And something else that needs to be considered in today’s economic market is the “challenges” of finding skilled people with a good work ethic to fill positions. I, and everyone I talk to, can never find enough qualified candidates when certain generations would prefer to not work at all or expect the world to be handed to them while exerting the least minimum effort possible.
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My frustration is absolutely at the company level and not the individual. The tech industry as a whole has driven itself into this accepted standard of poor to no support, so in fairness this problem is far bigger than Bambu Labs. When I say “DO YOUR DAMN JOB” I’m referring to the ownership who should recognize how important support is. Things like “gather up and send a log file” or “try this setting and report back” are behaviors that only the tech industry gets away with. I’m not interested in helping do R&D for another company when I have my own to deal with. In the background I’ve been offered a “voucher” as compensation for the trouble. It’s a nice gesture but I don’t want a voucher, I want them to keep that money and hire some qualified support staff. I didn’t buy this printer because it was cheap, I bought it because it was supposed to be really high performance. Defending this situation because “it’s a startup company” or “you shouldn’t have bought on kickstarter” are just making excuses for the company. I’m taking the time to write this because it’s a nice product. If it was a piece of ■■■■ I wouldn’t waste my time. There is a lot of potential here but it will fail if the company doesn’t take post sales just as serious as pre-sales. If they come out with a larger print area device I would absolutely buy it. Unfortunately, another reality of the consumer world these days is without really making a point loud in a public forum it just comes and goes and management assumes everything is good. My hope is that this rant gets attention for the right reasons and it provokes some internal discussion on how to improve the support processes and experience.
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I agree with everything you wrote above. And you definitely wrote it in a calmer mood than your previous posts. I think everyone came down on you mostly for your tone, which I understand completely was born out of frustration. Heaven knows I’ve been there for other isues. I am hopeful, and confident, that Bambu Labs will get over their current hurdles and these growing pains will provide valuable lessons.
Last comment…Saying having a live support desk will drive up prices by thousands of dollars is a myth driven by companies that prioritize profit margin over quality. I personally believe prioritizing quality is the smarter long term play for a company like this. IT helpdesk people aren’t that expensive, underpaid in most cases and when you look at the total operating expenses at this scale it’s nothing. Weeding out the user errors and illegitimate reports of problems is a real challenge and I have a lot of empathy for that but that’s part of being a manufacture of a product like this and just has to be budgeted for in regards to staffing requirements both in volume and expertise.
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Did you ever buy a car? Did you ever needed manufacturer support for your car because some part was faulty from factory? They fight with tooth and nails to not having to fix the problem on their own and want you to pay for it. This is not only a problem in tech, it is a problem since great support costs a great deal of money. Is it possible? Sure. Will it be for free? No, never.
If you want to pay 50-100% more on everything you buy you can get good support, most companies even let you pay a yearly fee for getting support. If you want that, well, you can. Buy an Ultimaker, they will even come to your place with a technican to fix the stuff. But then the printer would cost 5k+ and you would pay 800+ per month for the software support alone. Hardware support comes extra.
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That’s a terrible comparison. First off, if a part on a new car fails because of manufacturer defect (like my cable in this case) they fix is for free INCLUDING labor. If your windows won’t go up and down they don’t send you emails with tasks asking you to diagnose it for them. Also, there are all sorts of consumer protection laws in that industry that hold the manufacturer accountable and responsible, as there should be. I’m not talking about updates, software support, or anything else…those things should cost extra. This is a case of a manufacturer defect which should have been easily resolved. If you read my complaint I’m not expecting them to do anything other than respond to the case in a timely manner and IF it is a defect then send the replacement part. I got pissed because it was diagnosed almost immediately (which tells me they have seen many other cases, not that it matters) and then it drug out for days over administrative BS.
Thrawns point is valid as is my cost estimate.
