I’m over 16 days into a support issue with my AMS second stage feeder. I’ve had previous support tickets but this one has been the worst experience to date. I now understanding the frustration that other customers are complaining about. I was hoping I’d never have to experience it, but now I have and it has opened my eyes to whether I recommend Bambu in the future. As much as I love my printers I can not recommend a company that has absolutely no respect for the customer and their time. I have reduced my printing capabilities by 40% because I can’t continue to print through the even hours. I can only print when I’m available to swap spools from the manual feeder.
My second stage feeder stopped working on Mar 8th. I submitted a ticket with a log file on the 9th. I get 1 email, maybe, a day around 2:am PST time. I reply immediately that morning then have to wait another 24hrs, maybe longer, for a reply and an unreasonable request to disassemble or reassemble or send another log or over strain (first stage feeder gears) parts that have nothing to do with the issue which will cause additional damage perfectly good parts.
Now my ticket is being sent to R&D to review.
I’m not even asking for a warranty replacement. I just need to determine the issue or close to the issue and then sell me the parts. I just need my AMS working now, actually 2wks ago. I would have already ordered a second stage feeder if it was available to purchase through the store.
What happened to the “Real” support that I experienced when I first received my printer in October?? That’s when I actually received a phone call to troubleshoot my issue and it was resolved in 24hrs. You know, the way a real company handles support incidents.
You probably forgot that they have pretty much exploded over the last 6 months in popularity, supply and demand, and with that, come growing pains, QA issues, and support issues until they can catch up. The support team needs to grow as well, people need to be trained, issues need to be ironed out, as some of these are new to even Bambu and they need to recreate, research, come up with a fix, etc. I wouldn’t base a companies reputation on the performance over their 1st year of production, especially for something that has taken the 3D community by storm.
I haven’t forgotten anything. I’m a KS customer and knew what I was getting into when I purchased my product. That’s why this is the first time I’ve posted about their support, as I felt my previous support incidents were handled as expected, still not acceptable but what I expected, until this incident. This particular incident should have been resolved within 4 emails. What I don’t have patience for is the runaround you get from support and their unreasonable troubleshooting requests. With that I cannot recommend their product to anyone. I’m not the average customer and I would hate for the average consumer to experience what support expects you to do. Bambu was obviously overconfident as they didn’t design the X1 to be easily repaired. Even something as simple as the ground screw for the bed that is hidden behind a side panel that requires 12 screws to be removed. That’s either overconfidence or just ignorance.
I agree with you that they don’t necessarily make it easy for the average user to troubleshoot/work on. In that respect, Bambu Lab’s mentality seems to be a lot like Apple’s, and the X1C is supposed to just work right out of the box, no tinkering needed, etc. I guess I’m just looking at it from 30+ yrs of electronics building and maintenance, where I can take pretty much anything apart and work on it with very little need for user support. Taking a step back from that mentality, I feel you.
Yeah, I agree Bambu Lab is trying to be the Apple of 3D printing, just pointing out that they are pretty adamant that some tinkering is still needed. It’s not a true “out of the box” printer yet, but that is clearly the goal. A user friendly 3D printer for the masses.
I have my doubt 3d printing with plastic will be anywhere near the place of a true “Out of the box” experience.
There are far too many different variables, too much wear on the parts and too much maintenance. But the X1 surely has lowered the entry barrier.
Not officially, but many users are having a “from unboxing to printing in 20-30 mins” experience. Even an iPhone takes longer than that to unbox, activate, sync, and get running.
Totally. I was blown away that I had my first bench so quickly after unboxing. I called my business partner to head over to the shop and it was finished before he arrived.
But it still needs tinkering from time to time, and Bambu Lab acknowledges this. Way less tinkering than my previous printer that cost 4x more. I finally was able to sell that printer yesterday to make room for a second X1C.
Yes, its very easy to get your first prints off. I was surprised how easy, simple and good these first prints where.
But I am of no illusion that such a machine needs a lot more care to be kept running then is true for an iphone.
And my last android was ready after less then 5 minutes. Maybe Apple needs to get more customer friendly if they take soooo long
The X1C was my first 3D printer and after taking a deep, DEEP, DEEEEP dive into this world and living on Discord and other forums since I received my printer, I’m glad I purchased the Bambu as my first printer. But there are things that make me scratch my head now that I’m this deep in to 3D printing and have great conversations/relationships with experts in the industry. And that’s build quality and some basic configurations that SoftFever ended up addressing.
