The last few months have been very busy ones for us, we done quite some testing with the Ultimaker, started a company, searched for the right material suppliers, worked on our webshop and so on. We initially planned to start in December but the combination of starting a new company and developing an all new product took more time than we counted on.
As of tomorrow NOW the Ultimaker is available for pre-order from our shop, yay! We will ship it in four to six weeks.
In addition to the many people who have contributed to the Ultimaker, we would especially like to thank the participants of first and second Ultimaker workshop at the Utrecht Fablab Protospace for providing such a lot of feedback to us, it has been really helpful in making the Ultimaker a great product.
Update: Yes, we will also ship to the USA and yes, it runs on 110 V and 240 V (some people were asking)
I look forward to when the pick-and-place attachments become available from your shop also!
Seriously, do you think you’ll sell such an “add-on” kit if you manage to develop it far enough?
The PnP attachment will be mostly printable, so it wouldn’t cost you much to upgrade your Ultimaker and to get a really fast pick-n-place machine in addition to being a 3D printer. The electronics are very extensible as they are, you can hook up a solenoid valve, servo’s and use its many analog inputs. Also, you might generate the right vacuum with on peristaltic pump ran by a stepper motor. No big investments here, either. I will keep documenting how to implement this on an Ultimaker, as soon as I make more progress. If there is some demand for it (which I don’t doubt), there will be pick-n-place packages sold as well.
(b.t.w. Justyn is referring to this object. Here’s my video that explains it.)
Great work guys, it’s been really good seeing this project come together over the past year. I’ve asked this before but I’ll ask it again: can you give any indication on when complete plans for this machine will become available for DIY production? How about an electronics / hardware kit for us with access to a laser cutter of our own? Or am I missing an open github project or something?
Hi Bastiaan, we prefer to release the CAD files when we ship the first batch (we mention this on the product page of the shop now, thanks for pointing this out). We wait with the full release to ensure that we can at least earn back our prototyping investments that we did over the last year. And of course ensure that our passion and our job will be the same thing. About the electronics and github: we have a github account with all of the software we use and develop (ReplicatorG adjusted to work with RepRap firmware and our branch of RepRap-derived firmware). So the software is already in public. The electronics are also in public, we will keep adding boards as we design them and even publish ‘in progress’ ones. These have been posted on the RepRap wiki and our own wiki has links pointing to those files too. To ensure that more people are aware of them some of it is also posted on Thingiverse. I hope that this clears up some things
Thanks Eric, of course I completely understand you wanting to get some return on you investments before you release the plans. I love that way you practice what you preach in your talks and dissertation, it’s really inspiring to see how all of your hard work pays off, largely because of the great community around this project. I’m referring to your work in the proposal for my graduation project, relating to the rise of home manufacturing you show.
I’m looking forward to the release and hope to see many Ultimakers pop up around me in the next few months! By the way, will I see you at the fabtafel next wednesday? I’m not sure about your involvement within the FabLab community but I’d love to see Ultimaker becoming a de-facto standard in labs around the country.
I ordered one! Excited!
Will you guys host a forum on this site? I would recommend so; even though there are may 3d-print forums around, it would be nice to have one that keeps focus on this product.
Congrats on obtaining early place in the line!
We will host a forum or work with the existing RepRap forums… because we want to benefit each other. It’s not decided yet. You have a point, it’s more clear and intuitive for people to have a forum that is specifically about the Ultimaker only.
I wouldn’t go with the RepRap forums, I expect you’ll -partly- attract a completely new audience with this product. They’ll have no idea what RepRap is about and the topics about machine improvements will confuse them. They just want to print stuff, not (yet) improve the equipment.
I agree a forum is needed, talk about problems and solutions and improvements will be usefull to most.
I don’t think improvements will be confusing as long as those are in a sub forum.
i’d suggest these categories, and not much else (would be to fragmented otherwise, since tere aren’t that many people with an ultimaker yet)
- general ultimaker discussions
printing tips to what to print where to get PLA or ABS etc.
