Ultimaker 3 Extended Detailed Review for Medical 3D Printing

[@Embodi3D]

This review was 4 months in the making and encompasses my real and honest experience printing hundreds of hours with this printer. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful and informative.

[@VoidloniXaarii]

this was another fantastic thing about this review, that it wasn't rushed on a deadline, in fact i was surprised just how long a test and how much patience with the failures and problems you had

[@WhereNerdyisCool]

A few thoughts... Upgrade your Cura and Firmware. Use less PVA! Cura has a features where the support material boundary will help. Rather than using so, so much PVA, you could use the PLA support and then a thin layer of PVA between model and support. That should dramatically reduce some print times and use a lot less [expensive] PVA. (Which leads me to again, wishing Ultimaker would make high quality Cura tutorial videos demonstrating these features. The 3D techies know where to find these things, if you haunt here daily...but "professional" users would sure benefit from tutorials on advanced topics) As for the prints not sticking, perhaps gr5 can link in his wonderful video on improving adhesion. Just coating the bed with diluted wood glue would help you out. Glue stick doesn't always apply evenly and on the stick I have, sometimes small pieces come off. It sounds like you are a good doctor trying to learning how to use 3D printing in your practice. Like any technology, it'll take some learning. (I worked for Information Systems at a medical center for 7 years. I know how doctors embrace new tech, but need some assistance taking advantage of it.) Hope our comments are useful. Don't give up. The UM3 is a wonderful printer (I miss having the loaners I had!)

[@Embodi3D]

Thanks for the suggestion. The thin layer PVA and wood glue tricks sound great and are definitely worth investigating further!

[@serhioromano]

Thanks for putting this video together and saving lives!

[@Adherences]

Im using the 2+ for dental printing model at the job I resolve problem of sticking to the plate with warming PLA up to 240C and minimum speed + extra care cleaning the glass and with avoiding large continious first line layer (adding name of the pacient at the bottom) Soo far result are really good but really long :) Thanks for you video

[@florianthieringer]

Thanks for the great review. It shows clearly that there are two sides of medal ;-) The UM 3 Extended seems to be able to deliver really good high-quality results and printing with PLA and PVA is absolutely cool - but reliability and speed of the printer should be evaluated further.

[@michaelcheverie7579]

Excellent review! Regarding your extruder jam, in addition to the hot and cold pulls, you might want to try a fine-guage steel jewellery wire. You can buy this type of wire at hobby stores, such as Michael's. I've done this same thing several times with a Deezmaker Bukito, which is a great printer, but has it's ups and downs. Your videos are great! I am trying to introduce them to a group of high school students in Los Angeles. Please keep it up!

[@ralphzoontjens]

Thank you for the review. For bed adhesion, try blue tape, lightly sand it and use printafix glue with the heated bed set to 80C and first layer speed

[@rhbruning]

You are so patient! Thank you for your review - you were truly honest and really gave it a good try, many for that manner. I save this review for when I'm having a bad print day.

[@drfat0101]

Nice review doctor, thanks. I have the same printer and have never ran into the issue of glass being knocked off. I was very surprised to see that, and even more so seeing it happen in the video for a second time! I'm glad i didn't fall and break and no one was hurt. I'm pretty sure the guys at the Ultimaker forum will be quite interested to discuss this with you. In my opinion, it seems the bed needs levelling as it seems to be higher than it should, and hence the glass gets dragged by the nozzle. Perhaps one manual bed levelling could prevent recurrence of that. I have a question / suggestion for you: why do your models seem to have 100% infill, meaning they are solid from the inside? Printing a solid objects increases the chances of things going wrong as it decreases tolerance for error, it also uses much more filament used and perhaps more importantly it prohibitively increases print time. You might find the brain print finish in less than half the time if you print with 15% infill. One other thing, you can decrease the "support density" (amount of filament used for support) in Cura. This will also decrease the amount of filament used. Hope to hear your feedback about that

[@Embodi3D]

Dear FT, Thanks for the comment. The issue with the glass build platform coming free was due to problems with build plate adhesion. The first few layers of of the print peeled off the glass plate and became entangled in the print head. The glass was not in contact with the print head, so I don't think it was a leveling issue. I was leveling the build plate before each print for the video. Also, I did not print the models with 100% infill. I used the light infill setting in Cura. With light infill and standard quality settings, the brain print took 7 days. I hope this answers your questions. Thanks very much.

[@drfat0101]

Embodi3D I does. Thanks

[@neyperes5332]

Very useful review. Do you have any updated information about long parts printings?

[@vroberts1976]

All of this sounds like you didn't properly calibrate the machine, combined with possibly a defective main board or jacked up firmware flash. Did you contact Ultimaker for support at all?

[@English_Lessons_Pre-Int_Interm]

This review should become an example for those Internet shops which sell devices online. I wish KZbin had more reviews like this, on everything, including smartphones, PC's and periphery devices. p.s. I should get back to the topic of buying a 3D printer in about 3 years, they are terrible. My monthly salary is about 200 bucks, and attempting to print anything could bankrupt me. I was thinking about a model with an under-200$ budget, but even your expensive device failed, and this means my 200$ model would simply stay in a closet, and I would run around my flat in an ultimate rage fit.

[@oleost]

That is not how you are supposed to do an cold pull. Be lucky you didnt damage your printer with those pulls. Cold pull: 1. Heat your your printer, while pressing filament gently into the hot-end. 2. While continuing pushing / keeping pressure on the filament into the hotend turn the heater off. 3. Wait for it to cool down, still applying gently pressure on filament. 4. Turn on heater, while keeping and steady pull ( Not yanking it ) on the filament, once it reaches a certain threshold the filament on the walls have melted enough to let the filament go, while hopefully its still fused to the stuck part and you will get that with you out.

