I should have figured that out when i realized A250 owners were rarely complaining on facebook etc (at least i assume the A250 mitigates some of the issues due to the smaller build volume/surface etc).
I have already accepted I will have to buy a core xy based printer next year sometime.
Scyto,
The new linear modules fixed any issues Iāve had in the past. Iāve never had better prints since swapping them out.
A Christmas miracleā¦
Pretty incredible how making it silent drastically improves print quality with no other changes internal.
There are changes internally; just because the group think couldnāt figure out what they improved in the machine doesnāt mean the SM people didnāt figure it out. We assumed the only change was a controller and that it wouldnāt have any impact to how the machine worked. Keep in mind also those posts were also justifications for why you shouldnāt (read: they didnāt want to) buy the new rails.
Iām only telling you what Iāve physically done with my printer. Iām running at 100mm/s; I have to watch the first layers depending primarily on the surface area of the print. After that, I found doubling the values for the normal cura profiles ended up with indications of poor cooling. We know the print head doesnāt have the best cooling so that makes sense to me. 85% of doubling the values gave me good results.
Anyways, feel free to go to the facebook group if you want to see videos/pictures.
I donāt use FB, so have never been to that group, nor am I likely to. Improved printing would be a good reason to upgrade the module, if this turns out to be true (and, really, is anything posted to a social media site actually true? 
)
Some kind of a trade-in program should be in place, because really, wtf am I going to do with the old linear modules and that idiotic proprietary connector? At least SM can reuse the metal cases and (presumably) most of the innards. Yes, I know, cheaper to manufacture new ones that to refurbish the old ones, same old crap story.
Then thereās disposal. I canāt just leave this stuff on the curb, because there is no curb. I have to haul this stuff to the dump directly, and pay for the privilege of disposing of electronics.
So letās see, thatās $150 a linear module (I keep hearing rumors about a discount for SM2 owners, but despite having my A350 shipped directly from Snapmaker Iāve never been offered a discount, so as with any evidence posted to facebook Iām going to put this in same category as bigfoot and chupacabra sightings), times a minimum of three modules (2 Y, 1 X), weāre talking $450 for maybe an improvement in the 3D printing and probably the ability to run this without hearing complaints from the household? I say āprobablyā because I believe these complaints to be rooted in a dislike of the 3D printer itself, in my particular case, and not the actual noise.
At 1/4 the price of a new system, and ignoring the disposal issues, Iād say yes, that is an overpriced upgrade.
Itās my printer and my pictures. Iām telling you theyāre better and it made a significant improvement over my already functional A350.
Well, what are they? Donāt expect me to believe you just because you said something on the internet. As you know, there some things on the internet that are wrong. Shocking!
Great question, I didnāt rip them apart when I got them nor do I care what they did to improve the ability of the machine to print. I offered up the evidence I have that I can print faster. Youāre the one who used the spit balling on this site as evidence that itās only an audible improvement.
Like I said above, I can print faster and the results are significantly improved.
Take your own advice, you might be wrong in your assumptions.
So youāve got no evidence to back up your claim. OK. Fine. Youāve got no credence in my eyes.
Says the guy who doesnāt have the new parts and is making claims about them. Good play bro.
Please provide a citation that I made a claim about them.
I have said, and I will repeat, that thereās no evidence that theyāve changed anything but the controller chip. If you canāt tell the difference between an assertion about something and a claim of no evidence to support an assertion, well, I canāt help you at that point.
I think the A150s and A250s are the models to get for a mostly headache free experience. Iāve had zero issues with bed leveling or any other form of calibration on my A150 (other then a single failed auto focus attempt when I first got my machine).
The bigger you go in size the more prone to error the machine becomes. Iām not saying the A350 is a bad machine as Iām sure ones manufactured in 2021 fair a bit better than the 2020/Kickstarter models but I truly think the current design can only reliably scale up to the A250 size without issues. The A350s seem to be more of a lottery, you might get a good unit with tight build tolerances or you might get a lemon.
Email SM support for the 50% off discount code towards new linear modules. I recieved mine in my spam folder.
Originally when they posted the info about the new rails they claimed that it would help with faster printing speeds. The website/store no longer says this. Only on the new printhead do they still mention it being able to print faster. With the improvements in cooling thatās understandable and believable. And from reported experiences the fan mod for improving bridging is no longer required.
-S
I appreciate your comments and frustrations. However, I use this to do three lines of business, and it meets most semi-professional needs. So what if I have to use other software, and thank goodness SM had the fore sight to standardize the software so that I could use different software. Iāll echo what others said, thereās no way that youāve got a 5W cd burner, and who uses CDs anymore anyway?
