As I read through the forums about problems that have cropped up from other users over the last 6 months, I am starting to seriously consider whether I want this thing powered on in my shop, or want to eventually troubleshoot between every other use.
My unit arrived DOA, but even giving the benefit of the doubt regarding support response time and the China national holiday through Oct 8th, the consistent hardware QA problems seem like they could be major safety issues, and I’m now starting to worry about firmware updates creating more problems than they fix.
At this point, I’ll have to see some major public mea culpa communication from SnapMaker through this forum to regain faith in this project.
This thread doesn’t have to be a back-and-forth wordy one… just add a +1 if you might agree.
Hey, i agree with you that there should more presence from the @staff in the forum.
It seems they care more about developing new parts or products than getting the machine there where it should be.
Overall, i am happy with my machine.- It works without hardware problems, so far.
The point is, i know how to get things running and or figuring issues out.- The most people who invest in this machine are really beginners, which hope it is a easy start with this machine,- and than you have to calibrate and finetune because somebody wrote this in the forum? omg =)
Agree with @xchrisd. Snapmaker presence here and willingness of support to address the more difficult questions needs to improve, but I am far away from wanting my money back. On the contrary: I consider the machine worth the money, despite some design flaws and some problems.
In the end I suppose Snapmaker needs to hire people, but I know from my own company that getting good people and training them and having them up to speed will easily take half a year. So potentially they already started this process, but until we see the effects, time will pass.
That said, I can also understand @d90’s frustration, especially as it sounds he/she received a very problematic unit. Still, my attitude is more positive, which is easy having received a well working unit.
@xchrisd@Hauke Same. If a friend were to ask me if they should buy one I would only recommend it if they are interested in the journey and not the destination. There’s a lot of interesting things to learn about 3D printing and CNC while you treat this machine as a kit that will grow with you as you learn about the nuances of gcode, Marlin, F360, etc.
However that’s not how they sold it - they sold it as give us money and you get a perfect machine that does everything you want. So naturally, many people are expecting that and they don’t have the staff to deliver on that promise.
I completely understand all the frustration - it’s frustrating to see people yelling into a void and not getting really basic needs taken care of!
I agree with everyone above! But want to add that my biggest issue with SM2 is how they marketed it. I was a backer and during the campaign they lead you to belive a great deal that was not exactly correct. Things like the ease and accuracy of the laser camera. How luban functions, wifi features, reconfigurability, open source information, and when addons would be available. I don’t belive the machine is bad, it simply does not match what SM advertised. Also I find their disregard for their customers safety disturbing.
@Atom The campaign was in my opinion vague on some essential points, and I guess on purpose. I cannot find that they did make promises they did not keep (must say I did not try using the laser camera much), but some information they were just unwilling to give, like e.g. maximum achievable print speed. And this continues: I asked some detail questions to their support, and they tend not to answer if it gets a bit tricky.
On the safety I must agree, although again their tactics is to just not give information. Nowhere in the campaign anything was said about ratings or certifications of the laser glasses or enclosure acrylic. So technically you can’t say they did promise anything that’s not true, but it does not make anything better in that regard.
I personally took everything they said with a grain of salt - it was a “marketing” video and campaign text after all, and these are always overoptimistic and let everything shine in the brightest light possible. That’s not uncommen also to other campaigns, and I guess a bit a necessary evil - in the end you want the backers to give the money. So when I backed SM2, I took away the glossy stuff and tried to understand what’s realistic, and I must say I was not too far away from the mark, making me not really disappointed. Still, a few design flaws I found unexpected and unneccessary.
Overall I am happy that a) the camapaign delivered in the end and the money is not gone and b) the product is close enough to my expectations. Both points are not true for every Kickstarter campaign.
@Hauke Agreed regarding the marketing - this is not my first printer and I saw past all the marketing fluff. However, I was draw to a few things:
Cartesian machine. My previous delta was very difficult to maintain true to the precision I needed. And to that, I’m thrilled as my machine is repeatable to approximately 0.01mm (after backlash compensation).
