At Ultimaker, we believe in the value of openness, collaboration, and accessibility. That is why today, one year after the original product release, we are making the hardware designs for the Ultimaker 3 and Ultimaker 3 Extended available.
Our community has proven to be an invaluable asset for Ultimaker. By sharing knowledge, we are committed to pushing boundaries together: sharing allows us to develop better products, and in the past has been a significant help for both us and our users.
The public release of Ultimaker 2 mechanical designs allowed Anders Olsson to develop custom swappable nozzles for the Ultimaker 2, which he used to print with abrasive materials for his research projects. This lead to the community-developed Olsson Block add-on, a highly desirable modification for the Ultimaker 2 user base.
Our widely-used print preparation software Ultimaker Cura is another example of successful collaboration. With over one million users worldwide, we work with our community to assist not only with development, but to maintain a high-quality user experience by reporting bugs, developing new features, and experimenting, so that each new release is better than the last.
We prefer to keep our products open, and have already released repositories with the files for the Ultimaker Original and Original+, Heated Bed Upgrade, Ultimaker 2 and Ultimaker 2+ series.
Ultimaker 3 hardware and electronics files released
The Ultimaker 3 line of products are our most advanced printers to date, and producing them has required a significant amount of research and development effort. Our decision to release the designs after one year was made in order to minimize our business risks and match our development investment, while still allowing our users to benefit from our research and development after this phase.
By sharing these files, we are giving users the opportunity to modify the hardware of each machine and develop their own adjustments as they see fit. As with previous products, the files are shared in our Github repository. Mechanical files are released under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Licence, and electronics files are released under the GPL2 License. All files are released in a .STEP format so that they can be recognized by a range of CAD software packages, and a complete bill of materials is included.
In a rapidly changing 3D printing user landscape, we do our best to decide which license fits best for each of our products. While every product is different, we are always striving to find the best approach within what we think is right and that will benefit us and our users.
Files for the Ultimaker 3 are located here.
Files for the Ultimaker 3 Extended are located here.
As always, we want to hear what you think, so join the discussion on our forum and tell us your thoughts.
