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Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5


andre_m

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Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

Hi everyone!
I am helping my company in looking for a new 3D printer, and I have heard a lot of good things about the Ultimaker S5 printer. For anyone who uses this model of printer (or any other models by Ultimaker (just curious!)), I just wanted to know:

  1. How long have you had the printer for, and how has your experience with it been so far?
  2. Have you had any issues with the nozzle getting clogged? if so, is it a frequent occurrence?

Thank you so much! 

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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    I tend to rant on this forum about the UMS5 especially so that people googling about it might read that the picture is not all bright. I won't go in details, but :

     

    - UMS5 user for 1 year in professionnal use, engineering, prototyping. About 1200 hours of working time.

    - Not a good experience so far. Not at all. A LOT of problem, issues. Some come from software (firmware) with errors, failure, etc, some other are hardware. The machine is, to my taste, very poorly designed. Or at least, it's really not worth the price. It's (sooooo) slow, it's not reliable, it has plenty design flaw that lead to premature damages on the machine, it's not ergonomic nor practical, the material ecostytem is pricey and does not add much compared to the others brands, official PVA has really not good feedback and I confirm. There is really much much more, sadly.

    - Print cores are... Bad. Yes, clogging happens a lot, especially PVA in BBCore.

     

    Be sure that it's a "good" machine feature-wise : 2 cores for bi-material printing, enclosed big printing area, capable of reaching high temps, nice glass plate, very good auto-leveling, and so on. When it works, it really shines and can run for 60 hours, i've done it multiple times. But... But that's quite unusual, unfortunately. Also, it's crazy slow, like, reaaaaally slow, I insist. You'll read all over the place to print "30 mm/s" to avoid this issue, this problem, whereas you have a rigid body and a 6000€ machine. It's not okay, especially when it rings so much if you dare priting paste 40 mm/s (you fool !).

     

    Yeah, this is not a good feedback... I would actually prevent anyone from buying it, if I were to speak about 3d printers. But that's me, my case, my experience about it : it's quite known to be a reliable and semi-pro good machine, and you'll find it in many maaaaany companies for that specific reason : plug and play, simple, auto-tuned, as advertised. This is not what we are experiencing at all, and i've been working with 300-1000€ 3d printers for 5 years.

     

    Please, don't hesitate to collect many more feedback : i'd would really like to love this machine, as this is the one I choose for my company. But so far... A regret.

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    Posted (edited) · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    in major agreement to the above.

     

    When it works, its great, lovely and smooth. When it doesnt work it leaves you totally stuck in limbo with almost completely unrecoverable errors. I use the material station as well which is borderline even worse. Frankly too many annoyances to list and its been a bad buy from my point of view for something that cost twice as much as my car.
    Our Ultimaker Extended 2+ didnt suffer any of the issues we have.

     

    Pros are it looks nice, the build plate is big, all the remote access is ok (not great).
     

    Cons are its the most frustrating, slow, annoying piece of equipment i have ever worked with which often leaves huge prints wrecked when it fails on the last layer or wont change over material successfully. 

     

    1. had the machine for around 4 years, experience mixed to awful

    2. nozzles havent been clogged once i dont think, the material station we have atomic pulls the material after each job so the nozzle is almost always clear, but it then weeps on the next job which causes it to fail on the bed levelling so i have to manually heat up the nozzle beforehand to ooze out the remainder

    Edited by Super_paulie
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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    In contrast to the above, i enjoy using the ultimaker S5 i have it in a work setting, controlled environment with the material station and the extractor hood. In its early days the firmware had some bugs but as far as i can tell its all been ironed out, i look after this machine with regular cleaning and oiling of the slides and screws. The only issues we have are not anything to be concerned about, the bed may need levelling 2 or three times a year and the fan on the extruder cleaned from fine debris. I had been in control of other machines purchased before my time and they were terrible to use, material was single source and the software was horrible. Ultimaker seems to be very user friendly and driven.

     

    I would say go for it our machine is used every day we print ASA from polymaker and use dimafiix adhesive on the bed, it never misses a beat.

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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    have been using an S5 for about 2 years now. I had the machine puke on itself 1 time, under warranty, so new print head. it has a couple small quirks, but has worked well. I have around 800 to 900 print hours on it atleast. I do not have experience with other machines to compare it to.

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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    We've had our S5 pro bundle for about two years. There has been one or two bugs that can be annoying, (most notably was when the bowden tubes were popping off the collets every so often, but that was fixed with new printable clips)  but by and large its been reliable. It isn't the fastest printer around, that much is true (I think the latest printers on the market from bambu labs and snapmaker leave the S5 for dust in the speed department from what I can google), but ours has been bulletproof. I've only replaced things for wear and tear (filters, hot ends, bowdens and silicone socks) but otherwise its been decent. Had one incidence of the hot end hitting a finished print, and some odd ringing when using both extruders on a part, but by and large its been reliable enough.

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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    Which machine did you decide on in the end?

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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    Just chiming in here so that any potential buyers googling can see this. DO NOT BUY! I have wasted countless hours repairing this design disaster, to the point that I'd like to bill them for my hours. Infinite clogs, weird design quirks that waste your time, the slowest slicer ever produced, and cheap parts all around a premium printer leave an awful taste in my mouth. I am forever grateful that it is not my dollar on the hook of this thing, but I will never get the filament and time back. 

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    Posted · Thoughts about the Ultimaker S5

    Reading posts from this forum, and receiving no answers from any member of the team, either this or other posts, leaves me amazed, coming from 10+ years ago with the wood ultimaker original that I have, this forum (actually the old one) was gold with a lot of support from oficial and non oficial members, this now seems gone, and everything looks to go via a "profesional" dealer way. I kind of have the feeling that Ultimaker is dying or they only care for the people that have premium deal support. If anyone from the stuff reads this, correct me if I am wrong.

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