New to 3D Printing, Starting with C2 - Suggestions?

Leave it connected and don't use it in the slicer settings.

Then if anything goes wrong with the primary one, just change the tool number in the slicer and keep printing while you figure out what to do about the primary.

 

Yup I sure did, good catch.

That's kind of my point...THIS is the community. It's pretty bare by comparison, as there are plenty of forums for other printers as well as social media outlets, YouTube videos and website coverage. Those don't really exist for Robo outside of the R1 model. I understand why...but a company deciding to abstain information from the consumer in an established market is a little concerning.

 

With no media availability you can say whatever you want about a product and no one can really dispute your message. It makes perfect sense for today's world, control the message and you have all the power. By the time anyone gets their printers how many of those kickstarter people will tell you honestly they made a mistake if it doesn't work as well as the messaging suggests. They will more likely blame themselves for any shortcomings.[/QUOTE]

Sorry but no media availability is not how you handle merchandise in an established retail sector. It's how you handle giving the world free internet, or providing a time share...its a form of shady marketing basically. Not saying Robo is shady, but that is notoriously a shady practice, and a dumb one to boot. There are emerging manufacturers in this industry every other month. You create an advantage for your opposition by allowing them to monopolize media coverage. People are sheep, they want what everybody else has. If nobody is able to review it without risking 1k on the machine being decent, then sales will be sloooooooow. I would love to see their sales for this near 6-month old product, but I would be willing to guess that its less than 100 units retail, and less than 1,000 wholesale. Maybe why they need to continue crowd-sourcing past their initial campaign and product. There has never been an emerging tech where it was smart to hide information either...think about computers and when they were introduced to the market. Even though they advertised heavily and provided advance units to large retail chains, there was push-back. So how is giving LESS information increasing consumer awareness? If its just to have a simple scapegoat in case of a flop, that's a pretty terrible tactic.

 

I don't think 6 months is recent though...I mean any other product after half a year would at least be in the public eye more than a single review video. A few months, sure, but 6? I talked to support at Robo and they said it was available to everybody at the beginning of December, and select retailers had it as early as August. Plenty of time for the C2 to pick up critics, but nothing. The R1 gets decent enough reviews, but its an old and presumably soon to be unsupported platform as they move on to newer products.

 

Makes sense. I know they are relatively new, but didn't their initial printer release like 2 years back? I could be wrong there so definitely don't quote me. However if that was indeed when they sold the first (somewhere around 2015), they are far from a start-up. Just because they crowd-fund all their projects doesn't mean they are grass-roots still. I mean, everybody who uses FlashForge answers to ONE customer rep named Tang lol, so every company has some room to grow for sure, but this just seems like a lack of marketing prowess. It seems more like two guys who found a cheap Chinese manufacturer and created a 3D printer. I'm sure that's how most people got into it honestly lol.

 

Yeah I mean, you could technically say there are a lot of "old start-ups" because what constitutes a start-up largely works on a person-person basis. But for me, 5 years and more than 25 employees with established marketability and a company worth of over a million as well as an up-run of five million (assuming the launch of C2/R2 goes well) does not constitute a start-up. Plus, didn't they sell? Or was that just a rumor?

 

I'll give them this: AMAZING branding. It's not a surprise they sold. It only serves to further mystify me as to why they had such little media coverage, unless that was the plan...create an amazing brand and hide defects by disallowing un-monitored feedback. Still, the machines and brand are slick, very well done. Good aesthetics and a catchy memorable name. The marketing guru inside me thinks "brilliant", but the cheap-ass inside me thinks "thin veil, you aren't getting my money!".

 

A little late in the game for my 2 cents but the arobo C2 was my very first printer. Do i wish i could go back and get ancheaper printer that was probably better. Maybe but then again i have to say the comunity here @Geof @mark tomlinson @WheresWaldo have been great support and even more people continue to join in on the help and support that is one of the main reasons i didnt end up selling my C2 and going with something different. I am getting a new printer but i am keeping my C2 as well

 

I don't doubt its a decent machine, I am pretty happy with the FlashForge but given this is my first printer I probably would have been happy with most devices in my spending range. Really me sending it back was more to do with the poor shipping (UPS beat the package to hell, I didn't even bother unboxing because I could SEE the printer through the gashes in the box), and because I noticed a sale on FFCP.