Looks like the public roadmap hasn’t been touched in five months… While it looks like some of the projected targets for summer 2021 have been hit (air purifier), some appear to be in perpetual limbo (linear module improvement, dual extruder, and power supply noise optimization). Frankly, I’ve been waiting to buy the Snapmaker 2.0 until they at least got the linear module and power supply noise issues resolved. I check back every month and see… no progress. Is this an indicator of how the company operates? If so, it doesn’t inspire confidence.
Yes.
Last post from any staff is weeks ago: https://forum.snapmaker.com/g/staff/activity/posts. Complete radio silence.
Communication could be a lot better.
The roadmap used to be updated, then it wasn’t, then it was again after users reminded them to, and it looks like finally it’s abandoned again.
They’re engineering new things for it. I think you guys expect too much from them.
Enjoy what you got.
i don’t think communication is to much to ask for, seriously it takes to seconds to login and update the progress or even just say no updates at this time…
communication is the one thing lacking in this world, but yet it’s so simple to communicate… Yeah i get it, people don’t like to hear no it’s not ready yet but id much prefer that then nothing. at least you know something is happening.
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I had some communication with support about 5 days ago. They said they hoped to be able to ship new linear modules by the end of this year.
Btw I sent a request 7 days ago about some parts and it is due for delivery tomorrow in Norway. Great support experience!
I guess this is the issue about 3d printing in general - our hobby involves a combination of relatively immature technologies, and it is hard to give a good time estimate for actual R&D.
Dual extruder was very recently pushed out to next year, I guess at least partly also because Luban needs to re-implement quite a few Cura engine components needed for meaningful dual head oriented slicing.
For the stronger laser, as staff keeps pointing out, there are a lot of legal hurdles as to what safety measures need to be in place for this to be able to hit the european and american markets the product targets. Potentially a way ou of this could be that snapmaker releases only a laser housing and controller along with a list of compatible diode assemblies, but customer would need to source these from third party vendors to avoid SN’s liability.
The machine is a very idea that flourished into reality. I dont fear the road map stalled on the 2.0 for good but I feel Snapmaker definitely has “Big Tech” mentality with this company. My biggest fear is the 2.0 sees a few more upgrades before an entirety new machine rolls out. The A500 series. It’s my belief they are focusing a majority of the resources to design and implement sought after 2.0 upgrades for the next model. I hope I’m wrong but folks wanted to see the OG snapmaker continue but that was scrubbed for the 2.0. Well be buying new machine just for the upgraded module.
Everyones roadmap has been slowed the last two years, their support is relatively snappy, but communications costs time and energy which sometimes is of greater effect elsewhere. We all love the ideas, remember that most, and bear with on the communication, leave them an email and await some reply, if it’s complex try again in 30days to see if the situation changed, if it’s not and it’s crazy important someone’s usually watching their twitter for cool projects so maybe try showing them the problem that way.
The modular system of 2.0 looks like it may change to another 5-series but with 99% compatibility, and the firmware/software being opensource means we can help take up the slack as far as backporting things / improving it. The compatibility of the tool-heads is the main advantage of snapmaker IMHO.
I’m expecting delivery of an original snapmaker as part of the anniversary giveaway (for family) but I have the 2.0 A350 and it’s wonderful. Would love some more serious CNC however I accept it’s never going to be as rigid as some cheaper CNC machines. Cutting metal is my real dream, but too scared to try for now, all sorts of entertaining problems to solve there (seen someone engrave aluminium on twitter). I only just got the 2.0 because of seeing the rotary tool released, then the anniversary sale (and checked ebay), but can’t justify that £600 module yet 
They’re talking about the fact that it hasn’t been updated to show where they’re at on things since April. We are all aware that things are slowed because of the virus, but updating the roadmap just so we can see progress really isn’t asking much. I’m rather disappointed with what has happened to the forum since Edwin left, him being very active on this forum was severely under appreciated and the rest of the Snapmaker team has neglected to realize this and the forum is pretty much going unmoderated now, it’s sad and disappointing.
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At this stage the status part of the public roadmap has pretty much been replaced by Github - it’s a bit more messy to use it for keeping up to date but here you go:
This is where all the different software product versions of Snapmaker (Luban, Controller Firmware, Module firmware, documentation, etc.) come together.
You can see quite easily which part / issue is being worked on, and with which release frequency. About two month before the rotary module’s release was officially announced, you could see alpha versions of Luban coming up that had “rotary features”. Since any new module will require Software support in Luban, Module, and likely also controller firmware, it would become visible here.
