A list of my A350 defects

1

As my on here know, I have been down for about a month because of a linear rail issue. During that time I have been going over every part of this device checking for other issues. This is what I have found;

3 linear rails without silicone pads
1 linear rail with a bad limit switch
3dp head with stripped screw (one that holds a heat sink in place)
Camera in laser module seems to only connect 1/2 the time (seems to be a wifi issue… if its close to the main board it works when it gets further away it stops)

I still have yet to test the spindle because of the linear rail issues.

@JKC20, @Edwin @staff what is going on with this? I have been emailing support for a month with no response(besides the automated ones). How can I continue to support Snapmaker when all I’m having is issues with your QA and support!?

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Good Grief! you have been much more patient than I would have been Adam. If some person does not respond soon with the appropriate help, I would opt to cut my losses and ask for a refund. I cannot understand why anyone should think this is acceptable conduct, least of all a company that took over 7 million dollars from its Kickstarter campaigns.

What say you @Rainie, @hyeii, @JKC20, @Edwin, @parachvte and @staff ???
You have lost me as a customer and as a proponent for Snapmaker, which I was previously. Here you are on the verge of losing another customer in @Atom. Such rudeness is far beyond normal business practice. It has dragged your company down to the level of a casual market trader in my own eyes.

You may remember that this is precisely where I had started with your products… the complete lack of response or communication from your UK agents. It was @hyeii who finally managed to assist me after that very kind intervention by @doug in these forums.

Will someone (anyone) in the company please wake up now! Assisting all of your customers with problems that were caused by your own inefficiencies is a matter of urgency. You cannot just take the money and run. Hire the staff you need to work efficiently and take care of the business. There is much work to do if you are to save the business and salvage your company’s reputation.

Outsourcing must be managed competently. Where suppliers cannot meet your own high standards of manufacture, dump them and hire a company that can make your parts to the standards which you do. The linear module fiasco is incredibly damaging to YOUR reputation as a company. It does not damage the reputation of the company to which you outsourced the linear modules or their people by one iota. It is that company that did not follow the manufacturing instructions, guidelines and tolerances which you laid down. Nevertheless, we will never hear about them and know which company to avoid. The fallout will be entirely on the corporate shoulders of Snapmaker.

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Hi Jeff (@Rainie , @hyeii , @JKC20 , @Edwin, @parachvte and @staff)

I have watched the number of complaints rising about the lack of communication and I agree with you.

A major effort is required from Snapmaker to communicate with users; improve support reporting and monitoring processes and have published service levels.

Any further delays to communication will severely damage the reputation of their business and reduce or stop future sales.

It is a growing pain that a new business cannot afford to have. I realise that COVID-19 and supply chain issues have caused challenges for the business however that does excuse poor and negligent communications.

Dear Snapmaker please make a big effort to improve your communication with your user community…

Doug

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Thank you both for your support, @JKC20 did respond to me in another post:

We shall see if they take the proper course of actions to resolve this issue. And I hope they realize that they are running their company into the ground.

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Adam @Atom @jepho @Rainie

It is a common error of new businesses to fall back internally to make a great effort to fix their operational/quality/supply issues… and they forget to be open and honest and communicate more and let clients know what is happening.

I hope that Snapmaker can get past this problem to develop and grow a unique and interesting product line.

Doug

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Just to be clear… It is bad enough they can take a week to respond to an initial request. But when they abruptly stop communication it is so much worse… I put a ticket in on September 21st, and had communication that identified the problem then silence for over 3 weeks! See below:

Hide quoted text

On Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 7:04 AM Adam Abbott adam.lee.abbott@gmail.com wrote:
Potter,

Here is the picture, as you can see there is a pretty bad kink in the wire but other than that it is all complete, plugged in, and looks fine.

My shipping address is:

My house
Grand Rapids, MI 49508

Phone number:
Xxx xxx xxxx

Thank you,
-Atom

On Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 6:11 AM Potter (Snapmaker Support) support@snapmaker.zendesk.com wrote:
##- Please type your reply above this line -##
Your request (47507) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.

