foofoodog wrote:mark.burhop wrote:I think SD is better seeing everyones input, not just a list of complaints.
What is the difference between a complaint vs. an observation that there is room for improvement?
Especially given that the improvements would have negligible costs and the costs can be recouped.
Waiting for the EE cum business majors to chime in now and put me in my place.
My initial post was simply my personal observations and not overly critical. My response to the post on a long dead thread was simply my evaluation of what the improvements might be worth to me. And yet people who do not work for the vendor are telling me why the vendor can not do any better by me, sheesh. The vendor can do what every they see fit to do and I will do the same.
Hmmm, like what you said about a long dead thread, I did, months ago when the thread was first started write a long reply, agreeing with some points, and disagreeing with others, since there has been some debate now I'll put forward my opinions...
The trouble with the improvements that can be made is that they are not right for everyone.
Lets just assume that they are right for you, and you have pointed out the improvements that you can make, and the costs of what you're willing to pay for them, -well you can buy the extra stuff separately for the price that you're willing to pay extra AND set it up... for me, some of the things that you list are not needed, (because I already have them) and at the same time I do feel that there are some tools that are missing from the list.
It's not that the vendor CAN'T do any better by you, it's that in adding all the extra things that you ask for and pushing the price up they will price some people out of the market.
foofoodog wrote:justsomeguy wrote:How much more would you be willing to pay?
OK then, looking way back...
$25 to powder coat the frame.
$50 to put a WiFi RasPi on it with OctoPrint.
$25 for a toolkit with everything needed to maintain the machine day to day including open end wrenches/nut drivers, screw drivers, hex keys, dial indicator with bracket, non marring scraper, non-hazmat bed stickum.
Maybe $50 for the toolkit if it also came with several sheets of replacement Kapton, digital calipers, maybe a fishing scale for belt tension, some finishing tools such as emery board, sanding sponge, sand paper and a couple of needle files all in a self contained blow molded case.
And I mean like harbor Freight tools where the calipers are all of 10 bucks, the dial indicator 15, needle files 4 and hex keys 7.
The rest are manufacturing and handling defects.
I don't need a powder coated frame (live in a pretty low humidity area, and in the year I've owned the machine it's not rusted of tarnished) , I already have a raspberry pi, (I don't need another) I don't have or want a printer running without me being there to watch it.
and I already have a bunch of tools. I bought a 10meter roll of Kapton, (8" wide) from ebay, and find that more convenient than squares to apply.
In adding the tools that you wanted I'd have save $15 on a roll of kapton,
and gotten a bunch of stuff that I don't want, (and less kapton than I have), plus I'd have paid $100 - $125 more, so for what is a toy for me, (I have no justification for wanting a 3d printer other than novelty cool factor, the extra $100 would have meant that I probably would not have bought. -i.e solidoodle looses a customer because you can't be bothered to find a cheap tool kit on Amazon?)
that's not to say that I haven't bought more tools to go with the solidoodle, (i.e I have bought a dial indicator) so I see where you are coming from. in a "it's nice to have it all included" rather than having to make several individual purchases... but over all, I believe that solidoodle got the price and the stuff included pretty right.
foofoodog wrote:Over all I am happy with the machine, it is well constructed and reliable.
Stamped sheet metal edges are sharp, need dressing.
Asbestos like bed insulation needs underside sealed with Kapton or something so it is not all fuzzy, frayed, dusty and stringy all over the place.
Wires harnesses chafe on frame, needs chafe gear (tape) on sharp edges.
Clear tape used for shipping leaves nasty residue on frame.
G28, M190 and M109 gcodes are essential to know starting gcode for slice and run operation.
I am running it off of an old XP pro notebook with a fresh and minimal install. I just RDP into it and load gocde, that I sliced on my main rig, from a share.
$15 for an replacement 8x8 square of Kapton is ridiculous.
$40+ for 2 lbs. of filament seems high, though I am willing to pay for quality and reward a vendor monetarily and with loyalty if I get a good product and decent service. Needs better selection, like a 4-6 color "rainbow" spool.
Powder coat or spray paint option should be available for frame.
I agree with all of that, (i/e re-arranged the points to deal with them all together.
it is well constructed, you feel that you'd be able to give it some abuse and still expect it to work. but there are some little bits that would have made the product a little better, like dressing the edges of the stamped metal, like dressing the edge of the insulation under the bed, like ensuring that the harness was protected from wear (though dressing the edges might reduce this wear anyway? etc. it's the difference between a product and premium product.
or at least the difference between something that looks unfinished, rushed and prototyped rather than a good finished product.
(solidoodle seemed (past tense I've no experience with the current product line after SD2) to think that saying experimental, no warranty, produced to tight costs etc was a great excuse to pretty much over look a lot of things that would have made the product better.)
the tape used in shipping, yes it would have been nicer if some kind of material that didn't leave residue was used, (or to tie into the next point) some instructions for safe solvents to use to get rid of it were included.
yeah, some instruction regarding Gcode, or even a set up manual would have been nice, I'm not saying a book, but at least a pamphlet would have been something. not this go away and google and find a load of disjointed instructions on setup posted on Wikis, there is no, step 1, step 2 step 3 type anything... that would have been nice. I know that waiting time is reduced now. but I waited something like 15 weeks after ordering to get my printer, I really wanted to set up and print straight away, not waste loads of time trying to find instructions that were never properly written.
