P2S Owners Deserve an Upgrade Path to the X2D

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123

That sounds more like a distinction over labels than a disagreement over feasibility.

No, warranty-return resale is not the same thing as a customer trade-in program, and I did not claim it was. The point was that companies already inspect, refurbish, discount and resell used or returned 3D printers as part of normal business.

So it is difficult to call the general concept “completely absurd” while also describing parts of the same hardware-handling chain as something companies already do.

Whether Bambu Lab wants to offer a customer-facing trade-in path is a separate business decision. They may decide it is not worth it. Fair enough. But that is not the same argument as saying the idea itself is absurd.

At this point, the disagreement seems to be more about wording than substance, so I’ll leave it there.

124

No.. It’s not.

It’s exactly what it is.

A company selling warranty return machines trying to recoup their loss is NOT nor will it EVER be a “customer trade in refurbishment” program regardless of how many paragraphs of useless tripe of nonsense you say.

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125

You are arguing against a point you introduced yourself.

I mentioned refurbished printers and existing second-hand/refurbished hardware channels. You changed that into “warranty return machines”, and are now insisting that warranty returns are not the same as a customer trade-in program.

I agree. They are not the same. That was never my claim.

My point was very simple: companies already have commercial processes for taking in used or returned hardware, inspecting it, discounting it and reselling it. A customer trade-in program would be a different intake model, not some impossible new category of physics.

So yes, if the argument is “warranty returns are not trade-ins”, we agree. If the argument is “handling used hardware commercially is absurd”, then your own example already contradicts it.

126

No.. You specifically mentioned that certain 3d printer companies have a “refurbishment” program for customers to try to come to a point of saying it should be a thing for BL.

But those 3d printer companies have NO SUCH THING. They simply sell warranty return machines. That is NOT refurbishment program. That is try to recoup some money from making bad products program.

Your point is moot and absurd.

127

I agree (to an extent) and I posted on this almost the moment Bambu performed this marketing stunt.

I do not expect Bambu to trade straight across for the X2D. There IS a price difference, and I would expect to pay that price.

The problem here is LACK OF TRANSPARENCY. Bambu continued to sell the P2S– without any notice whatsoever of the arriving X2D– right up to the moment the X2D was released. They offered their customers NO OPTION of buying the P2S or the X2D. They kept their customers totally in the dark. They didn’t give us option to pre-order the X2D. This is unethical marketing, and it is wrong no matter how many companies pull this stunt.

I bought my P2S LESS THAN A MONTH before the X2D was released. It Bambu had put itself in the customer’s place, they would have offered us the choice. They didn’t… which made me feel that Bambu had ripped me off bigtime. They have done this before on an even worse level… continuing to sell an X-series printer right up to the day they announced its EoL status, not caring about the impact that has on their customers– nor caring about the loss of trust and customer loyalty that decision brought upon them. They didn’t care about customer anger; they cared about $$$ only.

The sad thing about all of this is that if they had announced the upcoming change and offered the existing equipment at a discount (which they did anyway… duh) then that would have INFORMED the customer, been ABOVE BOARD, GIVEN THE CUSTOMER THE CHOICE as to what they wanted to do. And at a steep discount they would have sold out their stock of printers anyway… while retaining customer good will and loyalty. This however, was not what they did.

What they did falls sharply into my category of “stupid, selfish, paranoid business decisions”. The ones who made such decisions need to have their backsides royally kicked and sent to take a class on business ethics and psychology. You do not make decision that predictably alienate customers ever (if it is at all possible to avoid such).

In this case they had a viable alternative, but intentionally chose not to exercise the right way to conduct business. Instead they kept their customers in the dark, failed to exercise a very viable option, and destroyed customer loyalty. Is this imagined? NO. It’s been all over the forums. The customer anger is real.

What was Bambu thinking? Were they thinking at all? Keep the customer informed. Be transparent. Give the customer a choice. DO WHAT IS RIGHT. “Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and put the customer first… and the money will flow.”

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128

No, that is simply false.

Here are official manufacturer pages, not random marketplace listings:

Anycubic – Refurbished & Used 3D Printers:

ELEGOO – Refurbished 3D Printers:

Flashforge – Refurbished 3D Printers:

So yes, 3D printer manufacturers do in fact sell refurbished/pre-owned 3D printers.

You can keep arguing that warranty returns are not the same as customer trade-ins. I already agreed with that distinction. But your categorical claim that these companies have “NO SUCH THING” as refurbished 3D printer programs is demonstrably wrong.

That was my point, and the links above settle it.

129

Man, you kinda missed the point of this thread.

Also fun to point out that Microcenter sells refurbished printers.

There were a bunch of them for sale after the A1 recalls. Plus a good amount of used P1S’s with only a few hundred hours. (Labeled as refurbished by Bambu). But it was obvious they were loosing a lot of money on it.