- ultimaker troubleshooting forum
- ultimaker modding forum.
these could all be in a sub forum of the reprap forums… as long as the link from the ultimaker site leads directly to these categories having a bigger forum when you start to look around shouldn’t hurt too much.
BTW, anyone else in amsterdam getting an ultimaker?
@ Robin and Matthijs: We’ve just set up a Google Group. It’s nice that it’s somewhere between a mailing list and a forum. Great, ’cause people never seem to agree on what is best.
https://groups.google.com/group/ultimaker
There’s not a lot of discussion yet, but that’s because we haven’t shipped final versions of the machine yet. Some problems that are discussed (heating up of stepper drivers) have been addressed very well in the version that will be shipped.
@ Robin: I know that people from “Waag Society” are getting one or two of them. We received one order from them already.
Wow! Congrats, guys!!
I am soooo close to pushing that Buy button..
Arg.. That payment thing you guys use wants to verify my US address because the price > 1000. I want instant gratification – waiting for a letter in the post is not instant!! I guess I’ll wait until I get home and can dig up my paypal info..
Any photo examples of Ultimaker doing high resolution prints? The lowest layer thickness I’ve seen is 0.25mm. Can you get it down to 0.15mm or 0.10mm (or lower!) and post pictures?
Hi Dave,
I believe that Martijn has done some prints of 0.20 mm and perhaps even one of less. The knot that was printed in the “fast travel” video is printed at 0.1 mm, IIRC. This does take ages to print and there’s more risk of delamination. However with the PLA we provide this is much less of an issue. Maybe we’ll find time to post a picture, but I hope this answer is already somewhat helpful.
> I hope this answer is already somewhat helpful.
Yes, it was. Thanks, Erik!
I guess the question was more about the Z screw pitch and the Z stepper. If it’s happy about moving at 0.1mm (or smaller) then I’m not too worried about talking the software into it. Looking to break my cupcake record of 0.08mm layer height!
I see, well the stepper drivers are 1/16th and the tapezoid leadscrew pitch is 3mm. The motors are 1.8deg. or 200 steps, so 0.001 mm is also theoretically possible if you feel like a challenge.
Note that there are also records to break in terms of the dimensions of your prints. The UM volume is even bigger than the uPrint
0.001mm? :O I’m not THAT much of a glutton for punishment..
Hey, it’s been well over 4-6 hours since I ordered.. WTH? Where’s my tracking number??
Are you planning to have a US distributor? Will you be selling the Ultimaker at MakerFaire in San Francisco in the US?
A U.S. seller would be nice, because I stopped ordering when the shipping calculation for 1 kit + 1 spool plastic = over $200. (That was to the San Francisco Bay Area).
We have to make a start first. The 2.3Kg spools are big and we are working on 1kg spools with our plastic supplier. Hope we can offer these soon.
Are you sure that’s correct? I can’t get shipping to go THAT high. And you could order the consumables separately from other source. You can already start printing with the PLA that we supply with the machine. Without a 2.3 kg reel it’s actually ‘only’ 124 euros or $165 shipping. The reels themselves are 3.0 kg with the 2.3+ kg plastic, so they do indeed add considerably to shipping for long distances. We might have 1 kg quantities at some point, because we know a 2.3 kg roll is quite an investment for printing for a LONG time and it’s more fun to have several colors anyway.
Anyway, I hope this clears things up.
I didn’t get an answer to either question. Are you planning to add a US distributor (if so, when) and will you be selling kits at MakerFaire (which I highly recommend you do. MakerBot and others will be there).
Mike, sorry, we need some time to think about this.
Makerfair is still high on my bucket list. It would be a great trip for us to make, but we’ll really have to see if it’s possible so soon. We have a lot of work on our hands to make sure everyone who orders one will be happily printing as soon as possible!
I just double-checked. You’re right, without the plastic, shipping is $165. With the plastic, $190. Still, it’s enough to give me pause, especially since the cost of the kit is beyond what I can justify for my hobbyist intentions.