BL sells 35k printers, 24/7 call center support that won’t piss you off because you were on hold for 30 minutes let alone 3 hours means a staff to cover 3- 8 hour shifts per day, 10 staff per shift, no overtime, 40 people at $19 per hour plus overhead… $30400 per week in labor alone, another 2000 per week in overhead on the low side. Only another $1500 per printer will still put them out of business in short order.
An advise, buy one more Carbon X1! 
Or an even better advise, buy extra two. It saves your heart and bloodpressure if one of your printers have a failiure! My guess, you are pretty new in 3d prinring? Is it your firts machine?
I do plan on it, not for a backup, but to have a second. There are certain bugs that I am going to wait to get sorted out then I’ll pull the trigger. My Ender 5 is heading towards retirement.
This is my fourth. I have a CNC machining business and I use them to make test parts before cutting metal versions. My first 3d printer was a qiditech about 7 years ago and it has actually been rock solid. Just older technology and slow. I built a 500x500x500 kit and that turned into a science project. Works OK but was not worth the time and I learned it’s more efficient to section parts and glue them together. I bought this one because of the speed and I just wanted it to work without a bunch of hassle.
After reading the string of issues from the many customers I’ve just read in this post – and the poor service experience I’ve personally had with the first machine which I received from Bambu with a cracked piece missing from the broken print head – if the second machine I’ve purchased also has issues, it will also quickly be returned for a refund and I will purchase the new Prusa XL with the excellent service that Prusa provides – and wait 6 months to a year watching for reported improvements in Bambu service before considering the purchase of a Bambu Lab machine again.
A business cannot afford to purchase what is supposed to be a quality tool that is heavily unreliable and receive a very poor level of customer service- it slows the business down and costs far more than was paid for the machine.
Bambu has begun putting together (a limited) series of videos and troubleshooting guides. The touch screen provides A CODE at the end of every problem message on its screen. To have created these codes – the list of solutions has to already exist. An incomplete list of these codes is available on the internet for their customers. I suspect that the reason the service department always requests a photo of the touch screen – is so that they can read and look up the code and then after a one to three day delay - respond to the customer with what the service department code manual has told them is wrong and provide a highly probable solution.
Their current poor quality of service has already begun to cost them lost purchases and damaging reputation.
THE SERVICE SOLUTION IS SIMPLE AND INEXPENSIVE
If Bambu Lab made the full list of codes available to their customers – probably 80% of their existing issues could be solved quickly and directly by their customers without having to contact Bambu. The small service department they currently have – hopefully – could quickly and easily respond to the other 20%. Their service quality would end its competing for a place amongst the worse – to one that matches the quality of the product itself – as one of the best.
There seems to be a common thought that comes from BL disciples……defend BL at all costs. If we are not careful we will only get what we defend. It seems obvious that BL went live before they had everything in place. I went through days of long discussions through many emails just to be able to buy one. If they have a customer relations expert in place they need to fire them. Great to build great things. However, if you do not execute a well layer out plan you will die like many other great has bến. Make them accountable or they will learn to never be accountable. Seems like a great idea and a great machine. Hope mine works when I get it because I am already dreading contacting support.
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I respectfully disagree. Of course you will read about all the negative experiences with the printer on this forum. It is Bambu Labs home turf after all. I suspect it is a very tiny minority that are actually experiencing any negative issues with their printers.
And just because someone really likes a product, doesn’t make them a disciple. Just because their opinions differ from yours doesn’t automatically make them wrong. That works both ways of course. I have no doubt Bambu Customer Support feels like they are being put through the wringer every single day. Of course, they have only been in production since when, 3rd or 4th quarter of 2022? They’re still babies learning to crawl.
