Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
No, I'm not jumping ship!
I may have an opportunity to pick up, very reasonably, a 'gently used' Ultimaker S5. Yes, I realize this is a much higher end machine than I have. If I can get it I'll definitely keep the I3 as well.
Has anyone ever used one of these? More importantly, are there any red flags or 'gotchas' that you know of?
I have never operated one, let alone even seen one that I know of. I spent the last couple of hours surfing the web for info and approximate used prices, etc. The photos remind me (somewhat) of the U-print, which uses proprietary filament and a 'disposable' proprietary print bed, but this S5 uses a regular glass plate and generic filament.
The only negative I've seen so far is that it uses the 2.85mm filament, so the filament will not be interchangeable with that for the I3.
I just talked to the guy who has it on the phone. It's about 150 miles away, and we have a snowstorm here and, of course, a holiday impending, so he said he would be willing to hold it to Saturday so I could look at it and make an offer. He says it has 'a few hundred hours' and a few months left on the warranty and works great.
Any thoughts? TIA.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
It's supposed to be excellent with very good support (if that's transferable). Of course that means things like replacement parts and routine maintenance may cost more (the BMW syndrome). The larger filament is a drag. To me, it comes down to the price. If it's below the price of a Mk3, maybe. If it costs any more, I'd have to ask myself what I gain.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
To me, it comes down to the price. If it's below the price of a Mk3, maybe. If it costs any more, I'd have to ask myself what I gain.
its almost 6K$ printer lol .
if its below the price of mk3 , grab and run .
there is a conversion kit to use 1.75mm filament .
it mainly depends on what are you printing , how much you print and if you are "set and forget" kind of person .
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
its almost 6K$ printer lol .
New, yes. But it's like buying a high-end car. You're going to have care and upkeep costs. If I can't afford to operate it, might not be worth it, even if dirt cheap.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
used printer,? Bah humbug.
But really if it was me, I wouldn't buy a used printer, I would be waiting for the other shoe to drop the entire time since you really don't know what has happened to it. even at $3k it's to much for something you already have the capability of doing.
The Filament Whisperer
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
To me, it comes down to the price. If it's below the price of a Mk3, maybe. If it costs any more, I'd have to ask myself what I gain.
its almost 6K$ printer lol .
if its below the price of mk3 , grab and run .
there is a conversion kit to use 1.75mm filament .
it mainly depends on what are you printing , how much you print and if you are "set and forget" kind of person .
Yes, I did my homework, it's 6 kilobucks new here in the States, even available on Amazon at that price. Street price for used ones appears to be running in the low-mid four figures.
It looks like there are at least two 1.75mm conversion kits, thanks for the heads-up, one supposedly developed with the cooperation of Ultimaker. Off hand I can see no reason why one extruder could not be converted to 1.75mm and the other left at the larger size. There are some 'gotchas' with at least one of the kits, such as they do not recommend using it with flex filament. It looks like one of the kits comes from the folks who make that MMU type of external splice box that gets mentioned here every so often. Still, it makes the idea more attractive to me, having somewhat of an inventory of filament.
Here are the pros ...
1. Larger builds. It looks like it would be possible to print the main pieces of a 6464 series boxcar without having to place them cattywampus (is that even a word?) on the plate, and even larger items.
2. True dual extruder. None of the woooooosh, click click click, wooooooosh, wipe wipe, print for 10 seconds, then woooooosh, click click again all through the print. 😉
3. Appears to be approaching the 'You push the button, we do the rest' simplicity of operating the U-print, without some of the disadvantages such as (mainly) being locked into a proprietary filament with their choice of colors at their extortive prices.
Here are what appear to be the cons:
1. Price. No, I don't expect to get it for under a kilobuck. No, the Pope is not Jewish. No, bears do not go doo-doo in the sea.
2. Locked in to 2.85mm filament. (I do have a couple of partial rolls of the larger filament I bought some time ago for use on the Taz at the local 'makerspace'.)
3. Space. I do have a corner of the office where it will probably fit on a table, and, of course, I expect to hear 'You bought another one of those?????' at least once. 😉
4. Learning curve. Expected.
5. Getting it from there to here. I did measure, and if the specs are accurate, it looks like I can indeed carry the machine itself on a blanket in the shotgun seat of the Mitsubishi, with the odds and ends in the trunk/rear seat.
I won't know anything more until Saturday around noon. If he expects something close to list price for it, no way, but again, I do not expect it for a song and dance. The guy who brought us together gave me the impression that he needs money, so that's good to know.
(And no, I'm not naive enough to wander unaccompanied into a stranger's home/office/shop/wherever known to be carrying a couple of kilobucks in cash. I mentioned that if we do business, I would like to drive to Wells Fargo and get him a cashier's check, and he seemed to be cool with the idea.)
Thanks again for the feedback, everyone.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
Well, for those who care, I am now the proud (??) owner of a less than year old S5. As I was driving back with it and a car full of odds and ends, I was thinking of the 'be careful what you ask for' saying. 😉 The good news is that if I end up not liking it, I can easily get back what I have in it.
It's going to take at least a week or so to get this thing set up. I have to find some kind of a stand for it, clear out an area, etc. I saw it operate and it looks very close to new. It belonged to a 'Mom and Pop' (literally) subcontractor who is downsizing, anticipating a drop-off in business. They are keeping one S3 as their 'good' machine, but most of their 'farm' (I would call it more of a garden than a farm) is a couple of banquet tables holding what looked like Ender machines cranking out respirator type PPE masks.
