I have been having repeated issues with responsiveness by MakerBot’s service. We purchased the year-long MakerCare service program in October hoping it would help, but I still wait for weeks for responses to emails, finally resorting to an angry phone call - where they become apologetic - before going back to non responsive.
Whenever I search the internet for customer service problems, I am met with a wealth of information raving about the MakerBot Customer Service, so I have to think there is something special about our account or our case.
My current issue has been going on since August - now I’m worried about the unit being functional for build season.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this at all?
I have had nothing but positive interactions with them. But that was over a year ago. I’ve heard folks at work complaining about bad interactions (we have multiple Replicators and a Z18 in our lab here).
We’re getting a situation where the x-axis is not tracking perfectly…pretty sure it is because of a stripped screw into the x-axis stepper motor preventing the complete tightening of that belt. As a result, things we print that should be perfectly round end up with bumps at “11:00 and 5:00” and if it has a flat top surface - like a washer - there will be spaces in the top and bottom faces where the bumps occur.
I hope Makerbot is not growing too big to maintain the service reputation they very obviously once had.
Although the Makerbot Replicator 2X is now working at Team 11.
I was not thrilled with the MakerCare support offered by MakerBot the year before when I explained to them that:
The unit arrived with the Z axis stepper electrical connecter disconnected.
The unit arrived with the left extruder already clogged with something.
I did not unpack the unit - this is how it was presented 1.5 hours later when I was asked to look at it.
I finally gave up after 60 days of calls produced at lot of:
The 2X is an experimental printer - so ‘things happen’.
If I just took the time to learn how 3D printers work…
(I own 14 3D printers including: Up!, SoliDoodle and several RepRap models since the early days because that’s how long I’ve been doing that work. I also am cleared to operate NextFAB’s Stratasys, Z510 and used to perform professional repairs for these devices. Additionally I have written code in the public domain for printers like this. Oh and they source some of their parts from people I work with and apparently never realized it.)
I gave up, but several of the students and the lead mentor continued to work on the printer.
One replacement part after another.
Issue after issue.
Then there’s this:
and this:
So if your asking if you are the only one having problems the answer is absolutely not!
In fairness some of these issues might be that the users lack experience but hardly all of them.
Some of these come out of the box and work great.
Others seem to be disaster.
Basically a year later and a trip under the care of the lead mentor to MakerBot in person Team 11’s 2X is working.
Something they refused when I offered to do it and was mere blocks away every work day last year.
In the meantime Team 11 has assembled a Prusa Twelvepro kit I got them.
Acquired a Cube.
Used my Up! printer and a small army of Bukitos I have access to at NextFAB.
I still continue to appreciate the generosity of our donors.
I thank MakerBot for finally getting this working.
However - it does not alter the simple fact that for nearly a year it was mostly useless.
Considering the Prusa printer cost me total $800 with some parts for future expansion: the MakerBot was not worth the price.
I would have rather had the donors buy 3 printers than this 1 even if they only had a single extruder.
Plus if there were 3 printers then it would be even easier to increase productivity.
Plus a ruined extruder is a fraction of the cost for a generic RepRap.
Plus very few of the parts on a generic RepRap are single sourced from only a vendor like MakerBot.
Worse I have tried several Chinese printers like the Duplicator 4 and they are cheaper, more reliable (considering none of them sat broken for 1 year) and easier to fabricate replacement parts for out of commonly available materials in an FRC style shop.
Finally, I won’t link this because I do not want to endorse the other site content, but the Makerbot replicator was voted one of the worst products on the Internet by a site. Specifically because of the support issues for the product.
Thanks techhelpbb for such a thorough response (I refrain from quoting only because of the length). Your story, and especially the review you linked, are perhaps even more troubling, because they seem to indicate not only a very poor customer service situation, but also serious issues with the reliability of the product as well. I have been frustrated by their desire to keep dealing with me at a distance rather than allowing me to send the unit back (which seems infinitely more efficient) but I haven’t (as of yet) experienced the poor product quality I’m seeing now.
I did get an RMA and a shipping label at the end of the day, shortly after emailing again and threatening to contact the BBB.
