,

banner perso

Some links about me. Many of my 3D designs are free. I also post on Google+ and in another blog, oz4.us
review (32) general (26) issue (16) mechanical (16) replacement (14) software (13) addon (12) bowden tube (10) business (10) consumables (10) heat (10) feeder (8) hot end (8) weird (7) motor (6) off-topic (6) trick (6) electric (4) bed (3) cnc (2)

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Presenting my eBay Ultimaker clone (part 1)

The Ultimaker I bought proved to be a (nice) clone !

I bought what was abusively called an Ultimaker on eBay on March, 2012.
ultimaker
In fact the printer I got was an illegal clone of the "real" Ultimaker, made by a Chinese guy and sold on eBay, that he later renamed to a blue-painted clone name before he went out of business.

Still, there where a few differences with the original printer (mostly the head). So this post about my printer may help re-injected some tips into the open hardware community.  Moreover, he does not seem to be selling printers anymore, so I will probably not harm the real and only Ultimaker you should buy ! Seriously, do not come and ask for support from the "good guys" if ever you bought a clone, this is not fair at all. I am far from certain that you would get support with low-cost clones so you would better go with something reliable in the first place.

To make it clear: even though the seller proved to be reliable, talkative and he did know his stuff, I suggest you read the related ultimaker forum discussion. Until then I did not fully realized that "open hardware" does not mean you could legally reuse brand names like this !




The pity was that the official Ultimaker shop delivery was both very slow and quite expensive at the time. So I went the risky eBay way, as I really wanted one in less than 3-6 weeks. This seems to be a constant for all of the 3D printer companies though, not speaking about big ones of course.

Warning for French customers though : I did pay a lot for the customs (hey for once, it was not labelled as a gift!). This resulted in the same overall price I would have had with the official UM in the end (less a few nice changes). Anyhow the price was not my motivation in the first place, and I was prepared not to get any support (which I still got though).

Initial specifications as advertised (and checked!)

  • Ultimaker v1.5.4 (Arduino Mega 2560, see also the pins)
  • 4 quiet, but strong stepper motors (NEMA 17 standard) with A4988 Pololu based StepStick stepper driver
  • Assembled printhead including (Cutom machined 0.4mm nozzle, thermocouple, heater-cartridge heats within 2minutes, thermocuple PCB).
  • Bowden cable (PFA, more robust than PTFE)
  • 3M/Scotch Blue tape
  • 3mm thick PLA filament (1kg - random color)
  • Power: 110V-240V operation, 50-60Hz - 120W - 19V output.
As said: "The print head design uses a special ceramic heater cartridge, which is reliable, durable and heats within 2minutes. The design does not use nichrome-wire. The entire come assembled. Also, it uses a glass filled injection moulded PEEK thermal barrier, that is more stable at high temperatures.". In case it is useful to the community...
Reliability proved true by the way. I also was sent another spare PEEK + aluminium heating block + aluminium plate, that I never had to use yet. As the peek is already locked/made into its hole, I cannot not use it as a secondary nozzle. It would have been cool.

The "random" filament color proved to be an awful pink. And I got heavy spool of it...

Strangely this color turns quite differently on pictures according to the ambient light. I suspect it has a special wavelength that the camera does not process correctly. The filament is of good quality and the spool itself is a sturdy piece of clipped plastic that I will reuse for sure (just the diameter was not the standard UM one). Shortly after, the seller switched to another kind of filament in his eBay shop, with metal/cardboard spool that features a colored 3Dfabster logo. I suspect he either sells them the filament, or this is another copyright infringement. Though the plastic is still very good, I will switch to another closer, more regular, European seller.

Assembly

assembly_parts
Most of the printer, including the logo came from the standard laser cut definition, so I could follow the official ultimaker wiki (a bit of a shame considering the work that was done there!).

I recorded a timelapse video of my assembly of the printer. It took me about 10 hours, even though I consider myself an amateur and enthusiast craftsman. I then spent another 15-30 hours to make it print correctly.

This is long but it was not unexpected. And I took my time so I could do it nicely. Nice experience in any case.


The improved hot head compared to that of a V.1 Ultimaker

Check this on a this specific post.


No comments:

Post a Comment