Appreciate your disagreement. However, it is not an issue of how long they have been in business. It is more the issue of a good business plan and people in place to execute it. The disciples want to give them a free pass when they did not have a proper plan or the ability to manage execute. The small things have to be in the plan just as much as a great printer design. Heck they apparent did not even submit their packaging requirements to a package ứng engineer. This is a one time minor cost. But do to that oversight they had many printers arrive damaged. Then tried to lay the blame on the carrier. And everyone knows that carriers do not take care. But again our hearts go out to poor execution. Your going to eventually get what your discipleship desires. A great product that dies on the vine. One only has to look Mercedes Benz or many other great products that fell asleep at the wheel. No, BL needs to be listening and making changes to an obviously poor customer support experience. But excuses are going to continue to be made for them.
You get what you pay for. And the BL printers are really cheap considering the hardware they offer.
If you want Prusa level support, you gonna add another 500$ on the purchase, at the very least, and some more bucks on every single replacement part.
BL stated they are working on improving the support response time by hiring more people, but skilled people do not grow on trees and need to be found and educated, but I would not expect Prusa level of support for the price they ask for the printers. But I at least believe it will get better within the next 6 months.
Beside, I do not want to know how many support tickets they recieve that actually are user level errors and not a problem with the printer. The whole forum is full of people complaining about things not working while they were responsible for failed prints, and I assume quite some of them simply open support tickets instead of investigating themself.
So yes, I disagree respectfully with your assertion that BL is ■■■■ at support. They are overwhelmed and need to improve, but they are mostly caring. Bad support looks very different.
And I also disagree that just because an error code exists does mean that a solution exists or even the source of the problem is known. Error codes are just put in place when sensors read abnormal data, whatever the cause is.
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Great idea, has tons of potential. But much of the problem I suspect can be attributed to the relative new ability to crowd fund via kickstarter. Had they done after conventional funding or VC funding they would have had to submit a business plan. You see these types of problems with kickstarter companies all the time. Witness the many go on Shark Tank and admit that sales or marketing or supply chain is not their forte. Yet to survive you must have a plan and people in place. Sales does not make a company, but xe it ion of a plan will makes. So we all got in on the infancy of a great idea. Question is will we have this company around 10 years from now to support the product. Only time will tell.
They did not fund the development via Kickstarter. The printer was already developed at the time the kickstarter started. Kickstarter was just a free tool for advertisement and get the word out.
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I think your fooling yourself. There is no way this company was properly capitalized or set up.
I agree with the statement that support sucks. The guys that have started have been working with DJI and they should have known quite well at the start of the company (BL) that they do need support people. Many of them. Since this hardware does attract a lot of people unfamiliar with 3D printing, having to handle tools and stuff. Arguments like lack of people does not count any longer. If you open a restaurant with 100 tables and you have 1 guy employed to serve all the people, what will happen ?
The fact that they have a overly large wiki website with instruction and solutions to known problems that may occur tells you that they did have a plan in place and support ready to go.
Not a BL fanboy, and I really hate to see this discussion turn into one of those extremist left and right discussions. They have a next gen product that has forced the competition to up their game, now followed closely by Creality, with a plug and play stupid fast FDM printer for low cost.
Lets see how that company that has very firm roots and support system in place deals with this cutting edge technology released to the masses with no experience, who expect injection mold quality out of additive at home fabrication.
Up to this point most of the “Support Sucks” threads have had more than ample “support” form this community to help them solve the issue. Most of them solved, and most of them were end user problems, not a problem with the printer.
A few disgruntled individuals that, well, please by all means return your printer or sell it to someone else and delete your account.
I keep hoping that BL will open a “Second Hand” or “Factory Refurb” store like Creality and I can pick up a second printer at 70% from one of the disgruntled. Because if it has a defective networking card, I have no problem walking over to it with a SD card (like I have for the last 3 years) to print my model that only takes up 10% of the print surface so a warped bed is not critical, and VFA is not an issue because they are not supposed to be injection mold quality or the surfaces are too small for it to develop, and the tolerances are within .005"
I’ll replace the motherboard fan and aux cooling fan for $25us and a couple hours of my time and keep spitting out my prints.
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