I see a lot of new fast printers on the market, but not by Ultimaker. They have to pick up really fast in my opinion!
Ultimaker just hasn't meaningfully progressed since the UM3. Every single upgrade since came with a significantly greater price tag while not meaningfully improving the actual printing. The price difference between the UM3 and S3 is the price of a Bambu Lab X1. For what exactly? A color screen? Some relatively small improvements?
Oh sure I know the S5 has a significantly larger build volume, at 330 x 240 x 300 vs the 230 x 190 x 200 of the UM3, but it's also double the price. You can have a farm of Bambu X1's for the price of a single S7. And they'll all out print the S7. $11K for the S7 bundle isn't much for the corporate clients which Ultimaker now exclusively targets. While they may not care about the price to performance, they will eventually notice that there's better quality printers that can deliver even faster results.
When I picked up two Ultimaker 3's some 6 years ago, I was excited for the future of 3D Printing. I never would have thought that right then and there I was already at the apex of Ultimaker and that it would be all downhill from there. It shouldn't have turned out like this.
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- 1 month later...
After some time printing with lowcost Bambu machines, i can't stand the slowness of the old style printers anymore! I reduce printing times x3 or 4 depending on the settings, with at least the same quality, or better. And the filament manufacterers are also making high speed materials, so printing times will even be further reduced.
When is Ultimaker catching up? I have some S5 and 3 in production, but it is harder and harder to justify their use...
Anytime I can, I use my Prusa mk3s+ rather than the 10 more expensive UMS5 that is sooooooooooooo slow and has and larger chance of failing. This is such a pity and such a shame 😕
I still need the UMS5 because of its dual extruder, but that's it basically. I must say that she's unbeatable when it comes to first layer, never had a SINGLE fail with all the material i'm using, the glass plate and the initial calibration is incredible. But that's it and all the new competitors are doing good as well now.
Just waiting for Bambulab to release a true dual extruder, and that's it. I don't see Ultimaker ever looking to compete, it looks like they're not interested by that, just relying on the S5 fame when it was ok.
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PeterWhite76 1
I use an S5 for work, but have an X1C at home, and the difference in quality and ease of use is noticeable. Not to say the Bambulab is perfect: the AMS is just as quirky as the Ultimaker Material Station at times, particularly withdrawing filament, but the way the X1C handles faults is brilliant, and print saving. I believe that the bigger players in the market have to rush to catch up.
Saying that, most issues I get with the S5 are user errors (I still make those even after five years of experience! ALWAYS check your previews before sending to print!), and the S5 is a proven workhorse where the X1C is still new... But if I was compiling my additive manufacturing project now, I'd be looking at an X1C over an ultimaker every time.
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