The community, (i.e a solidoodles customers) came to the rescue and setup decent support sites (like this one). to give some credit, solidoodle are starting to catch up.
Yes, filament is ridiculously priced, and if the price of the filament doesn't make you choke, then the price of the shipping will. in fact as you correctly point out as is Kapton squares, in fact everything in the solidoodle store that seems to be a replacement part is very expensive, and the shipping is ridiculous.
it's almost like solidoodle want people to go buy the E3D hot end, or make their own heaters etc, - maybe this is so that they can reduce support call volumes -i.e you're running non stock so you're on your own?
Just because I don't need it, that doesn't mean that some people in humid areas really want powder coat, SD managed to pull a frame, ship it to a guy so that he could powder coat, then get it back and build a printer, -if that's possible how come you can't just say I'd like powder coat. -after all a printer that goes rusty doesn't present a good brand image!
the SD4 appears to come powder coated anyway, so I guess they took this suggestion.
foofoodog wrote:Should come with toolkit, Allen wrenches, scraper.
Should come with at least a half pound of starter filament.
Bed should be pretreated with ABS slurry or kit should include some (non hazmat) stickum.
Y-axis nub on left carriage for end stop breaks (peels) off if you look at it funny.
Default temps seem low, 200 and 100 maybe better.
Nicer if it was network connected to be able to "post" gcode to printer and have it process
Nicer if it had standalone printing.
I disagree with this stuff.
as said above I have my own tool kit.
so allen wrenches etc should be stuff that you can get yourself, you can buy these very cheap from a lot of places, most people likely already have them, so there seems to be no benefit in including them.
that said there are some things that maybe would have been beneficial to be included in a tool kit.
I've gone out and bought feeler gauges to set the hot end clearance, solidoodle suggest using a new york metro card. I don't have one of these I don't know what card stock is used. most tickets I get are paper based printed. and those that are card, (for example when I got to London) the overland train and underground train tickets come at different thickness's.
I get that they were trying to save costs, and make it easy by saying use this everyday object to set up the machine, but they neglected to realise that the everyday object might not be the same everywhere!
a sheet of 0.3mm steel cut into strips included in each machine would have added cents to the cost,
there are printable calibration tools available, so I think that these could be made at very little costs (e.g. tension scale for belts.
I've had no issues with any of the construction. (except the hot end and they've since changed the design anyway!)
The default temps are apparently what they are using in the factory, so they do work, they are fine for "slow" printing, but this is so easy to change that I don't really see why they'd bother trying out loads of profiles, it ilkely has a lot to do with the filament used and ambient temperature, they are only in one location, so I wouldn't necessarily expect their settings to work 100% great for me, again, maybe some instruction to this effect might be nice though!
the remote printing thing, personally I don't want to run my printer remotely, so again it's something that you want, that would have priced me out of my toy.
and besides, it's something that you've easily set up on your own anyway.
(actually unattended printing is something that I toyed with as I did an LCD/SD card mod, but rarely use it. -I only found it useful for speeding up the print mid print for infill areas where lesser quality wasn't an issue) on the whole I found that the issues of layer de-lamination/other problems that can show up mid print meant that I've found of the times that I've left the printer unattended I've come back to find a large plastic ball wandering around a couple of inches above the build platform in about 50% of cases. -that's a pretty high failure rate.
foofoodog wrote:adrian wrote:versus when you have to look from a business perspective and business cost
Are you kidding me? They are selling explicitly experimental hardware that comes with explicitly no warranty and that probably voids your home-owners insurance for even having it on the premises to begin with and you are telling me they can't toss in a tin wrench? I am going to bad mouth them because they are short sighted and under deliver, thanks.
I wouldn't have though that the machine voids your home insurance.
I'd like to see any explicit clauses that would remove cover for this machine, (or any others) or how this machine may fit into perhaps dangerous tools etc if that were an explicit exception...
If there were to be a fire in a home, and the home insurance company tried to say that the insurance wouldnt pay out because there was a 3d printer on the premises I doubt that it would be as easy as you're making sound.
1. it'd end up being tested in court, - nobody would lie down and take it!, the printers generally fail safe. i.e. over current protections, even the mainboard, or power supply would break before there were any kind of fire.
it's be interesting to see if there have ever been any cases of printers actually catching fire, or insurers denying cover when these machines were used. what was said in court, by the insurer, and what the plaintiffs "expert witnesses" would have said...
2, I'd imagine that anything dangerous is actually caused by secondary equipment, (e.g heated tubs of acetone used in smoothing stations) -something a lot of people have, and something that a home insurance company probably would deny cover for, - but again, that'd depend how it was used...