Iāve now seen a few reports of āmagicalā improvements of print quality and problems gone with the new linear modules. Makes me wonder if they improved backlash compensation. On Facebook, a user named Josef Walter Hausknecht has replaced the plastic nuts by spring loaded brass nuts and even played around with spring strength and claims that he got considerable improvements in accuracy. I can believe this - Iāve (encouraged by another thread here) started to ramp up my printing speeds to 100 mm/s with the old modules. This works well, but I see a bit of overshoot at sharp corners. Iād attribute this to weak springs in the stock nut.
My plan: Find someone who got the new rails and is willing to sell the old ones for a fair price and do the same mod myself. Btw.: Any German/BeNeLux users willing to sell their āoldā rails: Happy to receive a PM 
Some time ago they added the ability for the machine to load stored backlash settings on bootup: Feature: M425 save parameter Ā· Snapmaker/Snapmaker2-Controller@eadb47b Ā· GitHub
The firmware default appears to be 0.0mm still, but itās possible they are programming values other than that into new modules. If anyone has a new A350T that would mind posting the output of M503 that would help illuminate that aspect.
I see no need for the new rails for me personally. I like being able to swap out any of them for any other.
I just checked to see if I could still get the old rails new and what the price would be.
Figured I should get them before they disappear if Iām going to. Right now I donāt have any backups should they fail. Theyāre asking $144 each plus shipping. I can get a complete set of the new rails for $375. (Unfortunately theyāre not shipping until February according to the store page). So it looks like Iāll just have to keep my eye on ebay and hope some show up for a reasonable price. Thereās a set on ebay now but the seller wants $500 for them.
-S
Yes, they are killing their product with overpriced hype. They have gone the Apple way of overcharging for nice looking bling. The difference being that, while Apple products are just expensive for what they do, at least they usually work. But Snapmaker is not only expensive with ridiculously priced upgrades. It is still an unfinished product with lots of issues, despite being āversion 2ā one year in production.
With a premium price you would expect premium support, or even basic. Instead they introduce new problems with untested firmware upgrades and then donāt get them fixed, like the 3 months+ old calibration/z-offset issue. I just had a new print sheet destroyed because it decided to dig into it, although the previous print was fine. I have no idea what caused this, as I have avoided touching the z-offset since the issue began. The only part of the machine that has been reasonbly useable is now a cause for rage.
The laser is a joke. Contrary to their marketing, it sometimes canāt even cut through Snapmakers own very thin materials. It cuts paper and cardboard fine, but so do my 5ā¬ scissors and much faster too. It can be used for markings, if you accept that it is very slooow. Big disappointment for a wood worker like me. I really waited for the laser upgrade just to be disappointed again. Quite a lot of new money expected from existing customers, just to get the machine up to the level they promised (cut through 3-4mm wood).
The CNC was the other reason for bying the Snapmaker. The software being early alpha code, I waited for working software. After almost one year Iām still waiting and I have yet to use it.
Yes, there are alternative, but their website still lies about 3in1 software that does all the tasks. It doesnāt. The cnc part is not useable for anything, the laser part can be used for simple tasks (if you keep up with all the unexpected changes they implement) and the 3d printing part is useable for simple prints only. Really very little control over anything. Only after starting to use PrusaSlicer could I print more complex designs. For laser there is Lightburn if you want to manually adjust compatibility issues and pay extra. For CNC they promote Fusion which is very complex to learn and changed licensing makes the future uncertain. Having to find compatible software, spending time testing it out and then paying extra, does not make you a happy customer, when you were sold a working product out of the box.
Lots of broken promises:
Open platform and third party development? Havenāt seen that yet.
High quality product? Focus on looks and bling bling. Some parts are really cheap, support nonexistent and software beyond shameful
Benefit of modular design? Lots of compromises and expensive upgrades.
Lots of upgrades? Some after many delays. But make no sense after seing the price.
Iām more and more disappointed in this chinese crap. For the price of Snapmaker + new rails + new laser + new print head you can actually get three dedicated decent TOOLS instead of this 3in1 toy. If you only have room for one machine in your kitchen or bedroom, then it is kind of an advantage. But would I be carving wood in my bedroom? That would cause a divorce. If I was single I wouldnāt expect potential dates to think a workshop in the bedroom is romanticā¦
Possibly locking ourselves in an extremely negative review can be unproductive in practice. It may not be the best machine, but I continually find people on the forums who take advantage of it and do amazing and inspiring things. On the other hand, at a time when half, if not more, of what surrounds us has been made in China, I would not use the term āchinese crapā. Knowing a little about the oriental mentality, I find that this term is highly insulting to them.