- FormFutura ApolloX (all colors)
- FormFutura BVOH
- FormFutura PythonFlex
- FormFutura CrystalFlex
- FormFutura HDglass PETG
- Luvocom PAHT 9933BK
- FormFutura Helios PVA (I switched all soluble support to BVOH, which is much more reliable and no clogging any more.)
There is a FormFutura ApolloX listed on the marketplace, but that one is STILL not supporting material station properly, because it misses color and additional material profile settings. So choose this one and you should be fine.
ApolloX prints as easy as PLA, but is much more robust and perfectly suited for practical parts and outdoor use as it is water resistant, UV resistant and doesnt bend under the heat of the sun. The really only tradeoff is weaker interlayer adhesion.
- ASA Materials are updated and tested with Ultimaker S3/S5 Firmware 8.2.x+ and Cura 5.5.x+
- The marketplace delivered ApolloX profiles are still as of v2.0.0 only providing the bare minimum, and have not been tuned for colors, material station, robustness, dimensional stability and more. These profiles here are tuned for practical-use parts, with higher temperature for higher layer adhesion, and dimensional correctness also for larger prints. It is still super easy to print with Dimafix (or similar) in place.
Forget PVA, BVOH is so much better more than justifying the higher price. Prints easier, didnt clog so far my BB 0.4, dissolves much quicker than PVA in warm water. Can be combined with many filaments, including ASA - my favorite material. Had so much of clogging issues with original Ultimaker PVA that i stopped using PVA entirely. Had then issues with FormFutura Helios PVA too.
The biggest benefits of this Nylon material is much stronger inter-layer adhesion than ApolloX. Also it does not warp compared to other nylons. Prints well on Dimafix. Also it is fairly heat resistant.
This material is also available on the marketplace, but not optimized enough. Especially printing with 0.8mm Nozzle for larger parts caused lots of stringing. The profile lowered print temperature and increased retraction to reduce stringing. Drying the material upfront (12h 70°, or 4h 100°) is mandatory.
I learned the hard way, that this material strongly deforms in outdoor use, rendering it unusable. ApolloX is still my favorite outdoor use material. However, I plan to test Durabio next, which is a PC/PMMA material that is UV resistant.
FormFutura switched from plastic to cardboard spools recently. Great for environment, but problematic with Ultimaker spool holder, as the spools get stuck. This cardboard spool adapter for Ultimaker S3 and S5 will make it work again and uses little plastic. Printing two of these adapters solves the problem.
https://grabcad.com/library/formfutura-cardboard-spool-adapter-for-ultimaker-s3-and-s5-1
This tool allows to manage material profiles on Ultimaker S3/S5/S5/S7/ProBundle printers. It can be used to import, export, delete and list material profiles.
as of Cura 4.5 and S5 Firmware 5.5.12.20200226 there is no color information displayed with materials. this is ok for NFC based ultimaker material with color auto-detection, but not when manually assigning a 3rd party material to a material station bay.
The workaround for now is to turn every color variant into a unique material. This is what i did here for e.g. with ApolloX material.
This is not nice as color info is now shown duplicate, but however, when importing those material profiles into cura, it all works fine.
and finally it looks then like this when you have the material station. A mix of Ultimaker and FormFutura materials installed.
NOTE: you can import these profiles into Cura and Cura will send the materials to Ultimaker S5 on the next restart of Cura. this way you do not need to use the python script to upload the profiles into the printer. But for listing installed materials and for deleting material profiles from the printer this tool is very handy.
Uploading filament profiles via REST API to printer to add custom print profiles. e.g. I wanted that ASA (FormFutura ApolloX) and high-temperature PVA (FormFuture Helios) is selectable in the touch display.
Therefore use the python tool (tested with Python 3.7+) ums5material.py
git clone https://github.com/flyinggorilla/ultimaker-s5.git
python -m pip install requests
python -m pip install untangle
python -m pip install pyyaml
python ums5material.py
note: on Linux you might need to use python3 instead.
Usage: ums5material.py [options] [ultimaker-url] [material-filename]
Options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-f FILE, --file=FILE Ultimaker S5 material XML file
-u, --update udpate to printer
-l, --list List materials on Ultimaker S5, provide optional
--filter string
-F FILTER, --filter=FILTER
Filters listed materials filter string
-g <guid>, --guid=<guid>
GUID of material
-a <id>:<key>, --auth=<id>:<key>
digest authentication
-s, --storeconfig store given host and authentication information to
config file.
