit said:

From cura connect and from the app (again the printer is connected) I really think at this price point there should be a way to montor this remotely.

I would say that @Xalara hot the nail on the head. By extension of that statement about security, it is almost impossible to accommodate every security issue that can be dealt with. It is open enough for others to implement their needed security, but I am sure it would be a nightmare to try and guess what security needs would have to be dealt with. And, I am sure that if it worked with 99% of the security issues, that one percent would say the same thing.

 

Personally, I would like to see Cura Connect more robust first and let them focus mainly on great printers.

29 minutes ago, Bigbrit said:

I have been exclusivley printing with Nylon and PVA so far, and its been amazing! consistency and accuracy are very high and at the end of the day thats why I bought this printer.

Roger that! And, that is where their focus should be for the most part. There are other niggly things that are coming up like the MAC address thing, but the printer is really solid.

 

BTW, niggly does not imply lack of importance. Just things to be worked out and not completely soul crushing for the most part. But, it does impact certain groups greatly.

[robinmdh 100]

On 7/31/2018 at 10:55 AM, asb said:

you will loose factory warranty and guarantee by enabling developer mode. 

I would compare this to rooting your phone

And well as far as I know it's just not legal to consider changing the software as breaking warranty.

Then again I'm a software developer not a lawyer...

[Dim3nsioneer 557]

@robinmdh, isn't that a bit a strange comparison? The phone manufacturer does not provide a function on the phone to enable rooting (developer mode) and provide credentials for the actual rooting, no?

[robinmdh 100]

On 8/12/2018 at 8:46 PM, Bigbrit said:

... and would have put another filament in there without thinking 

A) you'd have been warned (in Cura by a yellow color, in the printer by a line saying it is not recommended)

B) it works fine and it is even advisable to print wood-fill PLA with a BB core for instance.

The one thing you shouldn't do is put PVA in a AA core. this quickly makes the core clogged beyond recovery. (*barring drilling the gunk out which damages the core) the PVA flyer with your printer does specifically mention the BB core.

 

At least it is listed correctly on the website:

Swappable print cores

Faster print core changes mean higher uptime and easier maintenance. Your Ultimaker 3 comes with print cores for build (AA) and water-soluble support (BB) materials.

On 8/12/2018 at 8:46 PM, Bigbrit said:

From cura connect and from the app (again the printer is connected) I really think at this price point there should be a way to montor this remotely.  perhaps the VPN is the answer but I would have thought this would have worked out the box.

The app can monitor the printer remotely already but it only gets events such as print finished, aborted or started.

not a camera stream, the cloud solution we are working on (I think we have 1.5 dedicated cloud engineers in a SW department of 40-ish people testers/developer/product-owners working on firmware connect, Cura, app and cloud) includes slicing in the cloud and sending prints directly to the printer from anywhere. AFAIK no remote camera stream. so that depends on what you mean by monitoring.

And yes @kmanstudios this is forcing us to implement better security everywhere connect is currently completely without security this will have to change.

On 8/12/2018 at 9:18 PM, kmanstudios said:

I have been exclusivley printing with Nylon and PVA so far, and its been amazing! consistency and accuracy are very high and at the end of the day thats why I bought this printer.

Great to hear, and improving this is indeed out focus at the moment!

[robinmdh 100]

12 minutes ago, Dim3nsioneer said:

@robinmdh, isn't that a bit a strange comparison? The phone manufacturer does not provide a function on the phone to enable rooting (developer mode) and provide credentials for the actual rooting, no? 

Some phone providers make it just as easy, and the user still gets access to the root(administrator) account of the device, so rooting is what it literally is.

Ultimaker provide the tools and instructions (on this forum) to "root" the printer that makes it even more questionable to hinge warranty on that IMHO.

I have no idea what Ultimaker's official stance on this is so I'm sticking to quoting fact.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

1 hour ago, robinmdh said:

it works fine and it is even advisable to print wood-fill PLA with a BB core for instance.

I did not know this. Good to learn something new ? It will not abrade the core?

