In The Shed: Shiny! New! Ultimaker 2!

The Ultimaker 2 just arrived in the Maker Shed!

With its shiny new look and softly glowing LED illuminated frosted panels, the Ultimaker 2 is sure to look great on your desk or workbench. It’s got a nice big build volume of 8.9″ x 8.9″ X 8.1″ with a heated glass bed that prints just pop right off of, once it cools down. Print in ABS or PLA. With the newly redesigned direct drive extruder, the retraction is quick and quiet and heats up fast; 220°C in 1 minute. Its dual duct fans cool PLA parts well and produce nicely structured overhangs. It also has a sexy new OLED screen and redesigned integrated controls for untethered printing.

Keeping It Open Source

Ultimaker has consistently been at the forefront of the desktop 3D printing world and is still “keeping it open source.” The company has a solid track record of published open software and firmware updates and a complete release of the Ultimaker BOM. Although they have not yet released the plans for the Ultimaker 2 (the electronics have been partially released), they have pledged to do so and will post them in their GitHub repo. Watch the repo to see when the files go live.

Go Cura, Go!

CuraEngine, the slicer used by the Ultimaker 2, is crazy fast. It automatically re-slices as soon as a change is made to a model loaded into Cura, Ultimaker’s intuitive and beautiful integrated printer control and slicing software. Ultimaker consistently provides regular software updates for both their Cura and the Ultimaker firmware used to run the machine.

Getting Better All The Time

In fact, the firmware has already been improved since MAKE’s review (we reviewed a “pre-release” version for our testing). Our 2014 Ultimate Guide to 3D Printing tester Eric Chu stated, “The Ultimaker 2’s hardware and software updates make it a real contender for the prosumer crown.”

This latest firmware update could push it into first place.

At $2,599.00, she’s pricy, but you get what you pay for. The Ultimaker 2 is a solid machine. Get yours from The Shed while they last!

See all of our Shed picks here.