I have considered purchasing a simple printer for myself sometime in the next year or so. What would you recommend? (Small to medium and no-frills, but reliable please.)
What materials are you going to print with, or do you want to target the widest range of materials?
I have enjoyed printing on the Bukito Portable printers even thought they really work best for PLA (and be careful here, MakerBot’s PLA requires specific settings).
Otherwise my Up! printer has been extremely reliable.
Has many after market upgrades available.
I used that printer while CSA at the Mount Olive District event last year when things got a little slow towards the end.
Worked fine and I use it at least 4 times a month.
Neither of these printers are fully enclosed.
However you can enclose them yourself with a little tinkering.
The Duplicators I’ve seen available here (there are other sources as well, but this site has a wide selection): http://www.makergeeks.com/3dprinters.html
These I’ve seen a few times from various vendors and they seem to work fine.
There are quite a few other models and the site operator is responsive.
I intend to put up a build page for the Prusa Twelvepro I helped MORT build.
Eventually possibly step by step directions, but initially just the STL for all the parts required and the sources for parts with some options to substitute.
There are some companies that provide assistance in the form of classes to assemble RepRap style printers. It really is not all that hard to do once you parse the piles of options. A few days if you focus on it. The name of the company I spoke with 2 months ago about this escapes me right now but I’ll hunt it down and update this topic when I do. I know they do classes in the NJ/PA area currently.
My personal experience is that the makerbot is a poorly engineered, low quality 3d printer. A few years ago, that was okay because it was the only cheap 3d printer. Now, there are many more 3d printers out there that have equal price but are higher quality.
IMO, the makerbot is a toy for people who think 3d printing is super cool, but don’t know anything about manufacturing. From an accuracy/repeatability standpoint, the makerbot is pretty low quality.
As a RepRap printer builder, the MakerBot was never the cheapest choice in town. It wasn’t even the cheapest fully assembled option.
When everyone was getting them last year I tried to be civil and stopped short of calling MakerBot out for doing everything they could to basically get their product embedded into the schools so they could tap that revenue in materials and repair parts. I really think that was the ultimate goal.
Maybe that would be not so bad if support was decent but really it is extremely hit and miss.
I give MakerBot respect for many of their efforts, but these printers and my support experience for them has been very bad.
I suspect future MakerBot printers will continue to integrate more and more single source parts that only MakerBot can provide further deviating from the RepRap traditions. Surely MakerBot will argue that their printers are not really RepRap printers but really…if you look at the electronics…they are exactly that with some predictable modifications.
On the other hand again I’d rather spend $800 for a printer that will eventually be obsolete but might offer parts and assembly knowledge to future printers, rather than $2,500+ for a printer that tries to sell you a slight variation to merely change materials from PLA to ABS.
I have 18 different materials for my Up! printer with a temperature selector on the extruder. If I understand MakerBot’s design properly I guess I would have to buy 18 different MakerBots to do that. For $36k I can buy a Stratasys printer and then I have to get more expensive cartridges with materials from them to maintain the warranty and operation. Those cartridges often have left over material in them when they ‘run out’.
So really this is not much of a deal at all. I agree that MakerBot is trading on the reputation, not really on the merit of the performance or quality of their support.
Oddly the Cube is not exactly the greatest print quality I have seen. It does use expensive materials if you do not hack it. However at least it has printed from the time we took it out of the box and continues to do so despite exposure to many students messing with it. Yet I see people giving them away and not taking them? I guess reputation means something even if it’s not backed by stability in the results.
We had a Makerbot z18 at work and ended up returning it. It had issues from day one.
We replaced it with a Rostock and have been very happy so far. Ours uses an E3D v6 hotend.
On Spectrum we got an Airwolf 3D HD2x a little while ago and it’s been pretty good to us. We’ve been pushing it’s limits working with a lot of polycarbonate filament so it hasn’t been perfect but it’s handled our abuse pretty well. They also have fantastic customer support, I have about a 45 email thread going with one of their customer support people, nothing particularly wrong, just asking questions and getting answers back pretty quickly.