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130

Thanks for proving my point entirely.

Not a SINGLE ONE of those manufacturer examples can you trade in your printer.

That means every single “reburbishment” is nothing more than a customer that returned their printer under warranty and the company trying to recoup some costs after the fact by branding it “refurbishment” exactly as I already said.

The self owns are hilarious.

131

I think it is you who are missing the point of the post. This is a customer who is upset by the lack of ethics employed by Bambu in its printer releases. Selling “refurbished printers” would be part of that deal… but that’s a side issue. The main point was making the wrong decision in the first place. And frankly… I don’t think any of us have the figures or statistics to state “they were loosing (sp) a lot of money on it”. Quite to the contrary. Selling refurbished products tends to be a lucrative part of business. That’s WHY companies are in the business of exclusively selling refurbished products.

132

You are moving the goalposts again.

First you claimed these companies have “NO SUCH THING” as refurbished 3D printer programs.

That is false:

Anycubic – Refurbished & Used 3D Printers:

ELEGOO – Refurbished 3D Printers:

ELEGOO – Pre-owned 3D Printers:

Flashforge – Refurbished 3D Printers:

Now you have changed the argument to “those are not trade-in programs”.

Fine. Different claim. Also not the point I was answering.

The point was that manufacturers already commercially inspect, service, refurbish, warranty and resell used/returned 3D printers. That directly disproves the claim that this kind of hardware-handling infrastructure is absurd or nonexistent.

And since you now want to pretend trade-in itself does not exist in the 3D printer space either:

Airwolf 3D – 3D Printer Trade-In / Buyback Program:

So we now have both:

  1. official manufacturer refurbished/pre-owned 3D printer sales, and
  2. at least one actual 3D printer trade-in/buyback program.

You can disagree with whether Bambu Lab should do it. That is a business opinion.

But “NO SUCH THING” was simply wrong, and changing the wording after being shown links does not make it less wrong.

133

Thanks for proving my point again lol!

You are comparing the likes of apple, dell, etc., as refurbishment as a reason for BL to need to do the same thing. When Dell, Apple etc., do indeed refurbish trade in equipment all the time. That’s part of their business plan.

Then you claimed some nonsense saying 3d printer companies do it, while the only thing they do is sell warranty returns to try to recoup some money.

And now, finally, you scoured google and found an unknown unheard of company so desperate for business they will give you money for your trade in to try and use their stuff.

Serioulsy impressive.

Thanks!

134

No, this is not proving your point. It is showing that the point keeps changing every time a counterexample is provided.

First the claim was that 3D printer companies have “NO SUCH THING” as refurbished printer programs.

That is false:

Anycubic – Refurbished & Used 3D Printers

ELEGOO – Refurbished 3D Printers

Flashforge – Certified Refurbished 3D Printers

Then the claim became that nobody in the 3D printer space does trade-ins.

That is also false:

Flashforge – Trade-in

Airwolf 3D – 3D Printer Trade-In / Buyback Program

So we now have official manufacturer refurbished 3D printer sales, and at least one mainstream 3D printer manufacturer with an actual trade-in page.

You can keep arguing that Bambu Lab may not want to do it. That is a business opinion, and a fair one.

But “3D printer companies have no such thing” and “only an unknown company does it” are both demonstrably false.

At this point the argument is not being won by facts. It is being kept alive by redefining the claim after each link disproves the previous version of it.

135

False. I haven’t changed my point at all.

You can keep copying long paragraphs of nonsense all you want.

You started this by saying the likes of Dell, Apple, etc., all do refurbishment with throwing in a couple 3d printer companies as an argument that BL should.

But Dell, apple etc., all have a massive business model of refurburbishment of customers trading in their end of cylce equipment.

Those 3d printer companies have no such thing. Instead they sell warranty returns. That’s it.

Your obscure 3d printer company google search that trades in does nothing for for argument at all.

Neither does writing paragraphs after paragraphs of the same links over and over again.

It’s honestly embarrassing.

136

Hehe. Yeah, I took a lot of liberties in crediting Bambu Lab with Core XY innovation and inserting Moore’s Law, but it got your attention and puts emphasis on my point that rapid development of new capabilities by the manufacturer will come with rapid obsolescence to the consumer.

That said, without more focus on engineering grade materials and performance, I’m less interested in where most of the enhancements are currently headed with the prosumer class 3D printers versus what desktop CNC makers are doing.

The emergence of free on-line tools that can accurately convert STL files to g-code for multi-axis CNC is already hinting toward what new advancements are coming soon in the subtractive manufacturing world — for prosumers.

137

200w

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138

All of your posts go back to your personal crusade about ethics.

Simple fact is that trade ins for 3d printer manufacturers are not the industry norm and never will be. It is not good for the business or the consumer.

