I’ve purchased from reseller (3DWiser) brand new Form3+ printer - Affordable, Industrial-Quality Desktop 3D Printer - as stated on web. After 13 prints and 13 months, yes only 1 month after standard 1 year warranty period, the printer died. After diagnostic the reseller announced me, that the printer has to be factory repaired due to faulty motherboard and it exists two possibilities to solve the problem:
motherboard replacement = approx, 1000€
extended warranty for next 1 year = approx. 670€.
Nobody told me that it is necessary to purchase additional service contract, only to be sure, when I purchased new printer.
Really affordable and reliable 3D printer.
It is shame that Formlabs has this type of customer satisfaction program, because when the printer prints, so print results are awesome.
Sorry to hear about your experience. I have had nothing but positive things concerning Formlabs and ongoing support. They are responsive to just about anything you throw at them. That being said these machines are no different than buying a new car. I have a 2021 Ford F150 with 20,000 miles on it and it’s been one check engine light after another.
The additional service contract does suck. I wish there was a more cost effective way but you take a risk i guess. I paid for support for 2 years in a row for my 3L that would have bought me a brand new Form 3. This year I’m taking a risk by not renewing the support. But then again my 3L Is used strictly for hobby purposes.
by law it’s 2 years in europe, is formlabs not obliged to conform?
Directive (EU) 2019/771
When shopping in the EU, Norway, or Iceland, you are always entitled to a minimum 2-year guarantee at no cost, regardless of whether you buy the goods online, in a shop, or by mail order. The 2-year guarantee is your minimum right EU-wide. This rule have been laid down in the Directive (EU) 2019/771
Thank you for sharing - I’m sorry to hear about the poor experience you’ve had with your Form 3+. Issues with the printer’s internal electrical components such as the one you encountered are quite rare, but unfortunately can happen. I also understand that the timing in regards to your printer’s warranty was very unfortunate considering when the issue arose.
Regarding the question about the 2-year guarantee directive, I would encourage getting in touch with Support and passing this question along particularly to our EU team. They would be more familiar with this directive, and could provide further context on the matter.
Regarding reliability…I try to offer to my customers maximum satisfaction which cover quality, reliability and affordability of custom solutions, therefore I need professional tools and predictable input costs to achieve that. I thought that Formlabs printer is right machine for me.
I would accept some servis contract without doubt if the printer runs 24/7 with tons of prints, but after 13 prints per year only I cannot be competitive with such costs. Unfortunately it was my bad decision while finding 3D print technology for my projects probably.
As I mentioned above, work with Formlabs printers isn’t predictable for me in terms of final input costs due to reliability, , therefore returns of investments to Formlabs are infinite.
It should be standard to have two years warranty for motherboards and other components, which isn’t possible to repair in house. Rest spare parts and consumables could be one year warranty period without problem.