The Ultimaker S3

[SandervG 1,521]

On September 24th we happily introduced the Ultimaker S3. The Ultimaker S3 is a new 3D printer in our S-line products where it proudly stands next to the Ultimaker S5. It delivers massive performance on an efficient, smaller footprint,  If you have not seen the Ultimaker S3 yet, you should watch this video. We've also asked Oscar, one of the engineers who worked on the Ultimaker S3, to tell us a little bit more about what the Ultimaker S3 is all about in this video. 

 

The Ultimaker S3 is a great 3D printer if you are looking to introduce 3D printing in your company or organisation, you need a versatile 3D printer that brings you reliability, but your budget does not support to go all out on an Ultimaker S5 Pro Bundle. You can still enjoy all the benefits of full access to our material portfolio (which is growing day by day) and the reliability that the active levelling and flow sensor introduce. It is a great tool to help validate the value 3D printing offers. 

 

If you are interested to learn more about the Ultimaker S3, here is a link to the product page with more specifications. 

 

If you have any further questions about the Ultimaker S3, please let us know below and we'll happily help you! Did you already get one? Let us know below what you think! 🙂

 

[TheodorK 11]

Hello @SandervG,

 

The UMS3 was the printer I've been waiting for, but came a bit late as I purchased an UM3 a few months ago. The one feature missing on the UM3 is the filament flow sensor, and this has cost me already quite some filament on long (2 day +) prints, with the filament jamming and as a result of that being ground away without the printer knowing it has stopped feeding plastic.

 

After some research on the forums I found that there was a project for the UM2+ with a filament flow sensor working quite nice. I also read that the initial intend was to include a filament flow sensor in the UM3 but is was scrapped during development because the results were not reliable enough. Now, a few years later both the S5 and S3 have a working filament flow sensor and I figure that the code and reliability are now up to Ultimaker’s standards

 

So this got me wondering, since the intent was to include the sensor in the UM3, there is space for the sensor wheel, the PCB and the wiring. So does the UM3 firmware and main board have the possibility for the implementation of a filament flow sensor, and what would be necessary to do so, or is it possible to pause the print externally with a third party sensor, or just a rotary encoder (for example via an I/O input).

Also now that the sensors are implemented in both the S5 and S3, the firmware for this sensor should be pretty optimized by now, but the firmware for the S5 is not yet open source (I might be wrong? couldn't find it on github), so implementing this in the UM3 firmware shouldn’t be that difficult. The only issue would be the signing of the firmware before uploading.

 

Since I have a background in electrical engineering and writing firmware/software, implementing a filament flow sensor in the UM3 looks like a fun thing to do and I guess that there are plenty of people who would love to tinker with a flow sensor in their Ultimaker.

So when/where can I find the firmware for the filament flow sensor and would it be possible to (co-)develop this into a product?

With kind regards, Theodor