Info about S5

[Ziogianni84 3]

Hello, I was suggesting to purchase an Ultimaker S5 in a professional environment. They need to design and print prototypes then eventually realize products to be used. 

 

In the past I got used to UM3 and I was pretty satisfied, does S5 stack up with it? I have read many posts about accuracy flaws, after a year have software upgrades fixed them?

 

Please advise.

 

Thanks

Edited September 30, 2019 by Ziogianni84

[Carla_Birch 116]

I have had my S5 from not longer after they come out and have never had a problem with the printer. For accuracy it really a matter of how close do you need the part to be to the model, you as melting plastic so that will always affect the accuracy somewhat even from brand to brand of filament.

 

I think @SandervG posted not long ago some settings for better accuracy prints also.

[NBull 14]

I have also had the s5 for a long time. And as a professional tool i'm overall disappointed in it, I don't think it can live up to the price tage. Comparing problems other people are having there is a tendency to either get a good or bad machine.

And honestly at this price I will say that there are to many people getting a bad unit.

 

As it is now, I can't recommend it. it can be a really good machine, don't get me wrong. But also a really bad experience with endless problems.

 

The s5 issn't as accurate as the U3 so unless you really need the bigger build volume or extra features. And are happy with the U3 stick to that. 🙂

 

[MaxQ 4]

The S5 is not a good product. Print quality is much worse then a $600 China printer, WiFi is impossible to get to work, it doesn't take normal gcode, so you are stuck with Cura (it uses a new, small gcode subset). The startup procedure is really bad, reboot time horrible. One of the worst printers I have ever had. It would be a good deal for $1200. Go for a Creality or Wanhao. They are so much better, and cost a fraction.

Edited October 3, 2019 by MaxQ

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi @Ziogianni84, 

 

thank you for your post. What kind of prototypes would you need to make with it, and do you have an idea about which materials you would need for it? 

 

Since accuracy has been mentioned a couple of times, the default print profiles in Cura are 'one size fits all' where both accuracy and print quality are taken into account. Because all settings are available, you can shift the balance more towards dimensional accuracy, but this could increase print time for example. 

The following settings have been shared before and work for most users when they're after more dimensionally accurate prints:

Line width: 0.4
Wall thickness: 1.2
Top/Bottom thickness: 1.2
Speeds: 35-40 (all speeds, except travel)
Jerks: 20
Horizontal expansion: -0.03
walls: 3
Inital Layer Height = 0.1
Slicing Tolerance = Exclude
Combing Mode = off
Outer before Inner Walls = Checked

 

@MaxQ, if you are not satisfied with your Ultimaker S5 please get in touch with our sales partner in your local region. Where are you based? We train our partners so that they are capable of helping you if you would need any support. This could be to solve a technical issue or to learn how to use Cura (which by the way, you are not locked into). 

 

@NBull, I believe there is an ongoing ticket aimed to help you with your Ultimaker S5. 

[MaxQ 4]

17 hours ago, SandervG said:

@MaxQ, if you are not satisfied with your Ultimaker S5 please get in touch with our sales partner in your local region. Where are you based? We train our partners so that they are capable of helping you if you would need any support. This could be to solve a technical issue or to learn how to use Cura (which by the way, you are not locked into). 

 

Hi, Sander,

 

I'm located in Norway. I will make a writeup of all the issues to my dealer.

 

I'm not totally locked in to Cura, but you havn't made it easy for others. Your new header system which contains crucial information in comments, needs to be at the top of the file (even when tagged with start/stop) so that including it as "start g-code" in other slicers won't work (they always insert a comment at the file start). I have to manually modify each gcode-file.

 

Also the rigidity is terrible. If you have a fine detail in a print, the following extrusion is off place, making terrible stripes in the print. You can have a look at the attachments. Note that I don't expect the small details to be perfect, but I expect the machine to be rigid enough to not lose it's position on a €72.000 machine. This performance is on €290 level.

 

The one thins the S5 is really good at, is first layer. The calibration process is accurate and the first layer is perfect every time. That is good. If just the prints it makes could be used...

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by MaxQ

[BiMNrd 11]

Wow those are really ugly prints...

[SandervG 1,521]

On 10/4/2019 at 10:25 AM, MaxQ said:

 

Hi, Sander,

 

I'm located in Norway. I will make a writeup of all the issues to my dealer.

