Ultimaker has unveiled multiple advancements to its S5 3D printing platform and launched the S3 machine at TCT Show.
The new product developments come as a direct consequence of the company’s open materials programme, which now has around 80 partners within it. With users having access to a wider range of materials on Ultimaker machines, and those machines being increasingly applied in professional settings, the company has sought to increase the reliability of its platforms.
For the S5, Ultimaker has introduced the Pro Bundle option, which includes the Air Manager to better control the build chamber’s environment, and the Material Station, which stores up to six spools of filament at the right humidity levels. The S3 is being brought to market as a ‘composite ready’ desktop platform that gives new adopters of 3D printing a more affordable alternative to the S5. Ultimaker is making the S3 available immediately at a cost of €3,995, while the S5 Pro Bundle is priced at €8,685 and will be available starting October 18th, 2019.
“Our goal is to make 3D printing easy, reliable and accessible in order to accelerate the world’s transition to digital distribution and local manufacturing,” commented Paul Heiden, Senior Vice President Product Management at Ultimaker, in a company press release. “We have heard many professional users express a need for a more enclosed 3D printing environment and we understand the desire for good, dry material storage and smart material handling in order to reduce the risks of humidity, dust and human error.
“The accessible Ultimaker S3 is capable of reliably manufacturing smaller parts and models at a price-point that removes the barrier to entry for entrepreneurs and SMEs to adopt 3D printing. Now, anyone who wants to start leveraging Ultimaker’s flexible, powerful 3D printing systems can do so and make full use of all materials with print profiles available in the Marketplace in Ultimaker Cura.”
'With the S5 Pro Bundle, we ensure there is stability in the chamber temperature - revolutionising the chamber temperature will be for the next generation machines.'
The S5 was launched back in Spring 2018 at RAPID + TCT, the same event in which the company’s open materials programme was announced, and now represents over half the machines the company has ever sold, per Heiden. But wanting to increase the confidence companies felt when using the printer, and recognising a demand for such an addition, the Air Manager has been integrated to provide a closed, inside-out air flow to filter 95% of ultra-fine particles created during the printing process. It has also been brought in to help companies meet health and safety standards and to reduce the need for their employees to tinker with the printer to maximise the quality of builds.
Ultimaker had been looking into desktop printer covers, including those used by its competitors, for nearly two years, wanting to make sure any additions to the S5 wouldn’t compromise the print quality already achieved.
“If there’s anything we have learnt over the years, it’s that professional users have virtually zero tolerance for experimenting,” Heiden told TCT. “They just want to use the printer as a production method, they don’t want their people to spend time on settings and so on. By building this top cover on the S5, we had to ensure that the print profiles that come with the materials, the Ultimaker materials or the third party materials, would be adapted in such a way that it could manage the air suction that this cover generates to ensure there is a stable chamber environment and that it doesn’t in any way influence the print results in a negative fashion.”
Those material ‘adaptations’ have already been completed for Ultimaker-developed materials ready for launch next month, while S5 machines and top covers have been shipped to every material partner to do the same for their products. Heiden expects the bulk of these adjustments to be carried out within the next two months, ready for an array of filaments to be loaded into the Material Station.
Up to six spools can be stored in the Material Station's enclosed chamber, which works to maintain humidity at around 40%, a sufficient level to work from according to Ultimaker’s partners. Each spool is placed into the Material Station by hand with the end of the filament being fed into a mouth which will sense that a) the material is loaded properly, b) exactly which material product has been loaded, and c) when spools are about to run out so the machine can get ready to draw from the next one. Ultimaker’s Cura Connect software integrates with the Material Station to manage print jobs based on which machine is adequately loaded for the application.
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Air Manager.
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Material Station.
The Material Station also marks the beginning of the end for ‘one of the most iconic things about Ultimaker printers, but also one of the most annoying’ as Heiden puts it: materials are now front loaded, instead of being stored on the back side of the machine. It was 2017 when Ultimaker began to realise, though that was a nice way of presenting its machines, ergonomically it was a pain point for customers. A year later, as the company matured, its eyes were opened again.