 

[robinmdh 100]

1 minute ago, kmanstudios said:

I did not know this. Good to learn something new ? It will not abrade the core?

It will still abrade the printcore and ooze a bit more but the wood fibers have an easier time being pushed trough the nozzle and I have less clogging especially at higher temperatures (to create fake wood nerve/layering) as the nozzle does not have a flat bit just before the exit.
 

   | |    | |
AA \ \_  _/ /
    \__| |_/



   | |    |  |
BB \ \    /  /
    \ \  /  /
     \_| |_/

Perhaps this ASCII art cross section illustrates the difference in internal geometry.

 

So the BB core is intended for materials that do not easily flow trough that flat (even if the hole is the same size), while the flat does a lot to prevent oozing, it's a trade off.

[robinmdh 100]

2 hours ago, robinmdh said:

I would compare this to rooting your phone

And well as far as I know it's just not legal to consider changing the software as breaking warranty.

Then again I'm a software developer not a lawyer... 

Of course you can more easily set some pins to create a short circuit and doing so would be unintended use and the damage caused would fall outside of warranty.

[asb 7]

Some quick updates about networking.

 

I have set the S5 now to do Wifi with an static IP address. So far it works nicely and persists a reboot. Also, with networking the S5 starts to behave a bit different. E.g. it immediately offered an firmware upgrade, which also completed successfully; also, Cura discovers the S5 more reliably, and monitoring with thte webcam works smoothly.

The steps to get networking configured for Wifi with an static IP address are not exactly trivial, but they are not overly complicated, either. Honestly I do not understand all this fuzz, it is totally unnecessary to make it so complicated to get proper networking enabled on a device with such an price tag as the S5.

However, since SandervG explicitely asked me not to disclose any details about the network configuration on the forum I will just leave it at that. I have offered SandervG to make a tutorial, in case someone else asks about it.

 

I am now dealing with the actual issue - the distorted prints which would require calibration. What happens with the factory calibration is that prints are distorted with a different offset on each axis (yes, with Ultimaker filament and the factory profiles). This offset won't be noticable if you are printing artistic objects, but everything breaks what needs to have defined measurements, e.g. mechanical parts that need to fit together. I have printed a bunch in the past month, and it all falls apart because the offsets are different on each axis.

 

I measured the offset with a simple calibration object (100mm on X and Y axis and 50mm on the Z-Axis), printed in Ultimaker Tough PLA. The resulting object is 100,5 × 100,3 × 49,8 mm. So on two axis, objects grow and on one axis objects shrink relative to the measurements they are supposed to have. With larger objects you get a deviation of up to 1.5mm bigger and 1.2mm smaller, which can result in completely unusable results. You simply can neither grind off 1.5mm from a mechanical part, nor you can not add 1.2mm material.

 

The “Shell - Horizontal Expansion” setting does not help in this case as two offsets are positive and one is negative, so each global compensation would be counterproductive for the other distortion and make everything worse.

 

Since the S5 seems not to provide an end-user method to accomplish measured (exact) printouts for mechanical parts, there are two approaches:

 

1) Tinkering with some jedi.json in share/usr/griffin/griffin/machines as suggested here. I have not tried yet and I do not want to do this, but there seems to be no better way as of now.

2) A theoretical and much more end-user friendly and less risky workaround would be an extension for the “Shell - Horizontal Expansion” settings in Cura. Currently this is a global setting which affects X-, Y- and Z-axis equally, as far as I understand it. With an extension it could be possible to compensate the offset separately for X-, Y- and Z-axis. Theoretically and with some guessing, that could work similarily good like a real calibration. However, this is not available in the current Cura version so it's only a theoretical option.

Edited August 16, 2018 by asb

[Bigbrit 8]

10 hours ago, robinmdh said:

A) you'd have been warned (in Cura by a yellow color, in the printer by a line saying it is not recommended)

B) it works fine and it is even advisable to print wood-fill PLA with a BB core for instance.

The one thing you shouldn't do is put PVA in a AA core. this quickly makes the core clogged beyond recovery. (*barring drilling the gunk out which damages the core) the PVA flyer with your printer does specifically mention the BB core.

