On first impression, you’d be forgiven for thinking that not a lot has changed on the new Ultimaker 2+. But on closer inspection you’ll find that there have been 3 major ugrades along with a few less obvious ones also.
Lets start with the main upgrade, or at least what I’d consider to be so. The new geared feeder.
On the old Ultimaker 2, we had a few issues arise with customers having trouble with the incorrect tension in the feeder mechanism. Filament would get tangled and chewed up from time to time and be a bit of a pain especially on long prints or when using less straight forward materials. But with the new geared feeder on the Ultimaker 2+ this is set to be a thing of the past. At first glance you can see that the whole feeder has been beefed up and is quite a bit larger than it’s predecessors. The tension indicator is also set to the middle position rather than being right at the top (highest tension) this allows you to apply more tension if you require it. Especially useful for flexible materials such as NinjaFlex. The New feeder also includes a quick release lever for releasing all of the tension on the feeder if you need to remove any material. On internal inspection the new geared feeder has a more substation knurled gear that is securely fixed to the driving stepper motor.
The second improvement that’s worth noting is the new print head, the obvious change is that there is a new interchangeable nozzle that allows you to switch between diameters. This is ideal if you are looking to print larger items with less details, reducing the print time dramatically by using a larger diameter nozzle. Likewise you can reduce the nozzle diameter to print precise detail.
You’ve also got improvements to the heating of the hot end and a new PTFE Coupler, this is now made from a different material and should help prolong the life of a part that tended to be the cause of blockages in the previous model.
Visually you will also notice that there is a new fan bracket on the print head, the angle at which the air is directed has changed and as a result it has optimised the airflow to give better result on prints. This being the third major upgrade on the Ultimaker 2+.
Check out our comparison video below for a more detailed look at the Ultimaker 2 and Ultimaker 2+ side by side: