3. The disadvantage of 3mm filament is finding a good filament that actually will fit through the extruder. 2.85mm is the actual size needed and most generic 3mm filament just doesn't cut it. You'll need to stick with the higher quality stuff.
That seems odd. Is there a reason why the extruder doesn't support a standard filament size? I don't mean to sound cynical but is this by any chance so that we are restricted to buy a specific brand of filament?
ABS is a bit of a trickier material in general to print with, that's not unique to the Ultimaker. Is there a specific reason you want to use ABS? If it's heat resistance you're after you could go with something like Colorfabb XT which is easy to print with.
Flexible materials are possible but I would recommend replacing the stock feeder with something like my own version that restricts the filament path (with the optional snap on guide). People have had good luck using that.
No, it's not to lock you into a specific brand. The printer can take filaments up to 3mm in diameter but it's a fairly tight fit. And the problem with the generic stuff is that the tolerances are generally not as high which means the filament might be slightly thicker than you expect in places and it will end up getting stuck. All decent quality brands are less than 3mm to make sure they work in a variety of printers. Why would you buy an expensive machine like the UM2 and then feed it crappy filament? That seems counterproductive to me.
PLA is a great material to work with and it produces great prints.
Like Robert said 
.
Really PLA is great to print, ABS and PLA works fine if you get consistent filament size (a.k.a. quality filament). If you aim to have this printer in your house I suggest using PLA over ABS for your own health and simplicity (air ventilation and smell).
I print flexible PLA and ninja flex all the time with Roberts Feeder and its great. There are a lot of resources you can look for around here.
Nylon and ABS are sensitive to change in temperature change so providing a consistent and limited ventilation around the print area is prefered and the Ultimaker is great for this because you can easily block the only opened space and get ventilation free print area.
Every good brand offer 1.75 and 3mm filament. Colofabb, Faberdashery, and many other are state of the art filaments that will help in producing great quality prints.
I own a Ultimaker 2 since a few months now and its my first printer. I used Shapeways in the past for printing service too. I'm super happy so far. This community and the support is awesome!
I kind of fell in love with ABS when I saw the output from the Up Plus 2
You where cheated. The ABS in the UP isn't pure ABS, or the same as ABS seen with other printers. I think they mix some kinds of polystyrene in there to get the matte finish. (As it looks more like HIPS then ABS) It's also prone to warping, which might explain their limited build volume.
I rather call their material the "You do not see the print defects". It's pretty cool material, I do not know exactly what they did with it, but their prints look better then they are, as soon as you touch them you notice uneven and bumpiness.
As pointed out above, the advantage of an Ultimaker (over a Makerbot and an UP!) is the open system, you can do what you want, you can put any material in there that you want. Ultimaker isn't supplying other materials except PLA and ABS right now, but ColorFabb for example supplies PET and there is also Nylon available from different suppliers. As long as it's 3mm filament, and of decent quality, you can put it in the machine.
If flexible filament is really important to you then from what I have read, the only way to seriously manage it is to buy a printer with a direct drive so that the Bowden tube is taken out of the equation. Having said that people are reporting good improvements from Robert's feeder design. Maybe Ultimaker will design a complementary add-on to the drive system if flex filament really takes off.
Note that is complementary with an E not an I
I've had an UM2 for 3 months. It works well with both 1.75mm and 3mm filament, ABS and PLA. With the 1.75mm you need to go into the settings and create a custom profile, but it feeds adequately. We buy our filament from the cheapest vendor we can find on ebay. Our only problem was with some PLA that had been opened more than a month ago; it became stiff. We built a reel holder that feeds directly from the back, with fewer turns. That works well even with stiff PLA.
With ABS, the only way I've found to get parts to consistently anchor to the baseplate is to paint a slurry of acetone and dissolved ABS onto the baseplate before printing.
We run 40-hour print jobs all the time, and have never had trouble.
I use the 3mm ABS from IC3D... Great stuff that feeds without problems.. and much cheaper than the stuff UM sells.
As others have stated ABS can be difficult to get it to stick to the bed without warping during the print.
I use the glue stick and the brim feature (10-15 lines) and can print 99% of the time without any problems.
Worst part about the brim is you then need to trim it off which can leave some nicks/blemishes if you aren't really careful with the xacto knife.
ABS is good for parts that need a bit more flex than PLA/higher heat resistance/won't dissolve with water/UV exposure.
Other than that PLA is great.
hello evreyone
i just received a UM2 at my workplace, and we would like to print ABS stuff (because we work in a lab and we want it to be water resistant). I've just printed with PLA a https://www.youmagine.com/designs/test-your-3d-printer i've found on youmagine, and the result is quite satisfying. I've set parameters like this : layers 0.15mm / speed 60mm/s / infill 20% / bed temp 60°C / nozzle temp 220°C / fans 100%
Now i'm trying to print the same thing with ABS (eSun), so i've changed only temperature settings with 105 for bed and 260 for nozzle (and fans are at 50%). And by now it doesn't seem to go very well... it's making some noises as if there were small burns (and we can see that some parts are burnt because ABS became brown instead of staying white)
So question is : what settings do you use to print ABS ?
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dkaygee 0
1. ABS can be printed in high quality on the UM2. I found it a bit more tricky to get the print to stick, but once you get the settings locked in, it does well. I prefer the PLA results.
2. The UM2 does not print flexible filament well. I haven't tried a wide array, but the one's I've tried have failed due to the bowden type extruder setup. Some people have had success printing at very low speeds with this type of filament.
3. The disadvantage of 3mm filament is finding a good filament that actually will fit through the extruder. 2.85mm is the actual size needed and most generic 3mm filament just doesn't cut it. You'll need to stick with the higher quality stuff.
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