Interchangeable toolheads & Open source. I plan on using the provided toolheads, sure, but I’m a tinkerer and would love to make my own toolheads, like the pioneers in the Snapmaker Original are doing. While my other printer is capable of such things, this platform lends itself to it better.
For the price they were asking, I deemed it a fair gamble.
When I say they they advertised things that were not true I am referring to modules and configurations. From the campaign I was expecting at least some of the “add ons” to be available from the backer kit. After all why would they show live demos of things that didn’t intend on including. Especially the simpler add ons such as the extra long linear modules. Also to the different configurations, they expressly shown the h laser configuration, something that should be possible with the included hardware. Yet since the campaign ended they have not said a word about it. They showed the TS mounting on the left witch is not possible. And they showed a square solid aluminum build plate and included a much worse cast version that has caused many people to have warped build surfaces. I could go on but you get the idea.
Actually if you look at the kikstarter rules for projects they have a do/don’t list. SM did almost every “don’t” on the list. But that is my fault for not looking at that first
To be honest, I would rather have a functional device with the support that was promised. However, it sure seems snapmaker does not care and the quality they are implying… Well, I’ve seen 3d printers that were made from 3d printed parts that looks like they were printed on a potato. What really hurts is these 3d printed printers are still functional, mine isn’t.
I waited an extra 6 months because they said the quality wasn’t up to their standards only for my A350 to have filament reload malfunction constantly and then have a rail die after the first print.
Definitely unacceptable.
Yes to all comments above as well. I so want to love this machine, but the problems and my complete inability to actually use the device stop me (of course) from doing it.
I inititially had a bad linear module which took them a month to replace. Now that I got a new one a few days ago, I now have a bump/knock/sound issue when the bed travels to a certain spot. This only happens when all screws are fully tightened which leads me to believe this is either a platform or bed screw alignment issue, which again speaks to design flaws / tolerance for errors.
Do we actually have any recourse at this point in time for a refund? I would actually consider it if I though they would honor it.
The module was missing silicone pad so I sent an email to support and submitted a warranty claim. The warranty request form is a google docs form/template that requires multiple attachments to prove that your a legit customer and have done basic troubleshooting). That was almost two weeks ago. No response.
Hi @Finnegan, I suppose if you’re a campaign backer, no refund is likely. If you ordered it through their shop, you may have a chance… Still, in your case I’d consider to work a bit with Snapmaker support, perhaps you can get the thing to work as designed, and I assume that this would be the best outcome for everyone, right?
@ALX I hear currently that support of Snapmaker is rather slow, which is a change, since in the Facebook group the support was praised in the past for being quick and helpful. I suppose they have lost some people (Edwin said something like this), so they might be in a tight spot. Still, I see reports that they answer in the end, even with delay.
Yeah, @Hauke, I hear you and I will certainly ride this out for a bit. As someone who is a product manager in my work life, I value the importance of expectations. As many have said earlier in this thread, many of us feel the expectations that were set in the Kickstarter (and beyond) phase of things simply don’t match reality.
Furthermore, as a 2.x product, I expected a good bit more refinement that should have made its way into the final product. I would have expected numerous learnings to come out of the SM1.0 family to have this one be nearly perfect.
@Finnegan
My understanding is no chance of refund, if you bought it directly from their shop they give you one week to receive a refund assuming it is unopened. After that its tough luck. So we try to do the best we can to get people up and running.
For what it’s worth, I purchased on their web site while is was still at a good discount. Saturday I wrote asking for my money back and I received a timey response pointing out that I had the best price I’d likely ever get but if I wanted my money back, they’d reply. A reasonable response given the situation. I replied pointing out that it seemed like all the postings on the forum were from people with machines with problems of various sorts and If my machine was not going to ship for awhile, I’d hang around and see if the situation improved.
So, conceptually if your order has not shipped, they will return your payment.
