Get ready...

If they can't improve their customer support greatly, then I think is a very risky move for them.

Costco has the best return policy. A large number of customers may return the printers if they can't get it plug and play upon unpacking.

 

Heard that they improved their customer support a bit, but I don't think it's at the level the customers are hoping for, at least not yet.

 

Yup they're getting better at support, but still not enough.

The biggest issues with plug and play is:

Users having issues installing the driver or communicating with MC. Generally these are user side PC issues, but it's hard to know for sure

Mastering the Automatic Printer Leveling. Most people end up too low and it doesn't work.


If those can be resolved it really would be plug and play.

I'm curious how this costco experiment will go. Impulse buying a 3D printer sounds like a recipe for disaster

 

Oh boy! ......couple years ago, I was General Manager / Chief Engineer for a manufacturing company that contract manufactured household detergents for a Costco franchise/partnership locally (I'm still a contracted consultant for them) .
Man, if Robo3D fails to perform with those guys it would indeed be a disaster!
If it goes right, owning stock in Robo3D could be really cool
I really hope it goes well for them!

 

Well, I hope with Robo3D working with Costco will make them realized that customer service/support is very important and is expected so in doing any kind of business.

Hopefully, this will improve Robo3D's customer service greatly very soon.

 

Yeah, this is really scarry and exciting at the same time. If it succeeds, I would expect the Robo3D world to grow leaps and bounds with new technologies and upgrades and support. I'm just not sure if they're ready for the casual Costco consumer. It could be a disaster. Good luck boys. We're pulling for you.

 

Now that they've obviously got the Chinese plant all ramped-up for production and willing to bravely take on the Costco frontier, support is going to be THE key issue. When Mr. Joe Public buys that thing and takes it home to the wife and kids, he expects it to print something!
When he finds out it don't connect to his PC off the bat or that spool of PLA just sits there and kinks-up after the hobb, he's gonna want to talk to somebody in tech support real quick. If it can't print something within the first 30-minutes, that thing is going back to Costco.
Once the boys have a game-plan to effectively deal with those eventualities or better, virtually eliminate such, they'll need more than a couple of sturdy wheelbarrows to take the profits to the bank!
I wish them all the best, this is going to be really interesting!

 

Dremel of all companies is making a 3D printer that should be plug and play according to news reports.

S999 MSRP sold in Canada at Canadian Tire Store and the Home Depot!!!

 

I sure haven't seen many videos of people on YouTube saying "hey look here is my robo 3-D I just got I plugged it in and it's working instantly out of the box." Even XYZ printers cost several hundred dollars less and seem to work out of the box.

Robo 3-D should stick to hobbyist market unless they've really stepped up their game. I've had a robo 3-D since the first batch and to be honest it still doesn't work properly, though after countless hours, days? Over a year of work-- it nearly seems like it might ever possibly sort of function-- some day...

Unless Robo 3-D has completely changed and offers a printer that's been set up running and printing before you buy it then I feel like it's foolish to purchase a printer from them unless you go in knowing you're probably going to have to be some kind of an expert and need to take it apart put it back together if you want to ever work even a little bit. Purchasing a printer from robo 3-D was like purchasing a vacuum cleaner from a door-to-door salesman. It's probably not going to work like in the pictures, and to be honest for the price it doesn't seem worth it but they thru dirt on your floor and you know what? hey they smile.

The insides of the wad of that injection molded plastic the Robo 3-D printers are not much different and certainly not any better then a $350 prusa or delta printer - The main difference is the cheaper ones lack the "slick" idiot proof trappings and delta printers are much more efficient and easier to modify. All for half the price.

The world doesn't need another 750$ 3-D printer. For $500, maybe, but 750$ is too close to 900 for which you can get a much better printer with much better support.

I actually love the company robo 3-D more than you might think, I just separate my joy for their goals and progress from my dissatisfaction with my robo3d printer for the simple reason that the company is made of 'some pretty awesome seeming young dudes' if not exactly responsible corporate elderly gentleman.

I don't dislike my printer, am just dissatisfied, I won't be able to tell if I like it or dislike it until it actually prints, honestly it still doesn't print yet, and Robo 3-D tells me that it will someday but the fact that I've had to put this much work into it replacing parts and wires even the firmware software and the plastic printing extruder itself, it's less robo3d at this point, like darth vader.

Also excuses suck. There are plenty of solutions they just require making less money off a better printer. Driver support is nonsense sure you should be using Linux but The printer should not rely on a computer. Period. You should be able to send it gcode and press run, that's it.

I'll stop ranting now, this has been fun and a good outlet.

 

Really what they should do is start being a support company, instead of focusing on hardware. Hardware sales are only profitable when either you have exclusivity of patents that you can control or great support. This seems to be the point loss to robo 3-D about open source it's not just selling other peoples designs without paying for patents, it's the contributing back. Robo 3-D could start an entire line of customer support for any STL reprap, Delta or prusa a printer, technicians who take care of Lyness get paid pretty well it might be the best thing they ever did, only they would done do did it iyiddy..

Robo 3-D will lose more than money if they can't get consumers at Cosco happy they will completely destroy their names or worse earn more widely a bad reputation.

they needed to get focused when they had their Kickstarter I'm not saying they didn't get focused I'm just saying this is not the time to lose focus on Costco, they're probably going to lose more money than they will make doing returns, but if they haven't figured the lesson out yet then honestly maybe they need to learn the hard way.

 

I am using the forum and I do hope to get my printer working via the forum and yes it is very close so thank you community support as usual however I'm not the usual sort of person because I can laugh about wasting as much money as I did on something that's never ever worked in over year, but the only way to keep my sanity is to put energy into things to do work so at this point getting the Robo 3-D to work as my primary printer is no longer my focus, in the meantime I'm working on my Delta printer, The Robo goes right next to the Fiat for moments of free time to therapeutically waste in tinkering.

 

Looks like you over torqued the heat break on your E3D

 

he breaked it good

 

That IS an old pic from a bend in the heat break caused by first trying to fit the e3d in next to the fan, good eye. but I have since gone thru a handful and the one on the e3d on the robo is now replaced and fine. But you know that feeling! You know I get upset and vent and complain but here I am working on it cause I love it lets be real. I'd revise my previous posts if I could sorry for being so uppity