“In 2018, we delivered on our promise for an open materials system and, as a result, we noticed there were many materials that had some sort of sensitivity to humidity,” Heiden explained. “It was not just about front loading, it was also about making sure that material conditions would stay in such a way that a machine could continue to use, for instance, PVA even in somewhat humid environments that the new polyamides that were coming to market from third parties could deal with, so that was the second thing and thirdly, make sure that if a certain spool is at its end then a new spool is automatically started.
"Above all, it’s improving the print utilisation, being able to use a printer without a lot of work around the printer.”
It is supposed these enhancements, the Air Manager and the Material Station, will lead to gains for Ultimaker’s professional customers, a belief also held by some of the company’s material partners. Hugo da Silva at DSM reckons the S5 Pro Bundle is another step towards taking additive manufacturing into production workflows, while BASF’s Roger Sijlbing says the added ability of being able to manage the materials’ environment will enable industrial applications with fused filament fabrication technology.
That is what Ultimaker is going for, as further demonstrated by the launch of the S3. This machine is being offered as a cost-effective, almost entry-level platform for companies just starting out in their deployment of additive manufacturing for production. Ultimaker has also confirmed the S3 will replace the Ultimaker Extended 3, which will be sold for as long as current stock lasts before being discontinued.
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Ultimaker S3
Ultimaker S3.
Boasting a smaller build volume than the Ultimaker 3 Extended – 230 x 190 x 200 mm vs 197 x 215 x 300 mm – Ultimaker has prioritised technical capability over size. The S5’s CC Print Core, which features a hardened nozzle that won’t falter after extruding fibre-reinforced materials, has been integrated, and Ultimaker has also replaced the feeder wheel at the back of the machine, another component that previously could not withstand the reinforced grades manufacturers desire. Other features of the S3 include a heated build plate, advanced active levelling, a stiffer build platform, more accurate stepper drivers, an improved touch screen, and dual filament flow sensors which will pause print jobs when filament runs out.
With the adoption of its technology increasing in industrial environments, Ultimaker has committed to engineering new capabilities to keep pace with its customers boundaries as boundaries are pushed. Not only has it sought to better the control it has over the print environment on the S5, and advance the capabilities of its Ultimaker 3 line, but in doing both Ultimaker has given manufacturers more options.
“What we learn every day is that people reach a certain plateau of professionalism and that’s really easily reached. They’ll use that printer every bloody hour of the day,” Heiden said. “As a result, utilisation becomes important, you’ve got a number of printers, so you want to use the Air Manager. You want to make sure that people continue to print, as a result you will have the Material Station.
“I think if you want to start with printing go and have an S3. If you’re one step ahead and start using 3D printing to start using the printed objects, don’t even think about buying anything else than the S5 Pro Bundle.”
One enhancement not to come with these latest product introductions is, as had been speculated online in the lead up to these launches, a heated build chamber. Ultimaker was joined by fellow desktop vendors Zortrax and Raise3D in announcing the introduction of new products at TCT Show this week, which had led some to ponder whether Stratasys’ 1999 heated build chamber patent had expired, paving the way for Ultimaker et al to take advantage.
Turns out, that patent has been extended to 2021. But as today’s product launches show, a heated build chamber is exactly the kind of thing Ultimaker will be looking to integrate next.
“It’s not that we are capable with the Ultimaker S5 Pro Bundle to really revolutionise the whole chamber temperature – that will be for the next generation machines – but what we do ensure is that there is a stability in the chamber temperature so that in itself offers somewhat more opportunities,” Heiden said. “Without any doubt, every new printer that we will bring to market must be more reliable, must be more precise, must give better results, and you may always expect that machine to have a better controlled environment.”
Ultimaker will be exhibiting the S5 Pro Bundle and S3 on Stand #C90 at TCT Show where it will host a live demonstration at 11.00 on Tuesday 24th September. It will also discuss the launches on the TCT Introducing Stage later that afternoon at 15.50.