-C, --createauth create ID:KEY authentication credentials
writing/deleting materials. Please make sure to accept
authorization request on Ultimaker S5 printer display.
-v, --verifyauth Verify whether authentication against Ultimaker S5
REST api succeeds with provided ID/KEY.
-d, --delete delete material from printer with -g GUID or guid is
extracted from material xml file
option -l allows to list all installed materials. Option -s allows to store the hostname of Ultimaker S5 in the ums5material.config.yaml file so you dont have to retype it.
python ums5material.py -l -s http://ultimaker.local
an optional filter can be used with -F. in this example I query for installed FormFutura materials. Note that the Ultimaker S5 hostname/url is already automatically retrieved from the .config.yaml file.
python ums5material.py -l -F FormFutura
results in this example output...
Material: FormFutura, Helios, Helios PVA, Natural, 5905b419-3c22-4530-aa64-eb8153b16e6e
Material: FormFutura, PythonFlex, PythonFlex TPU, Clear, 1ef7aea6-5634-4fc3-8d60-a04fcafe9ed5
Material: FormFutura, PETG, HDglass, , ff6aaf9e-3fb0-420a-bd05-7a652eefeb80
Material: FormFutura, PythonFlex TPU, , Generic, 57d328ec-9b30-4c88-9158-7004035cd9d6
Material: FormFutura, ApolloX, ApolloX ASA, , e2383de0-2913-4777-b0f3-a03767d96529
Material: FormFutura, ASA, ApolloX, black, c99377f5-fbb4-4c3b-8f91-7a1d2c32e44f
Material: FormFutura, CrystalFlex, CrystalFlex SBC, Clear, a740135c-f874-4a14-99eb-15a04353d268
Material: FormFutura, Atlas, Atlas PVA, Natural, dd96bf72-866b-4770-b23e-e800e10e8cfa
modifying on-printer materials requires to have a token with proper permissions granted. you can use ums5material.py to create such a id/key token. You need to do this only once.
The option -s will store the ID/KEY credentials automatically in ums5material.config.yaml file so you dont need to type it for later use:
python ums5material.py -C -s
Keys generated: ID:KEY=8e54c3d79f35746547f06b9fd416d352:fa88da37b100807a7269d84a97381e4e6a8791191756f79dc28aa67c3bc7a382 200 {"id": "8e54c3d79f35746547f06b9fd416d352", "key": "fa88da37b100807a7269d84a97381e4e6a8791191756f79dc28aa67c3bc7a382"}
Please accept request on Ultimaker S5 display for application "ums5material.py" and user "flyinggorilla" to use keys.
Now you have write access to upload and delete materials.
But before you do this, ensure that your .xml.fdm_material file has a unique GUID, so especially when you manually copy an fdm_material you need to change the GUID. you can create GUIDs online on several sites, like the one here: https://www.guidgenerator.com
so your .xml.fdm_material should be updated like this...
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<fdmmaterial version="1.3"
xmlns="http://www.ultimaker.com/material">
<metadata>
<name>
<brand>FormFutura</brand>
<material>PythonFlex</material>
<color> </color>
<!-- <label>Black PythonFlex TPU</label> -->
</name>
<GUID>57d328ec-9b30-4c88-9158-7004035cd9d6</GUID>
<!-- <color_code>#000000</color_code> -->
<compatible>True</compatible>
<definition>fdmprinter</definition>
<version>9</version>
...
...
so the following command will upload the new material. Note that the material will be overridden if it existed before
python ums5material.py -u FormFutura_PythonFlex_Generic.xml.fdm_material
Material filename: FormFutura_PythonFlex_Generic.xml.fdm_material
Contacting Ultimaker S5 at ultimaker.local with ID 082fba70255a02de03eb431c2dce774c
Material found: FormFutura PythonFlex PythonFlex TPU Generic 57d328ec-9b30-4c88-9158-7004035cd9d6
Deleted FormFutura_PythonFlex_Generic.xml.fdm_material: 200 {"message": "Remove successful", "result": true}
Posted FormFutura_PythonFlex_Generic.xml.fdm_material: 200 {"message": "Material profile stored", "result": true}
Note that the .dfm_material definitions with color information are good for Cura import. For the Ultimaker S5 printer display you should generate a Generic profile that has a single space character as <color> </color> definition. So you dont need to send the color versions to the printer.