 

At least it is listed correctly on the website:

Swappable print cores

Faster print core changes mean higher uptime and easier maintenance. Your Ultimaker 3 comes with print cores for build (AA) and water-soluble support (BB) materials.

The app can monitor the printer remotely already but it only gets events such as print finished, aborted or started.

not a camera stream, the cloud solution we are working on (I think we have 1.5 dedicated cloud engineers in a SW department of 40-ish people testers/developer/product-owners working on firmware connect, Cura, app and cloud) includes slicing in the cloud and sending prints directly to the printer from anywhere. AFAIK no remote camera stream. so that depends on what you mean by monitoring.

And yes @kmanstudios this is forcing us to implement better security everywhere connect is currently completely without security this will have to change.

Great to hear, and improving this is indeed out focus at the moment!

 

 

Thanks for coming back to me!  I have come to the conclusion that I am better off Installing a webcam from Hive and using that to remotely monitor.  Can we at least have a way to stop prints remotely? That way this setup would be adequate for my needs.

 

Just swapped to CPE, printing great, looking forward to the results

[CXCimager 4]

Just set up my S5 yesterday. I ran a quick test piece and I am now building a far more complex item with massive PVA supports.
 

First impressions:

• Easy loading of filament. So much nicer than the UM3 filament boxes. 
• I love the automatic leveling. It seems so much smoother than the UM3 leveling
• Surprised at the lower speed of print. My UM3 settings (which I inherited from the last person who worked here) has it set to 70mm/s. The UMS5 defaults to 45mm/s. However, the slower printing will produce nicer prints, so... I'm willing to make that tradeoff.
• Haven't tried to get this on a network yet: The printers are moving into my office in 2 weeks and I will see if I can get it on the network instead of me running over with a USB stick every time. I'll see how that works

 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

30 minutes ago, CXCimager said:

Surprised at the lower speed of print. My UM3 settings (which I inherited from the last person who worked here) has it set to 70mm/s. The UMS5 defaults to 45mm/s. However, the slower printing will produce nicer prints, so... I'm willing to make that tradeoff.

This will depend on layer size and materials of course. But, I can tell you that my S5 and I are getting married in two weeks.

 

It has talked to me about going to a bachelor party where other printers will not have climate tops on......it can be a touchy situation....?

 

All silliness aside, it has been performing with quite regular/consistent results and works wonders with the UM TPLA filament that I am using. The worst thing is those 18" failures.....you know, that distance between me and the keyboard. And, I am also doing monster prints with it too. Such a joy ?

 

I also have been doing some PETG prints and will be posting those soon once the comparative prints are done.

Edited August 17, 2018 by kmanstudios

[CXCimager 4]

6 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

This will depend on layer size and materials of course. But, I can tell you that my S5 and I are getting married in two weeks.

 

It has talked to me about going to a bachelor party where other printers will not have climate tops on......it can be a touchy situation....?

 

All silliness aside, it has been performing with quite regular/consistent results and works wonders with the UM TPLA filament that I am using. The worst thing is those 18" failures.....you know, that distance between me and the keyboard. And, I am also doing monster prints with it too. Such a joy 

My prints are of astronomical objects that contain fine filamentary structures. When they fail, they fail spectacularly and often after 10 hours. So far, the S5 is chugging along making a beautiful print. I've set up a file with a triple of this object that should take 5 days to print. I'm going out of town for work, so I'll ask someone to just check on it once a day. I am so happy with this so far.

I'm also using the TPLA that came with the printer. The object I am printing breaks easily, so I am hoping the TPLA holds up to the wear and tear of teenagers and middle school kids handling our stuff.

Unfortunately, I am already married and I think my husband might object to my love of the S5.

[kmanstudios 1,120]

2 minutes ago, CXCimager said:

Unfortunately, I am already married and I think my husband might object to my love of the S5.

Technoluv knows no boundaries!!! ?