Anyway, it will be an experience, and it will be very interesting to see how the finished prints compare with those from the MK3. As I think I said, the MK3 I have produces prints that compare very favorably to those coming from a much higher-end Uprint. If I keep it, I'll most likely do the conversion to 1.75mm as to avoid two inventories of filament.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
Well, for those who care, I am now the proud (??) owner of a less than year old S5. As I was driving back with it and a car full of odds and ends, I was thinking of the 'be careful what you ask for' saying. 😉 The good news is that if I end up not liking it, I can easily get back what I have in it.
Assuming you didn't pay too much, you can always put it up for sale and hold out for a good offer. I'll be curious to see your comparison prints.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
Assuming you didn't pay too much, you can always put it up for sale and hold out for a good offer. I'll be curious to see your comparison prints.
Yes, I'm very curious too. After I get it set up I plan to print some calibration cubes and a Boaty McBoatface and when I'm comfortable with it I'll torture it with a 6464 boxcar. With the machine I got some partial spools, one a black and an almost full non-metallic gray and some others. I'll probably try the boxcar in black, as I have some reference 6464 boxcar pieces already printed in black PLA on the MK3S.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
I would love to see a 20x20x20mm cube printed in something like silver stacked atop the same printed with the same settings and filament on a Mk3 and lit from above at a steep angle. I never did find good comparison pictures illustrating the "602" surface quality issue. I compared my Mk3 against my Sidewinder and found it compares well. According to the firestorm back in 2018, the Mk3 was significantly worse than just about any other printer out there, particularly with the "basketweave" irregular line patterns.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
The closest filament I have for both machines is a black PLA. It won't be until/if I do the 1.75 conversion that I can use the same exact filament for both.
Below front and center is the cal cube with the Prusa(ment?) silver-gray that comes with the machine. On the left is Hatchbox silver ABS. Right is Prusament orange. I'll slice the cube with Cura for both machines and we can see what it looks like.
I took a look at the old thread. That was before my time on this system but I do seem to remember some fleeting references to it. Obviously it's been taken care of.
I'm looking now at a case for a small video display I did about a week ago. The sides look very good. If I really squint and use my imagination I may see a very slight bit of ringing, but no 'basketweave' or anything like that. I do so many things with straight sides that I know I would have noticed something like that.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
don't expect any quality improvements with pla . it should be the same with the correct settings .
3d printing tech has evolved , any printer , from cheapest ender to million dollar stratasys will give almost the same results while printing pla .
as long as the mechanics are good , nothing loose etc. better machines will print faster for same quality output .
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
It's alive! Got a nice stand for it. Only snag is that the 900VA UPS that I had planned to use for it has a dead battery. NBD, actually.
Here it is, printing Boaty McBoatface. Good a test as any, I guess. I'll do cal cubes tomorrow, I'm getting tired.
It seems to have survived the ride from Des Moines without getting out of whack. I did no cal touch-up or anything, just connected it to the local network and launched the first print. I was quite impressed that my Cura which is my fallback for MK3S prints discovered the printer without me having to do anything.
Now, in the photos of Boaty McBoatface below, does anyone care to guess which was done on the Ultimaker S5 and which was done on the Prusa MK3S? I sliced them for both machines using as close to the same settings as I could. Same layer height, etc., both sliced on the same version of Cura. All of the left ones were printed on one machine and all of the right ones were printed on the other.
Can you determine which is which?
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
On the first calibration cube I did there are errors in the X and Y planes. Digital caliper shows them both right around 20.6mm, or a couple of percent in error. When I stack it on top of one done on the I3, I can definitely feel the difference. I do want to get things within 1%, so I will do some RTFMing to see if I can get it dialed in, and if not, I'll probably reach out to their support folks.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
I'm voting for Ultimaker on the left, assuming you haven't calibrated linear advance yet. I know you've got your Mk3 tuned. Don't post the answer for a few days though!
I assume you can't dunk that bed under the sink with Dawn, huh?
Congrats on the find. You can hang out in the post Ultimaker forums now and leave us plebs behind.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
you couldn't post bigger images for us to guess from? 😜 I'm going to say the one on that side <---<< is Prusa
thanks again for the giant images, some of us are old and need to zoom in. 😎
The Filament Whisperer
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
I'll hold off spilling the beans for a couple more days. 😉
The plate size is 330x240mm, which comes to about 13x9.5 inches. Yes, it would be clumsy to try to wash in a sink but it would probably fit.
I did join the Ultimaker equivalent of this forum. My first question was along the line of getting something similar to the Prusa textured sheet for the S5. There is an aftermarket conversion kit for a magnetic build plate with a PEI smooth sheet. They do offer textured sheets, but none the exact size of the S5. One user suggested that I cut a larger one down.
I had the idea of making a couple of little brackets to hold the Prusa sheet in the correct place, but that apparently will not work. I did try one of those stick-on sheets that come with some of the filaments, but the S5 start-up leveling (which behaves very similar to that of the I3 but is obviously 'sounding' for any surface instead of a magnetic surface) immediately noticed the irregular surface and aborted. I could probably fake it out by surrounding the Prusa plate with something the same thickness and I may try that.
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
Larger photos:
(Well, I thought they would show larger, here's the link to the page that has the originals: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsw68138/)
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
Really hoping the one on the left is the Ultimaker, but the one on the right might justify that price. If nothing else, it's a good benchmark to compare against!
RE: Has anyone ever used, or any thoughts about the Ultimaker S5?
Congrats. I have looked at them but decided to stick to the same brand. I have three brands now.
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Chuck H
3D Printer Review Blog