What Would You Like To See In An Ultimaker 3?

[kuno 0]

sw control for the little noisy fan is ready, but it's the hardware that cannot do it. The next UM2 electronics board iteration does this, but that hasn't been released yet.

Ceramics insulator does not work due to the fact that molten PLA glues itself to it. (Same problem as PEEK, and a bunch of other materials. And yes, whatever you think off for ceramics, we have tried it.

 

Thanks fo the feedback

did not know this about the ceramics, too bad then......

sw control for the fan: I would not mind to swap light and fan connection as the light could be on off only. I know, SW needs to know that this has been swapped............

kuno

 

[drayson 75]

This is actually already underway http://www.brewie.org/

Will be cheaper and of more practical use compared to an UM3

 

You´re kidding.... no, you´re not kidding.... GREAT..... like it.... but my purse says... NO...

Anyway...

 

Depends on the cookies and if the box contains 100 euro bills, you need a whole lot less

 

100€-like cookies??? Will print a cutter... wait for it... :-)

 

[kuno 0]

In my initial feedback I mentioned not really to care about a bigger print space, this has changes as I am currently getting to the limits, so if the print space could be inceased in one (horizontal) direction, that would be great as I use it currently heavily for prototyping. Ideal horizontal would be to allow 19" prints (mock up front panels for rack mount equipment), so 500 mm x 250 mm horizontal I would appreaciate, vertical I have not even come close to any limits so far.

kuno

 

[tsagos 8]

How about an enclosure? I hear about pattends and stuff but i saw many companies that have full enclosure for their printers?

How about switchable buildplates to support more materials that cannot print on glass?

 

[drewyboy 0]

A UM3 is probably at least another year out to year and a half out, wouldn't you think?

 

[kirash4 0]

sw control for the little noisy fan is ready, but it's the hardware that cannot do it. The next UM2 electronics board iteration does this, but that hasn't been released yet.

Will this require replacing a current UM2 board to the new one? Or are there exposed pins on the board that one can hack it? I suppose I can find this out myself, I'm just deep in printing jobs and don't feel like poking around at the moment.

 

[chrisr 18]

I'd like to see a larger (X-Y) build plate size than the UM2 :-)

 

[woofy 12]

Absolutely!

A bigger build plate.

Extending Z is not the same thing.

[Labern 774]

I want a built in web cam with phone app support so i can view / pause from anywhere.

Also higher temp capacity so i can print PEI ULTEM 9085 filament.

larger X-Y build plate also and closed chamber as long as its not fugly.

dual extruder with easy change nozzle size with a hole selection of CHEAP replacement nozzles.

would be cool if someone could develop a good anti ooze valve or something in the nozzle. I know the Robox has a needle valve system but have no idea if its any good.

 

[photowizz 1]

More competitive price and a better feed, I'm a simple man :-P

 

[eric-lester 1]

Most of my potential tidbits have already been addressed, but I do have a few little ideas that don't seem too major:

 

• Better time estimates during the print (e.g. I can change my print speed from 100 to 99% and suddenly the printer quadruples its expected time before eventually figuring out a rough estimate).
  
• Larger Bowden clips (something like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:621862...I only say this because whenever I tried to remove my small one, it kept falling into the print head D:)
  
• No glue! Gah, it has its benefits, but there are so many better ways to get prints to adhere that are less messy. I know that most veterans won't even use it (or already be masters with it), but for newbies it could be a little frustrating.
  
• Possibly a different dial? I struggle to keep turning it without pushing it and likewise to push it without turning it, both of which can be very bad sometimes. Maybe something a little more forward could be useful for this.
  
• For the love of God, please have a way of changing filament mid-print. To me at least, this seems like the biggest plain oversight of the UM2. It's something so easy to do, and it's crucial for big prints when running on empty for filament.
  

All this said, I do LOVE the UM2, and there are some things I don't want to see go, such as its beautiful appearance, rugged design, and of course...the Breakout Easter egg :mrgreen:

 

[chrisr 18]

Breakout Easter egg? You made me google that and I found this:

Blimey! :-)

 

[chris-bruner 0]

Yes, that's pretty much the main use we see for dual extrusion request right now. So we need a proper soluble material with that as well, and improved software support.

 

Another reason for dual extrustion, is have one extruder with a wide nozzle (.5) that is used for infilling. The other can be small used for surface layers.

 

[pws 0]

I want that thing that I know they're working on but I can't talk about...

 

No problem... if you can't talk about it, just write it down... hrhr...

 

[kuno 0]

I just maintained my UM2 and I would like to have a lubrication run in the maintenenace menu.

e.g. print head all at the back -> clean the axes --> done --> print head slowly moves to the other end --> clean the axes --> apply a tiny drop of oil close to the guides --> move the head slowly to the other end --> apply another tiny little drop --> move the head a few times nice and slow from end to end.

I hate moving the head manually against all the belts and motors.

OK. more a firmware issue, could also be nice in UM2

kuno

 

[IRobertI 520]

Why do you hate moving the head manually? It would drive me nuts if I had to wait for the machine to move the head when doing stuff like that. If you worry about damaging the printer by moving the head manually, don't.

 

[mark-hale 1]

I want that thing that I know they're working on but I can't talk about...

 

Ah that must be the ability for it to print something for you before you even knew you what it was or needed to print it

Seriously though - remote control. I have dabbled with OctoPrint but currently only using it for viewing when i'm at work. Would love to have a reliable way to kill the print in the event of a failure.