Potter (Snapmaker)

Sep 23, 2020, 18:11 GMT+8

Hi Atom,

Thanks for your reply.

I could see the status of the x_max is Open. The limit switch does not work in this case. Please open the linear module from the motor end and have a check of the limit switch cable.

​

If the cable is connected with no problems but the problem persists, I’ll submit a request for a new linear module. Please send me the shipping address and the phone number in this case.

Looking forward to your reply.
Best regards,
Potter

To be clear I have changed the phone and address for my privacy… but that was the last communication I received on September 23rd… promising that they would send a new rail if the requested picture did not show an issue… then silence… still silence… the silence is maddening I tell you!!

:slight_smile:

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I guess… :thinking: I am less willing than you (you are obviously a nice person) to let new business be the explanation for all that has transpired. The money raising began in 2016 and the company must have considered its needs for a corporate structure way back then.

Whatever about the technical issues surrounding design decisions and the outsourcing of parts manufacture along with all of the necessary QA processes, the company’s poor grasp of basic communication and the necessity for keeping people in the loop and informed, is very frustrating.

This has to be viewed against the backdrop of personal investment. This will be in the order of $2,000 per person who has purchased the A350. It is a lot of money to lend to a company for an indeterminate period of time and then when the purchased product finally appears, it is not just one extreme example of one rogue product. The product exhibits several faults (QA should have caught them before the machine was dispatched) that are being reported by several other users. That has got to take the shine off of the investment.

Riling up their user base, as well as turning away potential customers, is not an appropriate company policy, if the company are to flourish. The prevarication and cryptic messages sent rather late to Facebook (and not the forum) is a completely mystifying move.

As stated elsewhere… a company comprises individual people and it is people (not corporate entities) that create the interface between companies and their customers. It is people who are the glue that keeps the customers coming back to the company for their needs.

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8

I think SM needs to send you an entirely new printer. I have never heard of a company asking their customer to perform diagnostics and maintenance on a brand new product that arrives defective; let alone a $1,800 product. I am sorry to say that you complying and letting them simply send you minimal parts for repair is enabling them too. They should think twice before sending defective products, it should cost them money. It’s one thing if you wanna disassemble and inspect YOUR components provided SM does not need them as proof of defect, but they sold a SM-A350, not a linear module, what they owe you is a working SM-A350.

If you are gonna be doing this sorta diagnostic work for Snapmaker you should at least be getting paid for it. You’re making it hard for the rest of us engineers to get work when you’re giving it away for free to companies that walk all over you. Just sayin - you’re being nice enough to do all this (honestly very professional) work for free, and they don’t even care to respond back to you…

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9

I have to say that I don’t agree with this and I suspect that the difference lies in expectations.

I’m approaching this as a research and development project. I’m expecting to get my hands dirty and if SM is attempting to diagnose a problem from the other side of the world, I’m expecting to provide it with as much information and assistance as I can supply.

I ordered my A350 knowing that it was a pre-release, first version product from a start-up company transitioning into its second product and I’m expecting that hardware, software and processes will be under review and revision.

I also harbour no illusions that this is the manufacturing equivalent of a photocopier and that much of the effort in me producing something useful will depend on my own abilities to learn and gather a moderate understanding of manufacturing.

I don’t think that it’s unreasonable for SM to ask for diagnostics, especially since many of the issues I’ve seen described on this forum come down to incorrect assembly or calibration.

I acknowledge that not all issues fall in those categories, but I’m willing to help SM determine what the underlying issues might be.

I say this within the context of running my own business, needing to generate income from my time and wanting to explore local on demand manufacturing that is possible with devices like the A350.

I would expect that if I make a mistake that SM will supply me with replacement parts at a reasonable charge and that if they discover an issue caused by them that they supply replacement parts in a timely manner.

So far that appears to be the case by enlarge, some support cases notwithstanding.