Even the arguement about refurbished printers is flawed because those printers come from returns and not trade ins.

Honestly if there was a trade in program. Lets use P2S to X2D as an example. How much would you get for your P2S? 300 dollars? Then you are still stuck paying another 350 for a x2d. All that money wasted in shipping and profit margin. When you could have just purchased the right machine in the first place.

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139

Is this thread seriously expecting a for profit private company to give a crap about their customer base? Especially Bambu?

The same company that launched the X1C with cloud dependence until people were loud enough for them to introduce LAN mode. The whole, currently resurfaced, AGPL issue that spans back to 2022. Locking out 3rd party equipment because of “security issues” last year. The A1 still being a fire hazard and not being publicly addressed. The slow but certain squeeze of closing their ecosystem down and making things just inconvenient enough to push consumers to use their products over other companies’.

Ethics? Folks, come on :smile:.

They don’t have to be transparent about their machine launches, they don’t have to give you former notice either. The P2S launched in October last year and the X1 was EoL’d in March and if you bought it right before that…you still bought a very good machine with spare parts availability for the next 5 years.

The parasocial relationships people have with companies is just wild to me. They’re not your friends, they owe you nothing besides the warranty they offer with the purchase of the machine. You bought a tool from them, that’s pretty much the end of the transaction for the most part. If you’re butt hurt about buying a P2S before the X2D launched, just sell it. I sold mine for €400 to a friend and now I have a printing buddy while re cooperating some of the hobby money to spend on the X2D.

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140

What would be nice is a trade in system of some kind for tech like this and laser printers and the like that are constantly upgrading and changing. They are almost coming out with a new model before the old ones even arrive after purchase! Many of us hobbyists do not need multiple printers but like the idea of dual nozzles to reduce waste etc. Phone companies do allow trade ins towards a new model. It would be nice if these companies did too. It would definitely breed brand loyalty.

141

No, that is not what I said.

I did not say Bambu Lab “should”, “needs to”, or is obligated to create a trade-in program. I said refurbished/used 3D printer hardware channels already exist in this industry.

That was a factual point in response to you calling the general concept absurd.

You then introduced warranty returns yourself:

“Where exactly do you think all their printers are going that were returned under warranty?”

So the timeline is very simple:

  1. I said refurbished/used 3D printer channels exist.
  2. You said those are just warranty returns and “NO SUCH THING” as refurb programs.
  3. Official manufacturer refurb pages were shown.
  4. You changed it to “those are not trade-in programs”.
  5. Flashforge’s actual trade-in page was shown.
  6. You changed it again to Apple/Dell-scale end-of-cycle business models and “obscure company”.

Here are the links again, clean and direct:

Anycubic – Refurbished & Used 3D Printers:

ELEGOO – Refurbished 3D Printers:

Flashforge – Refurbished 3D Printers:

Flashforge – Trade-in:

Airwolf 3D – 3D Printer Trade-In / Buyback Program:

You can still argue that Bambu Lab may not want to do it. That is a business opinion.

But the factual claims that 3D printer companies have “no such thing”, and that trade-in does not exist in this space, are both wrong.

The embarrassing part is not that we disagree. The embarrassing part is insisting you have not changed your point while the thread history shows the point changing after each counterexample.

It is much easier to win against arguments I never made, but it does not make the rebuttal relevant.

142

This is one of the best comments I’ve read on this topic in a long time. Not just this sentence, but your entire comment. I tip my hat to you and offer you my respect. You’ve expressed exactly what I’ve been saying for years.

It’s crazy how much emotion comes into play, particularly in the context of 3D printing. I rarely see that in forums for other technological devices. Perhaps in a Nikon vs. Canon camera forum, though. Or maybe Xbox vs. Sony vs. Nintendo.

Companies are only ever interested in one thing: money. It has always been that way. This can be stated completely neutrally, without implying anything positive or negative - it’s just the way it is.

Of course, as a customer, we can make requests - I do that, too. It’s only human, and it’s good when a company considers that, but ultimately, tough business decisions have to be made.

It’s all the more surprising when consumers react so emotionally. Whether they say ‘This company is the best in the world’ or the exact opposite, it’s a strong reaction. ‘This company is the worst there is.’ I see this time and again, including in the AGPL discussion. There’s rarely any middle ground; it’s always black or white.

This brings me back to the topic, which often involves extremely one-sided demands:

  • a free upgrade to the X2D
  • a no‑cost trade‑in
  • …

I won’t list everything here, but suffice it to say that people don’t even want to take a middle ground - they’re demanding free and no-cost options right away!

I also think it’s an odd way of thinking to expect a company to provide a service for free. After all, who would work for free? There’d be an uproar - just look at all the repair threads where customers complain about having to replace something themselves - even if it only takes 10 minutes and is really easy.

It’s a bizarre world we live in.

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