is Ultimaker 3 no longer supported?

[mickyblueeyes 1]

I noticed in CURA 4.91 one of the headline changes was the addition of PETG to the platform, it doesn't point out that this is only for the latest S line of printers, it seems that the Ultimaker 3 either  isn't capable of this feat of engineering or that Ultimaker has thrown users of its previous flagship product under the bus.

If ultimkers is not willing to ssupport its products then i dont see a reason to upgrade in future with ultimaker products, they are cost wise at the high end of the spectrum and for that investment you expect better support for the life of that product.

[Fridolin 0]

I feel the same way

[bartvanas 1]

Hi mickyblueeyes and Fridolin,

 

Indeed, at this stage Ultimaker PETG is only supported on the Ultimaker 2+ Connect and our S-line printers (S3 and S5). We are working on compatibility for the UM3, though.

 

I expect that I can share a timeline with you in a few weeks from now.

 

Kind regards,
Bart

[Enigma_M4 120]

2 hours ago, bartvanas said:

We are working on compatibility for the UM3, though.

That's good news 🙂!

Best regards

[Fridolin 0]

Nice

[JohnInOttawa 104]

This concern has been coming up in other settings.

 

At the risk of a repeated or cross-post - I understand that Ultimaker wants to continue to innovate and move ahead and there are only so many resources, so maintaining legacy printers may not be possible.

 

Looking to the aviation world, older designs like the DeHavilland Twin Otter and Convair 580 are now built, rebuilt and new parts manufactured under licence.  The OEM no longer has an involvement, but end users have full support.

 

Given how successful the Ultimaker line has been to date, would Ultimaker consider such an arrangement?  I know, open source, etc.  But something more formal would be very helpful to those whose living depends, in part, on these devices.

 

Thanks for your consideration

John

[nallath 1,123]

15 hours ago, JohnInOttawa said:

This concern has been coming up in other settings.

 

At the risk of a repeated or cross-post - I understand that Ultimaker wants to continue to innovate and move ahead and there are only so many resources, so maintaining legacy printers may not be possible.

 

Looking to the aviation world, older designs like the DeHavilland Twin Otter and Convair 580 are now built, rebuilt and new parts manufactured under licence.  The OEM no longer has an involvement, but end users have full support.

 

Given how successful the Ultimaker line has been to date, would Ultimaker consider such an arrangement?  I know, open source, etc.  But something more formal would be very helpful to those whose living depends, in part, on these devices.

 

Thanks for your consideration

John

It's not up to me to give an answer to that (being an engineer). But if a party would be interested in this, I'm fairly sure that Ultimaker would at least be willing to discuss / consider such an arrangement.

[AndersK 59]

On 5/20/2021 at 12:14 PM, bartvanas said:

We are working on compatibility for the UM3, though.

What do you guys mean with "not compatible"?

 

I think you're confusing some people to think petg can't be printed on an UM3 at all.

 

 

[nallath 1,123]

On 5/29/2021 at 4:46 PM, AndersK said:

What do you guys mean with "not compatible"?

 

I think you're confusing some people to think petg can't be printed on an UM3 at all.

It can be. We're working on getting it in the next Cura update.

See https://github.com/Ultimaker/fdm_materials/pull/170 and https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/pull/9928

[AndersK 59]

I know it can, probably gone thru 30kg of PETG in my UM3

 

Question is simply what is not compatible?

[Smithy 1,144]

I think you are mixing two things here, one thing is that the UM3 is ofc able to print PETG, why not.

The other thing is, that the UM PETG material profile does not exist currently for the UM3 - Thats all and that doesn't mean you cannot print PETG on the printer. Just use another profile or make your own settings and you should be fine.

 

And regarding the word "compatible": I guess that just means that a UM material profile needs a lot of testing and that was not done yet for the UM3. Maybe the profile just works out of the box for the UM3 too, but you cannot release something that was not tested in many situations and models.

 

And that there is a UM PETG profile is nice, and needed for the UM PETG material, but we printed PETG since ages and used our one profiles or used the CPE profile as a starting point.

 

I think the biggest misunderstanding is the name of the UM PETG material. When they would call it XYZ and there is no UM XYZ profile for the UM3, then nobody would care about it and everyone whould print their preferred PETG material/brand as he did it before.

[nallath 1,123]

3 hours ago, AndersK said:

Question is simply what is not compatible?

"We won't stop you from doing it, but we don't have a ready made profile for what you're doing."

Edited May 31, 2021 by nallath

[AndersK 59]

"Not compatible" has a very strong meaning, two or more things that simply doesnt work together at all.

I would use a different statement in official communications like "this material currently does not have an official profile for UM3 but is under development. 

[nallath 1,123]

That's also why this isn't a formal / official communication, but an informal update about what we are doing (and when to expect it)

 

Any kind of of official communication would take much, much more time, since it would get checked / approved by a number of people before it goes out.