Received my refurbished Form 1+ which according to formlabs, is every bit as reliable and good as new 1+. Super excited but unfortunately I’m having trouble printing even very simple prints.
This first print was meant to be a ‘simple’ print to get things started. I didn’t expect it to have only 1 usable part out of the 5 parts. I cleaned the mirrors before use as it has some dust from the shipping. It’s a new tank and fresh resin. The 1+ still has issues with point size being too small when printed. This is completely different from how it looks like in Preform.
Puzzled. I tried another print but with the supports turned to max and this is the result.
It turned out even worse than before…
This is how it looks like in Preform (ignore the Form 1 printer name, screencap from PC not attached to printer).
I really feel like giving up on this printer. I have given so much time and money and disappointed time and again. The printer spent a month in the US and came back as crappy as before. I just bought 3 liters of resin thinking I can finally do some serious printing. Again, I’m tired of the apologies. Can support do anything?
Hmm, I’m sure Meg will take care of you – but all of our upgraded printers go through a full calibration before shipping out. I’m not sure what may have happened. I will caution anyone reading this to take extreme care when cleaning your mirrors. We’ve found that it’s pretty easy to inadvertently leave smudges and other artifacts there when making direct contact.
Firstly, thanks for the super quick support. I only cleaned the mirror because it’s quite dusty. Well, I merely dusted it to be precise. I’m quite well aware how it can easily be made worse if proper steps are not taken to clean the mirror.
I’m pretty sure there is something wrong with the printer after the latest test print ordered by Meg.
Yep, that looks like a galvo problem. I see that Meg is arranging a replacement for you, so hopefully we’ll get you up and running as quickly as possible.
Jul 18th - Ticket raised for replacement printer that didn’t work out of the box. I have not been able to print properly since May 10th
Jul 21st - Test print done. Pretty obvious there is something wrong with the printer
Jul 29th - Final confirmation that the printer is a DOA and formlabs would replace it at their cost. Somehow this needed upper management approval when my first printer, which was also DOA, got replaced immediately
Aug 5th - Printer finally got picked up by their shipper. They took more than a week arrange a pick up
Aug 10th - Printer reached their RMA center
Aug 15th - Support replied that the replacement would go out by the end of the week. But nothing happened
Aug 20th - Support replied that there is a delayed in sending out my replacement because they ran out of resin tanks. Really? I guess the resin tank inventory guy really dropped the ball huh
I’m a original international KS supporter. I do understand that it’s difficult for them to support overseas user but we also paid a premium upfront. Support staff has been great but frankly powerless to really help those in need, i.e. just have a working printer
Similar problems here, I am on my 3rd printer now and have only just passed what would have been my original 90 day warranty. Thankfully this one seems to be working fine for now. I have had more issues with both my printer as well as support than I have the energy to explain.
I only jump in this conversation to advise one thing, if they ask for an extra 2K for expedited shipping or other perks, do NOT do it. Long story short I demanded expedite shipping because of the unacceptable situation I was in due to a DOA replacement printer. At this point, I was offered a free upgrade to the form 1+ as well as extended warranty and new resin tray, only they needed to put a 2K hold on my account to ship.
Only after I paid $2033 I was told I would still have to pay for a portion of the upgrade fee. The printer didn’t ship until 4 days after I paid, and arrived with no information regrading the 1 year warranty and had the old resin tray. I was told this was because “In an effort to get you the new printer ASAP I had to pull a few strings and unfortunately cut a few corners.” Im still supposed to be getting a voucher for the new tray version, but ever since I have paid the 2k, no one has bothered to contact me about the process unless initiate conversation. On the 22nd I received a message that my printer has still not passed inspection therefore still no refund.
All of the support people have been nice, but like others mentioned I feel 2nd rate to new customers. Support keeps having to “pull stings/expedite the process/push it through” and other things that make it feel like they are doing something extra for you, but this should not be the case…considering the following.
In the first 90 days I have gone through 3 printers, and have had a working printer for less than 40 days,
They have had my 2K hold now for 28 days.
I am interested to see how this resolves. At this point I cant even justify buying another Liter or resin until I get some resolve. At the end of the day, this printer has been much more damaging to both my finances and overall business than paying for polyjet prints.
I’d be very surprised if you can receive a replacement in a week. The shipping itself is not long even though I’m on the other side of the planet. But rather these delays caused by formlabs.
Given the orientation of the build platform and that this was your second print did you definitely have the build platform fully onto the arm.
The first couple of time I took the platform off on mine it didn’t want to go back into the correct position fully.
It would explain why it printed correctly the first time better than the galvo suddenly going out of whack Certainly cheaper and quicker to resolve too
Thanks for your patience — I know a number of our team are traveling over the long holiday weekend, here in the states, and will jump on your tickets when they’re back in full-force. I know that it’s frustrating to be waiting for a working machine, and we’re doing our best to turn around all requests and orders as quickly as possible. As we’ve been growing, we’ve dramatically reduced our response time across the board (most tickets are now responded to in a few hours, if not sooner), and we’re always trying to do better.
It seems complaints are all we can do here. Sure can’t share printing success stories.
I paid for the Form1+ upgrade July 17th and the $750 was cashed right away and no clue on when I will get the upgrade.
Today I was suppose to get a callback from their web scheduler but nothing… no call.
I did get a canned email reply from Meg today saying the same things that are always said about wait wait wait.
The current printer I have is half-baked. It is already a warranty replacement from when I was wasting gobs of resin and now this one is about 50% success rate which means I have to avoid clients or look like a fool to most of them.
I can’t believe new customers would get their Form1+ before Kickstarter backers. That is a friggin sin.
@BillBohn - just wanted to jump in here. The only communication we have from you was last submitted on April 2nd 2014 via our ticketing system. I just want to make sure there isn’t any lost messages on our end. Do you know who promised you a phone call so I can investigate?
As for upgrades, we are doing the best we can to fulfill them as quickly as possible on a first come first serve basis. I will send you a message privately concerning the status of your upgrade unit.
@Kuhns - I’m sorry that you have had a bumpy ride support side. I took a look at your ticket and it seems that the credit card hold has been released to you in full (I will be checking with our ops team after writing this response to ensure this was in fact processed). I will also jump into your thread today and issue you a coupon code for the free resin tank as promised. It looks like Hubbard was waiting for the inspection to pass…but there is not reason why this cannot be issued immediately.
I’m glad the new printer is working fine and I’ll make sure all the loose ends are tied up with your case today.
@Jory - I had direct emails off and on during the year outside of the ticketing system and most of the latest ones with Meg. I used her phonelink that takes you to a web page that you set up a callback. I hope you are aware of that? If not ask her.
And how may times can I say that the old machine isn’t reliable? First one went bad last Feb and I bought 3 new trays and more resin and wasted them all for a terrible experience, then got a second unit from warranty trade… that lasted about a month and a half before its current success rate now of 50% and was going to call it quits but then the new Form1+ shows up … and then I was stuck waiting for the sample piece before making a decision on the Form1+ upgrade (sample piece was on back order too) and then I purchased the upgrade July 17th which was probably the same day I got the sample piece.
It is always delays. I am over two years with your company as a kickstarter backer and no new customers should get any new units before kickstarter users get their upgrades.
please cut and paste the above wherever it needs to be in tickets, emails, post-its or wherever to get someone to take charge and take care of your early supporters.
