Quality control

The dual extruding Ultimaker 3!
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LePaul
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Quality control

Post by LePaul »

It's sad to see a couple posts about bad printers out of the box.

Especially for the premium price.
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

Let me expand on this a little....

My part time job, I sell appliances for Sears.

It's been my experience that if we delivered an expensive item with scratches, the delivery team would immediately box it back up, return it and order the customer a new one. As a customer, you would expect that what you paid top dollar for arrives brand new, tested and ready to work.

So when I see posts that indicate the customer shouldn't be bothered by a few scratches or forgive the assemblers for doing a poor job, that's unrealistic.

:)
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Re: Quality control

Post by Izzy »

I agree, you wouldn't accept a new car with scratches all over from poor assembly.
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Re: Quality control

Post by nallath »

I personally wouldn't. It doesn't matter if I got something cheap or not; I want it in pristine condition if it's new. If I don't care how it looks, I would have bought a second hand (and got a discount for doing so).
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

My refurb UM2 looks amazing. No dings or scratches

Hopefully Ultimaker nails down the problem areas of production. I know the machine is in high demand, but the assembly line needs to put quality ahead of quantity :)
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Re: Quality control

Post by korneel »

So I've been investigating this a little bit.. and while i encourage a critical view on this, I don't think all of your comments are fair LePaul..

I've seen 2 posts at the forum regarding quality control.. and they both make fair points.
as a bit of background, I have 5 Ultimaker 3s in my possession, 1 of the first batch, the other 4 of the general batches. the little " scratching" in the back is there with every printer. honestly, I did not even see it until now. I think it's a combination of the tight space and the little plastics that easily scratch. should not have happened, and I know they are on top of it. I'm not trying to defend them but I also think we need to be reasonable. those scratches are ugly and i'm sure they will take action to prevent that in the future.

as you know, all of these printers are assembled by hand. it's just humans, and mistakes will happen. if you look at the pully that was done the wrong way around, the reseller did the right thing. they had it boxed up and shipped a replacement. perfect service, and just how it should be. note that this is the reseller doing that, not Ultimaker. most resellers in this business are not multi million business with nice margins like Sears.. they are smaller 1 or 2 people shops... so taking back a printer and paying for shipping, waiting for Ultimaker to pay them back.. that's an investment so i can understand why they might be hesitant..
anyway, if I were a reseller, and I would ship out a replacement printer, I would triplecheck it before shipping. did not happen.. and unfortunately, he got a perfectly working machine with cosmetical flaws.. murphy's law and all. yes the screw are overtightened.. but it's cosmetical.. I've done that to one of my older printers too..

so we've seen 2 posts out of all the printers that have been shipped.. and in both cases, Ultimaker was on top of it, helping out were they could and urging the resller to take action.

now I'm all for being critical, but so far, I think they;'ve done a great job..
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

I appreciate your point of view.

And if these were $699 printers, I would have different opinion.

The Ultimaker 3's are among the most expensive of the desktop printers. They market these printers to a higher end audience than those of us who are hobbyists.

How many printers are sitting in boxes that passed QA and have mashed up metal from over-torquing the machine screws?

Accidents happen, I know this. I've chatted a lot with Erin and SImon over to Fabrc8 about their assembly process. They've hired extra help and each staffer builds the printer, not an assembly line.

(It looks like to majority of complaints I have seen were made over in Europe.)

But I digress...

I am HUGE about customer service. It's how I make a living. I take great pride in my customers getting an item that is as advertised and works!

Last night I sold a refrigerator to a gent who needed one immediately. I opened up the only one we had in stock, made sure there were no dents or scratches. We noticed the top handle had a rub make from shipping. I told him we could either replace the handle or take some additional money off. He chose the later.

So if I come off as hard on Ultimaker or any other retailer, it's because I have that retail background in customer service.
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

This poor guy....see this thread
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Re: Quality control

Post by korneel »

LePaul wrote:This poor guy....see this thread
I'm in so much doubt right now..

Either he is the unluckiest person ever or something else is going on..
I have 5 of these bad boys.. 1 from the first batch, then 4 from the normal batch.. if he gets 3 printers that all have a major defect.. I should have at least 1 of those issues..
so at this point I am assuming he is just super unlucky.. or perhaps his delivery van driver is a rally sport enthusiast and uses his van to practice rally driving during delivery hours? I don't know but it's just super super weird. how unlucky can you be?
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

Well, you know my luck! As you've seen with my Ultimaker 2+ filament jams, some of us just have that bad luck gene!
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Re: Quality control

Post by Izzy »

No Paul, you are a bad luck demigod! :lol:
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

Thank you, Captain Obvious :) :)
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Re: Quality control

Post by Titus »

korneel wrote:
LePaul wrote:This poor guy....see this thread
I'm in so much doubt right now..

Either he is the unluckiest person ever or something else is going on..
I have 5 of these bad boys.. 1 from the first batch, then 4 from the normal batch.. if he gets 3 printers that all have a major defect.. I should have at least 1 of those issues..
so at this point I am assuming he is just super unlucky.. or perhaps his delivery van driver is a rally sport enthusiast and uses his van to practice rally driving during delivery hours? I don't know but it's just super super weird. how unlucky can you be?
Not entirely sure, but you got them from The Netherlands right off the truck.
He is in the UK, perhaps the problem is the over'seas' shipping?

But it is terrible, poor guy indeed. And still happy and convinced UM3 is the best. Wow.
UM better give him a medal, or some free stuff :P
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Re: Quality control

Post by LePaul »

This could all be the work on one bad assembly-person in a hurry, being careless, or the like.

I can only imagine how frustrating it is for all sides; Ultimaker, the customer, the poor vendor whose just shipping the box he received.
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Re: Quality control

Post by MTVDNA »

Most of those issues don't look like the result of poor handling during shipping though...

I suppose someone's getting their arse kicked at UM :P
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