Onno

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My expectations lie somewhere in the middle. I have no issue helping to diagnose issues because having lived in japan, I understand how expensive shipping items back and forth across the globe can be. That said I expect not to be asked do any real repairs on new equipment, I’ll plug in a loose wire or tighten a screw but I will not install thermal pads or tap screw holes (even though I probably could). I want my machine working so I will take the quickest reasonable path to that end. However I do expect that if I damage something in the process of diagnosing an issue (for instance I fail to observe proper wire placement and cut a wire while reassembling a linear rail) i expect that to still be covered under the warranty and a replacement be sent at no charge. After all in that situation I would be servicing equipment under the guidance of the manufacturer and effectively acting as their agent.

Regardless I feel that it is ridiculous that service takes at long as it has been. Especially when asked to perform a simple diagnostic step(such as enter a console command and send a picture of the result). I send the response 15 minutes after being asked to do so, yet a response from support takes DAYS. That is unacceptable.

Lastly, for the record I have still not received any further communication from SM, 5 weeks and counting with a very expensive paper weight and no end in sight :rage:

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Wow @Atom I guess now I understand how you have the time to answer everyone’s posts — it’s because you can’t print! I think I would fall into your category in terms of patience, but I’m just glad to see an adult and realistic conversation about this very frustrating topic.

Facebook on the other hand…I play in both communities, but I know where the real answers come from.

The A350 was my first snapmaker purchase, and I am still quite satisfied despite the software and firmware bugs and missing features. But I have not experienced any hardware issues.

Hang in there, hope they get back to you soon! I really want this company to succeed!

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LOL i’m actually printing an MPCNC on my ender 3 right now. so i’m not totally out of the game. just running at half capacity XD

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I agree, my post was expectations vs reality, there is always a discrepancy. What I wrote is what SM SHOULD be doing for it’s customers, exactly what most companies would do. What is happening is a lot less; I am extremely mechanically and electronically capable. That does not mean I give my services away for free, let alone pay 2 grand so I can fix their problem on my new “top tier machine”.

I greatly appreciate you being on these forums Atom, I think the information you provide is some of the most valuable, hence why I think your time is worth more than being wasted by SM. It is just unfortunate I suppose, there isn’t much we can do despite things going the wrong direction.

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so here is an update for anyone who would like to know.

@Edwin has taken over my suppot case and says they will replace the rail with the bad limit switch. GREAT!!

however he also said that apparently me checking to see if my linear rails had thermal pads (3 did not) in an effort to make sure that their product did not burn my house down and potentially kill my wife, two children and myself. voided the warranty. I think i will be filing a claim with the Federal Trade Commission and the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network. i do this because while i understand mistakes happen and no production is perfect. the idea that they expect you to wait until your SM2 literally catches on fire before you can get a known defect with major safety concerns addressed is criminal.

I STRONGLY URGE ANYONE WHO HAS HAD A LINEAR RAIL BURN UP FILL OUT A FORM. for those is the USA here is the FTC site: report for safety concerns
for those in both in the USA and in other countries, here is the website: econsumer.gov website for reporting international product concerns.

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'kinell… you are one very patient man, Adam. I hope all is well with you otherwise. I will put some pix for you on e-mail probably tomorrow after I have assembled my new Shapeoko machine. :wave: :wink:

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i cant wait to see it!, i will reply with some pics of my MPCNC that i’m building to replace this pile of…

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I would point out to @Edwin that under support on the SM website that there are at least two articles (both of them authored by him) telling you to take apart your rails to check things:

https://support.snapmaker.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051985253-What-should-I-do-if-some-linear-modules-stop-working-randomly-

-S

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18

apparently they decided i was causing enough of a ruckus. Edwin is authorizing full replacements for all 4 rails, the 3d print head and laser head.

now just to wait for it to ship.

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19

:drum: :loudspeaker: :mega: :rofl: :grin:

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20

about time.

(and this line just because my post has to be 20 characters)

-S

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