If we were to buy one at Maker Faire I assume we’d have to pay San Mateo County sales tax, which would be $142 or so. That doesn’t solve my problem, but Mike might have a different reason for asking.
You could always buy the plastic from a US seller. Is the spool the same as the ones sold by makerbot? Or you could buy without the spool to save a few more $.
I am so spoiled here in Oregon with no sales tax that I forget that the rest of the country is cursed.
You’re right, buying one at the show won’t help on price, but it will allow me to compare it with all the other kits at the show.
Ah evil! Evil! I succumbed to temptation and pulled the trigger.
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Sweet, I’m ordering one on the weekend! Just one question, what kind of power supply does it use? Since in Australia we use different plugs to USA, GB and Europe… Is it just a standard ATX power supply, where the cord can be put in?
Thanks and great work mate!
Daniel
It uses a standard laptop power supply, you can use a standard power cord like in a PC’s ATX supply (it’s called type IEC C13/C14).
Not sure if you’ve got an easy way to do it, but you might want to see about making the website pull the Euro to Dollar exchange rate from somewhere. I just placed an order and the amount Paypal charged vs. what your website said was about $200 difference today.
Also, I forgot to select the type of power cord I wanted when I added it to my cart. I’m assuming the “standard power cord” referred to above needs an IEC C13 connector on the end that plugs into the power supply? If not can I get a power cord, please?
I have a question concerning the kits. Once they are shipped will they be shipped with instructions or will the instructions will be added to the wiki? Just curious. I am so excited to place my order! Thank you soooo much.
Hi Bradley,
Nice to see you share our excitement!
We’ve been working on the wiki documentation a lot. Here’s part 1. They’re almost complete now, but we want to refine the a lot more before the kits arrive at people’s doorsteps. I’ve gotten several CAD lessons to make renderings and exploded views, so I’ll be making the docs better over the next two weeks. Feel free to comment on them already! Also note that there’s a full 3D model on the wiki, at the User contributions section. We’ve already made improvements after that model was made, still it allows you to really inspect the machine in much more detail!
Happy anniversary, blog post!! Wow.. 4 weeks old already!
I know you guys are crazy busy but… any updates? Still on schedule? Getting close to shipping??
Yeah, I’d like to know too
How close are these to shipping? My thingomatic needs a friend, but I’d like to hear some success stories before placing my order.
Does DHL work as a customs broker for shipments to Australia (I’d rather not have to do the paperwork myself).
I’m really looking forward to purchase an Ultimaker:). I have been involved with the build of two Mendel Printers (the cabfablab mendel, and for the Hague university), so I have some experience with open source printers
. I was wondering how much PLA is supplied with the printer and if the Blue LED’s (wich look awsome by the way haha)wich light up the print area are a standard in this Beta kit. Thanks in advance.
Hi ThomasZ,
All RepRappers are welcome on board! We’ll supply some pieces of different colors, probably 100 grams in total. Perhaps a little more. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we also stock smaller quantities (0.75 kg) on a spindle now at a very nice price. You could order various colors. Right now we have green, white, black and silver in stock. The silver one really looks very nice. E.g. see this picture.
Whoops, about the LED’s, it’s included, I read over it. But I’m still curious about the PLA though.
I live in the Netherlands and would be interested in buying an Ultimaker but … nowhere I can find the price and costs! And what if I don’t want to use a transporter but get it myself from an adress somewhere in the Netherlands? Is that possible?
regards,
Peter
It’s in the top menu, or use this link
I still would like to know when you’re shipping the “gold” version (non-beta, if any) of the ultimaker. The shop is still pointing out that it is a pre-order and in Beta.
And I would like to know the answer to Peters question about if you can pick it up at a specified location and will this shorten the delivery time?
Thanks in advance,
Thomas
Hi
Do you ship to South Africa and how much for shipping?
Regards
Rkid
I am from HK, I cannot register. It asks for an EU VAT number.
From outside the EU you don’t need to pay EU VAT (Value Added Tax). You should be able to sign up without filling in the VAT field…