Ultimaker 3 review (compared with Ultimaker 2

[kevin-osborn 9]

I've had my UM3 for about a year now, and my UM2 for nearly 5. I just posted a video review which you can see below, but if you are not a video person (or can't stand to hear me droning on), here's the summary:

 Much anticipation, mostly around support material. Autolevelling somewhat, but it was never really an issue.

What I like:

• Same or slightly better quality
• Reliable filament drive (really the same as the UM2+) Able to reliably print flexible filaments
• Excellent dual material support (and improving all the time)
• Support is a game changer. I don't like PVA very much (messy and moisture sensitive) but the breakaway material is excellent.
• All metal printcores enable a bunch of new materials (I'm in love with Polymakers PC-Plus)
• Fantastic community!
• Network printing

What I miss:

• Changing nozzles. Printcores are expensive. Somewhat alleviated by the 3DSolex Hardcore, but it's expensive, and doesn't fit well (though I demonstrate a workaround in the video.
• Material management is confusing. I'm starting to understand it based on some posts in this forum, but I'm really used to customizing on printer. (Daid, you don't need to respond here, perhaps I'll link to where you and others explained it)

What frustrates me:

• Odd hardware errors. Usually cleared by rebooting, I know it's more complex system, but it still seems a bit buggy. There have been a lot of improvements for which I'm grateful.
• Confusing, minimal job control. I hope this gets better. The Network printing is made less useful by having to do some operations on the printer and some on Cura/browser. The retry option on failed/aborted prints doesn't always cancel. Filament overrides have to be done at the PC, and not on the printer.

I also love but forgot to mention:

• Open Source! Maybe our job control improvements will come from here. I'm already using a timelapse script, and I love that the printer has an API!
• The Ultimaker filaments. I appreciate their consistent quality and now reasonable price. (They've never been unreasonable, but there are now decent US distributers.