 

[randyinla 14]

...(Also, Chrii, you can print USB with the UM2. It's just not officially supported due to potential problems. It works, and it will remain working. But it's not a feature that we want to burden our support department with)

 

Is it possible to abort a print via USB? I got a GoPro camera so I can monitor print progress remotely. It would be AWESOME to be able to abort failed prints remotely (via remote desktop to home computer, then abort UM2 via USB).

 

 

In my initial feedback I mentioned not really to care about a bigger print space, this has changes as I am currently getting to the limits, so if the print space could be inceased in one (horizontal) direction, that would be great as I use it currently heavily for prototyping. Ideal horizontal would be to allow 19" prints (mock up front panels for rack mount equipment), so 500 mm x 250 mm horizontal I would appreaciate, vertical I have not even come close to any limits so far.

kuno

 

+1. I too would LOVE to be able to print mockups for 19" rack mount pieces! Printing two pieces and gluing them together is yucky.

 

Why do you hate moving the head manually? It would drive me nuts if I had to wait for the machine to move the head when doing stuff like that. If you worry about damaging the printer by moving the head manually, don't.

 

Ah! Which reminds me... a way to un-lock the homed head so one CAN freely move the gantry around. Whenever my gantry goes to the home position, the steppers stay on and I cannot move it around. I have to power cycle the machine to get it released again. When changing material, it pulls the old material out while in the home position but then moves front and center when adding the new one. I've had the feeder motor grind into my filament during the removal because the bowden tube angle is much tighter and the material doesn't move as freely. And if I have to pull the filament out by hand, it is much harder to do while in the home position.

[eriksw 0]

Still very happy with the UM1... what a great machine, and many ways to make it work even better, which seems a lot harder with the UM2.

I really like the ability to manually move the feeder wheel (while starting prints, changing filament...), which you can't do on the UM2. Would be nice if that was possible on the UM3. Or else some dedicated buttons to do this.

Could do with another 2 buttons to quickly lower/raise the platform.

For safety it would be great if there was something built into the electronics to check the behaviour of the power going to the heater. It is possible to get a malfunction of the temperature measurement (in any part in that chain, but mainly broken wires due to metal fatigue from vibrations are my concern) causing the heater to stay on continuously, leading to excessively high nozzle temperature, causing clouds of smoke (had that once) or perhaps even fire (although I never heard of that happening, fortunately...). And this of course ruins the insulator if you're not there to switch it off immediately.

Normally the heater switches on and off several times per minute, except during heat-up (or when the temperature gets changed by a tweak). So it should be possible to have some monitor system that would "notice" that the heater is on for (let's say) more than 30 seconds, even though the printer is not heating up for printing or due to a tweak. In that case it could either switch off the printer directly, or give out some alarm sound first for a while (to prevent any "false alarms" ruining a print) before switching off the printer.

As the UM1 does not have such a system, I have been thinking about building a smoke alarm that can switch off the power to the printer when it is triggered. Anybody know if this exists already ?

 

[eriksw 0]

PS Google only comes up with some patents for "smoke detector power cut-off systems", but apparently there's trouble from insurance companies. Can't find any such thing on the market...

 

[ultiarjan 1,223]

you mean something like this?

 

 

[eriksw 0]

That's the one. So printers CAN burn your house down.... I wonder how often this happens, looks like chances are very low, but still... some people win the lottery as well.

All the more reason to add the function as described above to ALL printers from now on. It should be simple.

In the meantime I'll be waiting for that Smoke Signal to arrive... thanks for the link.

 

[nallath 1,120]

Any appliance can burn down your house. Any company that claims that their product is a 100% safe is lying. But just because it can happen, does not mean that every device should have a smoke detector that powers it down. Especially not when it cots a whopping 70$.

 

 

[eriksw 0]

Agreed, all electronics can cause fire. But this machine also has an electric heater that is melting plastic, quite different from most other equipment I would say...

People WILL be leaving their printer unattended. Or am I supposed to sit and watch the machine when it is doing a 24 hour print ? I can watch it for hours (printer meditation...) but I need some sleep as well.

And I did not suggest building a smoke alarm into the UM3. The system I described above would hardly add to the cost of the printer (if at all), and would definitely make it MORE safe. 100% safety was not what I asked for.

By the way: I doubt that the hot end would catch fire in case the heater stays on continuously (anyone ever tested this ?), but this WILL produce quite impressive clouds of smoke, I can tell from my own experience. Fortunately that time I was there to switch it off within a minute or so, but it would be great if the machine would do that for me, in case this ever happens again.

The last thing the industry needs is press reports about houses burning down due to a printer catching fire. And the last thing I need is my shop burning down. So ANYTHING that can help minimize this risk would be a GREAT advantage, I would say, especially if it can be added without extra costs.

To me 70 dollars seems reasonable for this Kickstarter Smoke Signal (if only to prevent my shop filling up with smoke), but of course 20 dollars would be better...let's hope it gets picked up by some Chinese manufacturer.

 

[eriksw 0]

In case you're wondering: the smoke accident happened when I was tinkering with the print head, and I did a test print without clamping down the plug of the thermocouple (and probably didn't plug it in properly). Plug came loose, the electronics were getting no temperature reading, and that caused the heater to stay on. By the time I stopped it and stuck that plug back in, the temperature was 320 degrees...and that took a while, so it got hotter than that. Big PLA smoke cloud in my shop.

So this is not bound to happen very often, however I understand that the connecting wires can break sometimes, and that could happen to anyone, even without tinkering. Has not happened here yet though - which is quite amazing, been printing almost 24/7 for 1,5 years on UM1. That's a WHOLE lot of shaking going on...