@Colus Havenga, OMG. FIVE replacements?
I guess it won’t make for good financial sense if they do free upgrades for current Form1 owners. Maybe that’s why they called it an upgrade instead of a fix. I don’t get a new car when my car manufacturers releases a new model… But for those users with problem, surely it makes sense to exchange with a Form 1+? As others have said, this is a replacement which makes the current model obsolete.
Financial sense aside, if Formlabs is willing to replace current models at cost and all shipping borne by us users, they won’t be facing so much heat.
@Teck - I guess it won’t make for good financial sense if they do free upgrades for current Form1 owners.
I have to disagree. Good financial sense? Maybe. Good business sense? Absolutely!
What costs less – installing $40 in new parts to a user’s machine or shipping endless refurbished machines back and forth to users? My shipping costs alone for Form 1 have to be over $150 easily (back to formlabs and then returned to me 3x on a very large, heavy package). By actually fixing the issue that causes so many returns, they eliminate the cost of continually repairing and shipping back machines (remember that they “refurbish” the machines as well, so they are already putting in new parts to replace failed lasers, galvos, etc). Plus, by doing so they get a community that starts to actually have printers work, and this printed work gets out in the form of pictures and 3d examples of successful prints, gaining ever more positive buzz for Formlabs.
Conversely, leaving the original Form1 users to rot will only return to the company in the form of angry users and bad press, and user reviews are too powerful in today’s net-connected world for any company to ignore. They simply can’t leave the original hanging helpless. Users will riot. I was not a kickstarter backer. I did not expect to buy a machine that had a failure rate this high. I thought that since they were producing printers en masse that they had worked out any and all kinks (especially if you believe all the hype on the web site). I was wrong. Where on the site does it say, “Take a chance and help us develop this untested printer with $150/liter resin!” ? It doesn’t, because you wouldn’t buy it if you read that.
Erm… I meant free upgrades as in a complete recall. Which would mean all cost on Formlabs, whether your laser or galvo has issues or not.
I just got the Form1 printer and it is still in its original packaging, unopened. I suppose I still need to pay an “upgrade” fee?
I’ve submitted a support ticket to attempt to gain some answers. I can’t express how disappointed I am to finally get the printer, not even remove it from the box, only to find the “New Form1+” fixing many issues I never even knew the printer had. I feel more than a little misled.
Any advice?
My brand new Form 1 was delivered to me yesterday, just 11 hours before I got the email announcing the new Form 1+. Given that I had already waited 9 months for the machine (I ordered it in September last year), I really wish Formlabs had waited another few weeks and sent me the new version.
I’m enjoying printing with the new machine, but I’m also feeling pretty annoyed. I’m in Australia (I ordered before they stopped shipping here), and shipping charges will close to double the cost of the upgrade (assuming it’s even available to those of us in Australia).
@Matt Hoover: +1, I agree with you 100%!
I also just opened a support ticket expressing my personal indignation.
I’m one of the first International KS backers and have used my Form1 lightly for small mechanical components and for the most part I have been a fan of the Form1. But I’ve had to deliberately use it sparingly as it became obvious on the forums it has serious and fundamental design flaws (just a little too much value engineering with some components). I think it was me who encouraged Kevin Holmes to open a support ticket for the issues he had with his first Form1? However my Form1 has now failed with lot’s of frustration and time/resin lost. I’ve now got my ticket to return my Form1 however the Form1+ has now been announced and I await a reply to my question to support “will my replacement Form1 have old or new spec optical components”?
I await the reply.
Formlabs secured multimillion dollar backers based upon two things their vision and hard work AND the faith that the KS backers and early adopters gave to them. Now after a more rigorous FMEA development process a Form1+ is the result, I truly hope the Formlabs team recognises that it is us who initially bank rolled them and additionally provided the marketing impetus the KS campaign gave because the idea behind the Form1 is good but the impimentation not so good.
Ok you’ve a buisness to run and investors to please but at $1000+ with shipping to correct your mistake mmmm.
My gut feel is that the Formlabs team does recognise our commitment to their vision as we stuck with them through the issues and will do the right thing.
Im sure Formlabs will upgrade your machine if you got the Form1 in the last 3 weeks or so. Just open a ticket. I had a very positive experience with their support team.
My printer couldn’t print a 1in cube square and dimensionally correct to within 0.005in. When a square is rhomboid, and a circle is ellipsoid, and the supports wouldn’t print properly… After hammering away for months Jory told me:
"The tolerances you are experiencing from our previous conversation are considered normal for the Form 1 and we do not have a timeline for tolerance improvement.
If the Form 1 is not meeting your needs, you can perhaps find a new home for the printer.
Jory
Customer Support"
So… I’ve already dumped $5K into this… and this Upgrade for yet another $1k after shipping, duties and other insanity will fix what exactly? Will it fix the tolerance issues? Will it make circles that I draw into real circles or ellipsoids like they’ve been from the beginning? I was told my machine didn’t qualify for replacement because it is working just fine. What good is a new 1 year warranty when the original warranty wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on?
