Ultimaker 2 new user - first impressions

[wlock 11]

hello,

this is my first post here after adding a few pictures

Before buying my Ultimaker 2 I read the forum for opinions on the machine itself as well as the issues people had buying, receiving and using the UM2

considering the price, it is quite an investment worth investigating

First things first, ordering

I read that there were huge delays in receiving the UM2, if i remember correctly, during expo for example. Reading several posts made me think that i'd get mine for christmas. I believe the average was two weeks to get the printer

I got mine in four days, placed the order on a sunday evening and got it later that week.

No fuss whatsoever on placing the order and paying with the credit card as well, however it's better to account for the extra charge in shipping.

It was expensive, but not surprising since the package was pretty heavy

Now for the bad part. I read multiple nightmare stories regarding support in this website. Not bad stories, I mean nightmare stories of people very unhappy.

It was a close call and almost made me not order the printer.

The way I see it is, if you buy a piece of hardware and there is no support, then you have a paper weight, nothing more.

Then my controller screen went off. Contacted support and got a reply the next day telling me to check the cables on the controller. On the website there is an assembly manual rather complete and managed to made it light up again.

If you are not a tech guy, you can do this. I am, but still made me nervous to open a brand new Printer. Asked about warranty but got no reply.

Worked for a few more days and today, just after receiving my colorfabb order, the diplay died again. I opened another ticket an hour ago.

So overall

Printer is as good as you can see in the net, out of the box i could print in 0.03 resolution and that is beyond excellent.

The experience is just as frustrating because of the screen issues. I was planning on taking a couple of weeks off but I think it will surely take at least that much to sort the problem

For those out there undecided, I'd recomend reading the forum here and make up your mind by yourself. I feel that overall people seem friendly and helpfull and solutions to issues come often from the forum

Check my gallery for print tests, I'll add more as soon as possible

 

[cleven 4]

I always got a reply and have yet to have issues other than maybe having to wait max 5 days for an answer to things.

You will always get a reply or help or replacements with things

You need to remember they are a small company with limited people/resources.

There are much worse options out there when it comes to printer customer service

The forums are a great place to try and find a solution first. This machine is open sourced and I feel in a way it is open more to those who like to test variations and push the limits of the machine. All the while Ultimaker (the company) is all for it

 

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi DeGouveia,

Thank you for your report!

I am happy to hear you received the Ultimaker fast and in good condition.

On the other hand, I am sorry to read about the display.

Can you share your ticket ID with me? I can forward it to my colleagues from technical support and

we will get back with you.

Most likely it is not a very big problem, but we will assist you in solving it.

What have you made so far?

Looking forward hearing from you,

 

[DidierKlein 729]

The thing with support is quite true they have some delays, BUT on the forum you will probably see a lot more people complaining on support issues than people saying they are happy with how support treated their issue.

It's normal, people rarely say anything when it works as it's supposed to work.

For my case i had to contact support twice in 6 months for small issues. I always had a relatively fast answer and my requests were fulfilled as they should be. The support contact was friendly and available for questions.

I'm sure you can find a lot of users that had similar good technical support and you have something very valuable on this forum too, it's the community that can help a lot too.

 

[wlock 11]

thank you all for the encouraging replies.

Sorry that my post actually came out as somewhat pessimistic. The main part is how amazing the printer is not the screen issue. I think that the current posts were issues are listed should get an official last word when closed because they can dissuade potential customers

Anyway i unplugged the display and the cable has a near invisible dent with a V shape, I think the vibration of the printer ended up killing it. those do seem to need a protection in order not to have issues, a bit of it is actually exposed slightly below the cover. I'll get a few pictures.

Maybe its something for other part of the forum instead of here, this is more a welcome part right?

Nice to meet you Sander and thank you for your help. the ticket number for me is Ticket ID: IZE-659-42035

and I did post a few pictures in the gallery under my name. Looking forward to add some more.

Not sure if the link here will work:

http://umforum.ultimaker.com/index.php?/gallery/album/1220-3d-prints/

I've got around 4kg of collorfabb filament waiting, and I intent to print it all before the end of the year :mrgreen:

 

[wlock 11]

just wanted to make a reply to this post

I received a new screen a few weeks after the issue occured and all is working fine since !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the time i had the issue i tested loads of software that allows to print directly but nothing that could match Cura.

All issues i had with the prints were related to the platform leveling, once i received the screen and controller, I rerun the platform leveling and that was it.

It would be really nice if we could run maintenance from a PC and not only the controller, even saving the leveling and other settings once we are happy so they could be reloaded instead of running the software on the machine