1 Topic by ne14pez

  • ne14pez
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Topic: Beware of Geeetech boards

I purchased a printrboard copy from Geeetech a while back to use as a backup in case my Solidoodle motherboard fried.  Well, that day finally came and I was happy I had the backup board from Geeetech.  It took me several hours to figure out how to load the firmware correctly, but I finally did and I turned everything on.

Initially, the motors all worked fine and everything seemed to be great.
Then I turned on the power to the hot end and heat bed.  Within seconds, the leads going from the power to the MOSFETs burned out.  After doing some research, it turns out I had an early version of the board that was designed incorrectly where the leads were not made to handle the current required for 3D printers.  There are numerous other posts of people who had the same problem.  They even admit on their website that the newer version of the board solves the issues that the early version had.

I emailed back and forth with Geeetech for weeks (not kidding).  They refused to acknowledge that I had a faulty board, but eventually agreed to sell me a board for a discount off of MSRP.  However, they waited until two days after raising their price to make that offer!

I have had a very bad experience with Geeetech and I would not buy anything from them again.  They care nothing for customer service.  I know the price is steep, but just buy the board from Solidoodle.  It's not worth your time.

2 Reply by elmoret

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Re: Beware of Geeetech boards

There's a third option - buy from Printrbot. Cheaper ($179 vs. $99) and still good quality.

Not sure why you expected great quality or great customer service from a chinese knockoff shop?

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3 Reply by wardjr

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Re: Beware of Geeetech boards

elmoret wrote:

There's a third option - buy from Printrbot. Cheaper ($179 vs. $99) and still good quality.

Not sure why you expected great quality or great customer service from a chinese knockoff shop?

+1 Or a fourth option is go all out and buy a Rumba or Azteeg X3

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4 Reply by Hazer

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Re: Beware of Geeetech boards

Understood. I burned the traces on my Geeetech clone also. Once that happened, I soldered a 14 AWG wire from the power terminal straight to the MOSFET. Fixed. So it cost me $40 and a 3 minute soldering job.

And today, you can get the clone for $40 on the weekends with the trace problem fixed. And firmware uses CDC arduino compatible bootloader instead of the HID command-line that most people fight with for weeks.

So, sucks for you, not so much for people like me who do not like spending $100-$180 for a $40 board.

Buying Chinese is like buying Walmart. You run the risk of something only lasting a quarter of the expected life, but at quarter the cost. If you can live with the risk, thats your choice. But a little education and investigation into customer feedback can lead to decent buys while zero feedback leads to taking a chance.

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5 Reply by ne14pez

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Re: Beware of Geeetech boards

Hazer wrote:

And today, you can get the clone for $40 on the weekends with the trace problem fixed. And firmware uses CDC arduino compatible bootloader instead of the HID command-line that most people fight with for weeks.

Where can you get it for $40 on weekends?