Shout out to FL's customer service A+++

Support & Troubleshooting Form 3/3+
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Over the past few days, I’ve had several email exchanges with Olive and Samuel re: failed prints on my Form3 using Grey Pro resin. My parts are super-small (model railroad stuff) with tiny diameters (ladder rungs) of just .013-.014" diameter and ladder stiles (rails) of .020" square. I know I’m pushing the limits of entire SLA process, laser, resin, etc. but that’s the nature of the current model railroad world. Because these parts can’t have layering, they must be printed parallel to the platform which significantly increases the peeling force. Olive and Samuel were extremely understanding of my frustration. Super helpful and fast responses. Sam spent time editing my “problem file” manually and sent a new layout this morning for me to try. I tweaked a couple supports based on previous, acceptable results and ran a full build with 100% acceptable parts. Thanks, buddy!

I’ve read many customer service experience comments from Forum members over the past couple years and, while the majority are legit, there are (and will always be) posters who gripe about the tiniest issues. Some are related to just not knowing the workings of an SLA system, how to design printable CAD files, etc. which is understandable. But, when posts are titled “terrible customer service”, I come to the defense of FL’s support staff because I’ve ALWAYS had great communication with them since buying my system 2 years ago. I’m sure my being involved with rapid prototyping and solid modeling since 1994 may contribute to my positive attitude, too. Anyone expecting 3D printing to be “fool proof” or “plug-n-play” with 100% part yield every time is in the wrong industry!

I’ll get off my soap box now.

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Hi @SMMW,

What a glowing endorsement! Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a write-up of your most recent support experience, we will let Olive and Samuel know to check out this post and will absolutely shout them out for their amazing support.

We certainly understand that the world of SLA printing has a lot of nuance and plenty of variables that could potentially lead to a more difficult time printing (orientation, layer height, model geometries, post-processing, etc) but we always do our very best to ensure that we take the time to help cover all of these topics when working on our Support cases. It feels very rewarding to see the hard work being acknowledged in posts like this. Thank you again for sharing your experience!

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Corey … it’s too easy for people to gripe and not enough take the time to reply with supportive comments. I suspect the griping would be reduced if the “griper” had to face the target person instead of hiding behind a keyboard! It’s “assumed” that quality service is a thing of the past. Not so with your staff … I’m always appreciative of good service since that seems to be SOOO hard to find nowadays.

Please tell Olive and Sam that his edited .form file (with a few tweaks on my end as he and I discussed) has now printed 3 batches with 100% yield. His suggestions re: increasing the number of supports and spreading parts to allow the film to flex a little did the trick. I can use his technique for future files with (hopefully) the same yield.

Jim King

http://smokymountainmodelworks.com/

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@SMMW,

Absolutely, it is definitely easy to gripe about things (trust me, I’ve been there :laughing:); it is certainly always appreciated to hear how well the Support Team does. I have let Sam and Olive know about your feedback and we have shared it with the team as well to credit them for their hard work! I am so pleased to hear that you have had 3 complete batches since the adjustments; please feel free to reach out to us with any questions going forward. Have a great weekend!