[@VoidloniXaarii]

great systematic review, very reasonable and well documented and quite entertaining to watch. Thank you! I felt for you all the way. I'm curious if you went for the form 2 sla if you can still print models with holes inside without the dissolvable filament. Really fascinating to watch, thanks for sharing this.

[@Embodi3D]

I was able to print the lumbar spine model on a Form 2 on my first try. Because of the smaller build volume I had to print the model in 4 pieces instead of two, and there was more work involved with removing support from the parts. But, all four pieces printed successfully on the first try.

[@VoidloniXaarii]

but what happens when you have pieces inside pieces where you couldn't remove the supports without the soluble part?

[@Embodi3D]

Because the lumbar spine was printed in sections, closed cavities, like the spinal canal, were opened up, and it was possible to get all the support material out. If you have a totally or nearly totally enclosed space, then water soluble support is really helpful.

[@joshh6077]

a very detailed review, thank you :)

[@icreat3dproductdevelopment467]

I always use a glue stick its a must not really a recommendation. Also try to buy a dehumidifier, that will resolve any issues with the PVA. slow down the rapid movements to 150mm/s and linear movements to 60mm/s. I have a 97.5% success rate with my ultimaker 3. The wifi video interruption monitoring is 100% the router and internet. call your local provider and tune in the channel that the router emits, sometimes the internet will be on roaming and will cause your printer and laptop not on the same channel causing the paused or disconnect of the video. Your main issues are filament management and bed adhesion, both are an easy fix. Use a lot of glue sticks, 60 degree bed, and dry filament. the new software does not have any issues as far as firmware goes.

[@xeniosm4549]

Thanks for the video. Any suggestions regarding Cura parameters for obtaining precise models when PVA support is used? Which material is best?

[@kyootfox]

Can i buy you some Acupuncture Needles out of state? (personally I've not had a issue with eBay....) And another suggestion is to keep the PVA & PLA in a 'DryBox' , this should help with the quality of the bed attachment. (And PVA is expensive, you may wish to do straight PLA with Simplify3D's breakaway supports)

[@Stormtroopers]

Great review

[@thewellbeingc9258]

in atomic method cleaning one should pull out the filament while the nozzle is at 90-100°C, you obviously pulled out the filament at ambiant !! pulling like you did is not safe for the machine, I never had problem with atomic method if applied like described in the user manual. In addition, UM3 nozzle can be changed (like Olson block) but one should pay attention and disassemble slowly the old one.

[@cgsouq3dmodels]

nice review.... yes the BB core is pain in a butt.

[@russellcollins5692]

This was an eye opener for me….. May I suggest finding an operator for the printer, you can then spend your true expertise with your human patients 😅 I have been aware off companies products been unintentionally slandered by a novice operating their machines. Years wasted. My UM3 worked the first time and continues too do so. I make it fail if I rush some procedure. Like Medicine.

[@waldo6347]

Dunno, but I have about 100% success rate with PLA on my UM3... lower with flex though...

[@PeterDiCapua]

I just unboxed mine...I love it. Where do you get your medical models...im an engineer... :)

[@Embodi3D]

You can download hundreds of free medical models at embodi3d.com. www.embodi3d.com/files/

[@PeterDiCapua]

can you make the brain print available?

[@geraespinosar]

Nice review doctor, thank you very much!!

[@paul_owen]

nice and fair review. liked and subscribed

[@Maan_nomad]

I really love ur work DR. i want to ask u i u can do a model for a real fetus from sonar scan i want to do one for my baby thanx a lot ❤️❤️

[@titaniumapple1]

Great, honest review!

[@Jungmin_Seo]

wow.. thank you for great information. maybe I need to change my mind about overpriced 3D printer.

[@briananderson6142]

So the moral of the story is, Make sure you have full spools of filament. Make sure it sticks, Most problems are software settings or user error.

[@vroberts1976]

That... is NOT how you do a cold pull!!! You have to heat the nozzle back up while pulling with constant pressure on the filament until it just gets barely hot enough and releases. This happens at a much lower temp than printing temperature hence the term "Cold Pull". Yanking on the filament like that will damage your rails and maybe even your print head.

[@Embodi3D]

The Ultimaker firmware gives very specific instructions during its cold pull routine about how and when to do the cold pull. The machine will tell you when the print head is cold enough to do the pull, and that is what was done in the video. I agree that the technique is likely to damage the rails and other items, but this is exactly when, and how, and at the temp that the machine instructed the pull to be done at.

[@peterk83]

@@Embodi3D Ran into the same problem with the BB Core totally clogged. While you obviously followed the instructions on the display, you missed one essential part mentioned on the website: You have to pull very slowly with constant force and perpendicular to the bed level, otherwise you could ruin the axis. I do this after every filament change with no issues. But didn‘t succeed in getting the carbonized PVA out of the BB core. Neither with a 0.35 drill. Disassembling the core and heating only the nozzle with a gas lighter until it started glowing finally did the trick and a black blob of slimy coal popped out. Now it is working fine again.

[@peterk83]

Forgot to mention: Best video on this printer I found so far - thank you very much! I went through all of your issues at least once in 3 years of using the UM3. Still love this printer, though the lack of a filament sensor is quite an issue. I’m very disappointed that there is no possibility to upgrade this expensive machine - if you want filament monitoring, you have to go for a new S3 or S5.

[@bhp123654]

I cringed a few times during the video

[@alf3071]

lol pretty shit printer for that money