I must say that having finally recieved my Form 1 a year after ordering, 3 weeks ago, that I felt rather put out to see the upgrade email. I am in New Zealand, and the upgrade is going to cost a fortune in shipping, plus the upgrade cost (If it’s even possible). After all that wait I’d much rather prefered waiting a bit longer and getting a Form 1+…
I think it’s only fair if you started using your Form 1 and run into issues that its Formlabs’ fault because they should have already known about the laser issues. And yet, chose to ship a unreliable unit. As already mentioned here doesn’t make for good business/financial sense. Because the returns which they honor are very costly. I don’t know what are the chances are there could already be newer laser units in machines shipped as Form 1, not 1+.
But asking for direct replacement is like you bought the Surface Pro 2 and when Surface Pro 3 came out, you asked Microsoft for a replacement. Does that makes sense? They are priced the same like in this case. But of course the latter machine has far better specs. Sorry this is the only example I know.
What is the expected ‘grace period’ people need to own a machine before the company they buy from are allowed to release a new model? Going by this logic, a company can never progress.
Just me 2 cents.
Maybe I have not made my point clear, because you misunderstand what I am trying to say.
If Formlabs had contacted me and said “there’s an upgrade next month - do you want to pay the fee and get the upgrade prefitted?”, I’d have said yes even if it meant waiting a few more months. Because now if I want to upgrade I’m facing an extra $1141.52 in freight, plus tax, plus weeks of waiting, assuming that the upgrade is even available in a country they explicitly won’t ship to currently.
I understand your grief. I too am from a place where they won’t ship to now and return shipping costs as much as a whole new FDM printer.
But from a business point of view, would it make sense to reveal that? They do still have a competitive edge to maintain. Anyway, it’s just speculation on my part. Who knows what goes on in the printers and what variations in terms of actual laser and galvo hardware we have.
@Teck Wee Tan
Your Microsoft analogy using the two iterations of the Surface pro doesn’t apply in this case. If the Form 1 was flawless and didn’t exhibit rapidly degenerative printing qualities nobody here would be complaining about having to pay to upgrade to a next-gen / new-and-improved product model.
Let me put this in simpler terms: OK so you purchased a Surface Pro 2, it works great and you’re happy. Microsoft releases the Surface Pro 3, as an upgraded replacement to the Surface Pro 2. Your Surface Pro 2 still works great and meets all your performance needs and expectations so you don’t feel the need to upgrade to the Surface Pro 3. Therein lies the key difference, upgrading to the Surface Pro 3 is optional… the Surface Pro 2 still performs as it was designed.
As has been made clear by many users in this thread, the Form 1 isn’t still performing as it was designed and Formlabs has issued a “Patched Model,” not a second generation model, this isn’t a Form 2–it’s a Form 1.1 aka Form 1+. And Formlabs wants to charge an arm and a leg to its Form 1 user-base if they want to have a properly functioning unit after their Form 1 fails due to faulty hardware / materials that don’t meet lifetime / stability expectations. I wish having to upgrade to Form 1+ was optional, I really do, but clearly that’s looking to not be the case…
What I am saying is, if you have a new printer, that you received yesterday, last week or whatever and you feel peeved, that is not Formlabs’ problem. I never said that if you have an issue, they are right in forcing you to upgrade. In fact, I am one of those with problems and I fully expect Formlabs to help me. And they are.
For what we know, those who received their printers very recently have indeed, upgraded components that may not have issues. Until they start to use it, it’s not right to demand an exchange or blame Formlabs for not letting know of a future release.
Might I add it’s exactly like what you said. If you have a Form 1, and it’s got no laser/galvo issues, upgrading is an option they present you. It works as presented when you ordered it, you should not have the pressure to upgrade. As you said, Form 1 that you have whether you received it last week or last year performed as it was designed.
For people with failed printers, it’s not an option, it doesn’t work as designed or presented. In those case, it’s very clear that they do urge people to open up support tickets.
I am a oversea KS backer and I totally agree with Mr. Durban. My machine has been sitting quietly in the corner of my room for the last 4 months or so. All projects was halted. I am afraid to use it because the more I use it, the better chance I’ll get a bad laser. For those lucky guys that have their 4th printer, I just can’t afford to ship the machine back and forth more than a couple of times. It is quiet hilarious to have a machine and not using it, right?
The Form 1+ just remind me the case of Nikon D600 and D610 awhile ago. I don’t think Formlabs will give us a free upgrade after all. I just wish they will have a VERY VERY special discount for oversea users because they paid much more and spend the same amount of time and effort to test the machine.
And an after thought: we are still not sure the new machine solved all our problems. If the F1+ can print reliably, that will be a gift of God.
Sorry for my bad English. I can’t express myself fully in a 2nd language, but most of you knew how it feels.
I received my Form1 a month ago to finally find out that this printer is not a reliable product… and now the Form1+ arrived, this is too much!
They are lucky they have got a great customer support otherwise this would be a mess here!
Formlabs should upgrade to Form1+ all Form1 getting a defective component listed in their upgrade (galvo, laser, step motor).
This is not fair to charge again the backers and early purchasers. Treating clients like just money pockets is not a reliable business model.
If Formlabs team does not show up quickly in this thread, this will show how they consider their backers and early purchasers…