In this way it’s perticularly interesting to keep an eye on:
Which lists all firmware codes available per Module, and when apects of it were last changed.
Except for the modules we already know of (Enclosure, Purifier, Laser, Linear, CNC, 3dPrint Head, Rotation, Stop Button) there are two more (apparently unreleased) modules mentioned: “Fan” and “Light”.
“Fan” seems to at this stage be only able to do on an off, while “light” has support for a full-colour RGB LED:
@kwi yeah but that doesn’t include any information about the rails, so the roadmap needs to be maintained for the reason that not everything is going to be on the GitHub.
It does though, because the linear rails are also modules:
What wouldn’t come up there is stuff like power supply fan improvements because the power supply cooling isn’t software controlled in the current design.
Overall, it’s more like:
Early R&D and testing, 3+ months away: Roadmap
In that state time intensive setbacks are normal (e.g. prototypes work well initially but all fail stress testing making major redesign neccessary), thereby making timeframes notoriously hard to estimate, and documenting these all publicly can create a lot of unproductive effort.
Beginning of hardware mass production, Software on alpha maturity - 2+ months to release: Github
If you can read a little bit of code you will get a reasonable clue on quirks and features of the upcoming parts.
Release upcoming: Ads, Shop, etc. all update and final specs become available, Luban productive builds include feature
@kwi im actually really proficient in C++, so I’m able to read it clearly. That’s how I knew the features of the air filter before they released the information, like it’s breathing light, “life meter” etc, but a lot of normal users don’t even know how to use GitHub and that’s the point I’m getting at, and why Trello needs to be kept up on.
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Good news, release of the new 10w Laser seems imminent, has been added to Luban main branch:
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“The technology behind FDM was invented in the 1980s by Scott Crump, co-founder and chairman of Stratasys Ltd., a leading manufacturer of 3D printers. Other 3D printing organizations have since adopted similar technologies under different names.”
FDM and 3D printing in general has been around a lot longer than you think.
After having a 2.0 for… well a while now… I completely regret it. For the price, you can get 2 or 3 printers that print far better than the snapmaker, not to mention, due to its design, failures are much more likely to be catastrophic and require repair/replacement for damaged and/or destroyed parts. The CNC is garbage, especially with these linear modules, and the laser is too weak to be of any real use. So to me it’s just an insanely overpriced printer.
Hoping that 1 day this can be a good printer, but given… well everything… I doubt it.
I agree that the design is both awesome and flawed. The flaws are:
- Linear units are not designed to be user serviceable, yes one can strip them, but the complexity of that is a high bar.
- design assumes QC tolerances are perfect on all parts, which evidence shows it is not.
Tl;dr the design appears bullet proof in theory, but flawed in practice.
If I could redesign the A350 I might keep one linear unit to drive Y motion, put it in the center and use two true linear bearing on left and right side with mechanical adjustment to level bed. I also regret my purchase, it literally depresses me and make me unhappy, my wife has advocated giving it away, but I guess I am a masochist. And I know many are happy / look past the issues / redesign the machine to mitigate. But for me that’s acceptable on a $250 ender, not something at this price. The one bright spot is support, they are patient and helpful.
I would keep Y on two linears, but I would make them independent, and not on a splitter, same for Z.
I think the whole print head could use a slight redesign, only because something small can turn catastrophic real quick.
Either step up QC for linear modules, or stop making them “Modules”, and just make it a part of the machine, like any other printer.
Bed leveling, especially considering it has a sensor, should be way better than it is.
At the end of the day, it has a lot of flaws and is overpriced. Aside from that it’s okay. Lol.
I too am very happy with support! They’re extremely helpful and quick. IMO they have only gotten better with time. My first support ticket was still quick and helpful, but I had to jump through some hoops first. They either kept that on file, or they’re willing to accept much less as proof of something.
First time I had to verify who I was and all this other stuff, but now, I email them an explanation, some pictures, and tell them my preferred outcome if I have one. (usually just something like instructions to repair or replacement) And I can’t say I’ve ever gotten an undesirable response.
Power supply noise is very easily solved by changing the fan. No hassle and very straightforward to do.
I would much rather they release the enhanced laser tool head so jobs don’t take as long!
Really looking forward to this!
At least they have new linear modules coming out soon that might solve your issue. I personally have the A150 which is driven by only one linear module on the y axis, its probably why I haven’t had a single issue with print or cut accuracy or issues with bed leveling. I truly think the A150 is probably the best performing and less headache inducing version out of the lot. Scailing the design up in size seems to introduce some issues, but like I said maybe the new linear modules are better.
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