 

Astronomical objects...that sounds really, really cool. I am a science geek and love cosmology and such. I do hope to see your prints posted. They sound interesting. ?

[kmanstudios 1,120]

And I did forget to add, the TPLA results I have had so far have been very successful in the toughness. It is becoming my go to material for many of my projects as I tend to print spindly things myself.

[CXCimager 4]

8 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

Technoluv knows no boundaries!!! ?

 

Astronomical objects...that sounds really, really cool. I am a science geek and love cosmology and such. I do hope to see your prints posted. They sound interesting. ?

I just pulled the PVA/PLA off the UM3 this morning. Next to it is the model with the supports removed.
This is a supernova remnant from SN1987A.
Files are here and available for public use!
http://chandra.harvard.edu/deadstar/sn1987a.html

[kmanstudios 1,120]

That is cool!! Thank you for sharing! Just keep in mind that TPLA is tough, but it does have the same softening temp as regular PLA.

 

Next, you will be printing the "Pillars of Creation". :)

 

[CXCimager 4]

8 minutes ago, kmanstudios said:

That is cool!! Thank you for sharing! Just keep in mind that TPLA is tough, but it does have the same softening temp as regular PLA.

 

Next, you will be printing the "Pillars of Creation". ?

 

You mean this? ? Yes, but that's a more "solid" creation. We don't have a more detailed structure of this one. (this particular print got damaged, but it still works)

[Xalara 6]

6 minutes ago, CXCimager said:

You mean this? ? Yes, but that's a more "solid" creation. We don't have a more detailed structure of this one. (this particular print got damaged, but it still works)

 

One tip for warping in the bottom layers on an Ultimaker. To get rid of that warping set the build plate temperature to 30C, then set the "Initial Layer Build Plate Temperature" to 60C. Doing this will also require you to use tape or some other form of adhesion method. For whatever reason the default print bed temperature settings for Ultimaker PLA have major issues.

 

@SandervG this might be something you guys at UM might want to look into since I've run into it a lot when printing with UM PLA on my UM3. I've found a workaround, but admittedly using the UM adhesion tape is annoying, despite being effective.

[CXCimager 4]

3 minutes ago, Xalara said:

 

One tip for warping in the bottom layers on an Ultimaker. To get rid of that warping set the build plate temperature to 30C, then set the "Initial Layer Build Plate Temperature" to 60C. Doing this will also require you to use tape or some other form of adhesion method. For whatever reason the default print bed temperature settings for Ultimaker PLA have major issues.

 

@SandervG this might be something you guys at UM might want to look into since I've run into it a lot when printing with UM PLA on my UM3. I've found a workaround, but admittedly using the UM adhesion tape is annoying, despite being effective.

Thanks! This was made on our UM2E+ and I had the build plate temp too high. And I forgot supports. This was one of my early ones.
I do still get warping, so I will keep an eye on that. We tend to use the glue stick method for initial adhesion.
Thanks for the advice!

[kmanstudios 1,120]

I recycle my PVA into a slurry....then add alcohol to cut the surface tension. It will lay down with a soft brush and put a thin, even layer down.

 

This will not work with high warping filaments, but holds the TPLA like a charm.

 

As for the Pillars of creation...I am very surprised that there is not some sort of volumetric data to access.

 

Where do you teach?

[CXCimager 4]

1 hour ago, kmanstudios said:

I recycle my PVA into a slurry....then add alcohol to cut the surface tension. It will lay down with a soft brush and put a thin, even layer down.

 

This will not work with high warping filaments, but holds the TPLA like a charm.

 

As for the Pillars of creation...I am very surprised that there is not some sort of volumetric data to access.

 

Where do you teach?

I have heard of the slurry method, but I haven't tried it.

I work at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. We go to many public education nights and local STEM events.
I am focused on X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
 

[kmanstudios 1,120]

2 hours ago, CXCimager said:

I work at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

I am sooooo jealous.......working in an environment like that is actually a dream of mine.

 

I am working on a dino diorama made from parts made on the S5. When I get it done and posted, I may just have to tag you if you are interested in such things. ?