 

I'm not totally locked in to Cura, but you havn't made it easy for others. Your new header system which contains crucial information in comments, needs to be at the top of the file (even when tagged with start/stop) so that including it as "start g-code" in other slicers won't work (they always insert a comment at the file start). I have to manually modify each gcode-file.

 

Hi @MaxQ, thank you for your response. 

Is there a specific reason why you don't want to use Cura? As you probably know, a slicer, the print profile and all related print strategy settings, are extremely influential in your print quality. I'm not saying it is necessarily so, but it could be that by using a different slicer, and modifying each g-code manually, you are negatively influencing the print quality. 

Ultimaker Cura is dialed in to be use with Ultimaker 3D printers. 

 

I would suggest to use Ultimaker Cura if possible, so we can see where the issue lies in your print experience and how to solve it. 

 

[MaxQ 4]

On 10/10/2019 at 10:10 AM, SandervG said:

 

 

Is there a specific reason why you don't want to use Cura?

 

 

Because it is incredibly slow on both my Mac computers. Up to 30 seconds to expand menu items in the print settings menu. Never under 5 seconds. I'm tuning a lot in slicer settings when I print, and just preparing a model for printing can take 10-15 minutes due to the slow GUI response. It is really, really bad.

 

Also it generates inferior results (except supports, which are great in Cura).

[ahoeben 1,948]

1 hour ago, MaxQ said:

Because it is incredibly slow on both my Mac computers.

 

What version of Cura do you use, on what version of OS X?

[MaxQ 4]

16 hours ago, ahoeben said:

 

What version of Cura do you use, on what version of OS X?

 

We are getting help with Cura in this thread now: 

Thanks!

 

 

 

[ahoeben 1,948]

I'ld still like to know the answer to my questions, either here or in that thread. Also what GPU is in your Mac? Can you post your Cura.log? With 30 seconds to expand a category, there's something going really wrong and perhaps it can be fixed before the more extensive crash handling is added to Cura 4.5.

[nallath 1,120]

22 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

I'ld still like to know the answer to my questions, either here or in that thread. Also what GPU is in your Mac? Can you post your Cura.log? With 30 seconds to expand a category, there's something going really wrong and perhaps it can be fixed before the more extensive crash handling is added to Cura 4.5.

The crash handling won't help with fixing slowdowns unfortunately.

[MaxQ 4]

24 minutes ago, ahoeben said:

I'ld still like to know the answer to my questions, either here or in that thread. Also what GPU is in your Mac? Can you post your Cura.log? With 30 seconds to expand a category, there's something going really wrong and perhaps it can be fixed before the more extensive crash handling is added to Cura 4.5.

 

- Cura 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4(.1)

- I have one MacBook Pro 2015 (i5, 8GB, Inten Iris, 512GB SSD) and one MacBook Air 2013 (i7, 8GB, Intel gfx, 512GB SSD). Problem is the same on both.

- Both machines works very fast in Fusion 360 on large, complex models

- MacOS 10.14.6

- The GUI is fast when no model is loaded, so it seems to me that the GUI uses 3D rendering resources. The more complex model loaded, the slower the GUI is, down to 30 seconds respons time per click.

 

@SandervG: Yeah, I know the slicer is important, and I spend _a lot_ of time tuning slicer profiles. The reason I want to use something else than Cura, is due to this, because when the GUI is so slow, tuning a lot of parameters just becomes too tedious. Also, I know Slic3er / PrusaSlicer in and out after 6 years of daily use 🙂 

 

I think the strategy you use in Ultimaker right now, removing G code commands and instead instructing the printer with commands embedded in comments is a short sighted and bad decision. Microsoft tried to extend HTML this way with programming commands hidden in comments. It did not go well. G-code has a command for setting the temperature, for switching nozzle and so forth. It is an industry wide standard (that I think you might have been a part of defining in the older days). I'm sure there are good reasons why your engineers did it, but the easiest solution isn't always the best.

 

The way it is now, the €7000 Ultimaker S5 ended up in my home for hobby use, and we replaced it with a €500 Wanhao D9 combined with OctoPi, in the lab at work. It works like a charm. But I really want to use the S5 more, so I hope Cura 4.5 will solve the performance issue.

[nallath 1,120]

On 1/3/2020 at 1:44 PM, MaxQ said:

I think the strategy you use in Ultimaker right now, removing G code commands and instead instructing the printer with commands embedded in comments is a short sighted and bad decision.

That's also why we're not doing that 😉

[MaxQ 4]

5 hours ago, nallath said:

That's also why we're not doing that 😉

 

Oh... Good!! 😃