I was so pleased with my X1C that I preordered another one within 30 days of receiving my KS unit. Then I started seeing the quality control issues arise, online and my own issues (warped bed). This is when I started questioning the preorder. Then they announced the P1P and you could see that they were already making design changes. Toolhead circuit board for example. So I canceled my X1C preorder and preordered the P1P. I truly love my Bambu’s and they do what I expect of them at this stage in my 3D printing world. And I would do it again.
But with all the good and bad that I’ve dealt with the only inexcusable thing is support. Whatever it is they’re dealing with internally it’s not working. Whoever is managing and creating the processes needs to rethink how they approach and execute their incident tickets. One email every 24hrs that stretched 18 days is inexcusable and definitely avoidable. Even with a stressed support team. Take the ticket, schedule a support chat, work with the customer to troubleshoot, then issue a resolution. My ticket would have taken 2-3days max with 3 support sessions. The faster you solve the issue the happier the customer will be. It seems they feel as long as they’re communicating it’s ok. That only last so long till the customer is exhausted and starts feeling like they’re getting the runaround or in my case they were asking things that would have caused additional damage to my first stage feeders. Honestly I would have had my AMS fully functioning withing a week if I could have purchased what I knew I needed replaced, a second stage feeder.
Moving on to the future. Will I purchase another Bambu? Maybe. A few months ago, I would have said YES. But today and with the knowledge I have now. It’s a big maybe. All due to support and how long my printer capabilities were interrupted. I know they’ll get this corrected but until then I cannot recommend their printer at this time. Maybe if they list all their parts in the online store so the customer has the option to purchase a replacement or deal with support.
I’m excited for Bambu and I can’t wait to see what they do for their next printer.
Can only say that I do not want to be in a similar situation like @Sideline_Review, luckily I am not or not at the moment. However I am following this development closely, especially since during my career in business I have stumbled over similar developments within companies who thought that they can allow themselves to act like this. BL was founded by people that came from DJI and someone mentioned pretty early last year that he hopes that this will not develop into a similar thing (supportwise) as with DJI. Earlier this year we have read (and I guess also understood and accepted) the situation concerning CNY and COVID in China. But now that situation should have ended and there was ample time in the last weeks, if not month, to get their act together. We have read that they are trying to get new stuff employed, but we also know that this is a problem nowadays, especially when do you need a certain level of education in respect of technical understanding and not only able to reply to emails with standard phrases. In a previous comment I also stated that competitors will show up with hardware close to the standard of this printer and here we are with 1,2 or even three companies coming up in the next weeks. One of those companies with outstanding track record of excellent service.
Sorry but that doesn’t cut it! Exploding means “MONEY IN” you hire people to fill places you need filled including customer support. That seems to be where Bamboo has NOT done anything.
Do not conflate US or western employment issues with Chinese employment. Qualifications in a country currently leading in tech education is unlikely to be a factor. you’d be more likely correct to have said finding someone qualified who can communicate in english being the problem but the work around is a tech who works with a number of translators doing the communications.
I work in tech in the US, going on 30 yrs, and don’t be fooled, there are not enough trained people willing to fill a tech support position. Plenty of untrained ones.
As we all know, 3d printers are machines. People coming into this hobby and or profession need to know how to self-problem solve. The X1C and the support team do their best but they are 4k+ miles away and don’t necessarily speak English. But of course you knew this when you bought the printer.
If you want premium support, get a Makerbot and pay $500+ a year for support and their SLA is no better than what BBL does for FREE. Keep that in mind.
Since you’ve had your machine since Oct 2022 or longer, it’s now upon you to figure out the issue and buy the necessary parts. Voron - 100% you. Creality - 100% you. Everything out there - 100% you. You want a Stratasys -pay for annual support and SLA is no better. But if you have a Stratasys - you paid $7K+ for the base machine. So they might actually treat you a bit better.
I suggest using a FB forum or Discord and have the community help you out. Worse case - it’s user error.
I can fully agree to most of what you said. X1C is still a consumer printer and for that it offers a great value and good enough support.
My own gripe is that replacement parts aren’t available in the shop and often you have to go through support instead of just ordering what you need.
