Does anyone have any suggestions about what to do with a bad unit? I’m ready to move on, as I am one of the unfortunate ones who got a bad unit, and I’ve been stalled out with tech support for months now. I want to try a different brand product (after much more thorough research than I took when I made my impulse purchase on Kickstarter). I spent a lot of money on the unit, and I imagine it has many salvageable parts, but I can’t sell a broken unit, except to sell it ‘as-is’. What price would you recommend for a unit that doesn’t function? I also have an enclosure that I spent a lot on, and while I may be able to use it for my next printer, it has custom connectors for the LED and fan, and while I thought the enclosure was a great design, it really was custom made for the SM2.
If anyone else is considering getting rid of their bad units, please share your thoughts. I would hate to send this unit end up in a landfill.
regarding the enclosure, i would just like cut off the cable ends and hard wire it or apply a new connector for the new system. Or just replace that stuff
Well, where to begin. The 3D printer dug into the print bed, and has never calibrated properly. After trying a manual calibration, I still can’t keep it from clogging the nozzle when it tries to print. After I gave up on the printing, I tried to use the laser printer, which had worked well enough for me to print the gift box provided in Luban. But now the print box prints distorted, and offset between prints. I swapped out the Y-axis rails, and Snapmaker sent me replacement cables and axis control units, but I got the same results in all cases, so I now believe there is a problem with the controller, or the user interface, or the power supply. I had success with the CNC when i first got it, (I printed the tablet cradle they provided) but I don’t expect to have success with it now, as I don’t trust the motion of the X and Y axes. My current theory is that the power supply is the culprit, and that the distortion starts when both X and Y axes are move at the same time. I’ve reached out to Snapmaker to see if they have a way for me to diagnose this, but I’ve not heard back from them. Granted, I only asked them a couple of days ago, but this is after a long and frustrating exchange with support that stalled out for three weeks over the holidays and then they responded back with swapping the axis controls, which was ground that was already covered. I’m just very frustrated. Especially when I see the fun things that people have made and posted on Facebook and other sites, and I’ve made a gift box and a tablet cradle after owning the thing since August. Oh, and I also have the ‘clunk’ on the Y and Z axes, which seems to come and go, and I started getting the message that others have talked about where the unit reports that it lost connection to the controller. The latest firmware update might have fixed that one, though. At one point, I attempted to calibrate the rails, so I took two of them apart, and they didn’t need adjusting. But in the process I broke one of the limit switches. Snapmaker told me that having one limit switch on an axis with two rails should work, and this appears to be the case. This is the A350. I agree about the enclosure. I considered replacing the connector, but I don’t know the specs for the LED strips. I’m considering an IDEX printer for a replacement, and the first one I looked at was too tall for the enclosure. I suppose I could build a foundation for it to raise it up enough.
chazr33gtr, thank you for that suggestion. I have not seen that product, and it is definitely an option worth considering. Hopefully I can find somebody who has already done this so I won’t have to reverse engineer as much. Ideally, I would rather connect the rails to connectors rather than cut the cables, but since Snapmaker used non-standard connectors, that probably isn’t an option. Unless somebody has already figured out where to get those connectors.
xchrisd, I’m willing to work on it, but at this point, I’m out of ideas of what I should try. That’s why I reached out to support, but that is painstakingly slow.
The main showstopper for me right now is the inconsistent operation of the Y axis. If you look at the attached picture, you can see that it appears to print OK until a circle is drawn, and that circle is in the wrong place. Then, when the second pass starts, the offset is so far off that it doesn’t even come close to lining up. I sent the .nc file to Snapmaker, and they confirmed that there is nothing wrong with it. I don’t believe I can get 3D printing or CNC operations to work with a problem like this. I’m happy to try any suggestions to resolve this.
OK, unfortunately it seems you have 2 bad axis, X and one of your Y axis.
What machine size do you have?
Take a lot of photos and videos about the travel.
I would suggest to check if the two Y axis have the same travel way, because you wrote about a bump sometimes when it travels.
I would do the same with the z axis and would try to pair the defective x axis (mark it or remember it for the future) with z, and see if it helps.
The main point is, your machine should work, then reach out to support and wait for replacements.
