Class action lawsuit against @MakerBot1 due to their “Smart Extruder”.
Not because it’s bad but because it’s so bad the Stratasys stock nose dived “$130.83 in early 2014 to a low of $31.88 a few days ago.”
Originally shared by HACKADAY
Since the 5th generation of Makerbot 3D printers were released at CES in 2014, there has been an avalanche of complaints about the smart extruder in these printers. Clogs were common, and the recommended fix was to simply replace the extruder. The smart… http://hackaday.com/2015/07/12/3d-printering-the-makerbot-class-action-suit
As an educator their “edu business model” is a scam, 100% from start to finish.
Purchase a 25k printer, have to pay 2k per year maintenance/service contract which you need cause if it breaks they will not help you and corporate won’t either. After paying 10 years and spending 20k additional on top of the 25k printer they tell you it’s at its “end of life” period which means they won’t service it any longer or help you to fix it. They will buy it back from you in the form of a 15% discount off of a new printer that is of equal value or higher…
Great I spend 45k over 10 years and then forced to buy another with a 15% discount plus I loose my old printer…
Great company… (Yeah right)
Ever since they bought MB, MB products have been reviewed poorly. Makes you wonder if it’s intentional because having affordable “good” printers is a conflict of interest as it competes with their other printers.
The decline in stock price wasn’t specifically due to the poor product, it was because they overspent on the acquisition and had forecasts that weren’t going to be met regardless of the quality of the product. Taht caused a tremendous write down. The lack of sales happened before most of the fallout from the product had surfaced. The poor product made it that much worse, basically a pile on effect. Even had they released a product without issues what they spent on the company far exceeded what the demand was for consumer 3D printing.
Bummer. I got their Replicator Mini for my STEM after school program. I thought that their (sometimes) finicky prints, clogs, etc. were normal. I was sold by their design and huge online community. Currently I’m printing trophies for next Friday’s culminating STEM Summer Camp Lego Mindstorms competition. They are printing fine. Will they go under? Crazy. Bad management considering how this industry seems to be finding its niche and has lots of room for growth…$
I have the replicator 2x and have owned it for 3 years now
I like it but I’m always dealing with jams, I’ve replaced the plunger assembly with an aftermarket 3d printed one that works great but the whole exp is not user friendly. Those who don’t have engineering degrees like myself or a fixit ability will pull their hair out.
@Anthony_Truss Service contracts and EOL with trade ups are not uncommon outside of Stratasys or even AM machines. Most all high end manufacturing machines have similar arrangements, particularly with regard to software/firmware control systems. Your environment is education but in the business sector a 10 year run on a machine like that is pretty good. At that point it’s well paid for itself (or better have) and it’s at the end of the depreciation schedule (for that machine it’s prbably 7 years)so there is no asset value on your books. By that time technology has advanced, you can get more machine for the same or less money and the new machine will add to the business assets. Those sorts of programs are geared toward businesses where there is an upgrade cycle that roughly follows the depreciation schedule though as an educator you aren’t doing that.
Which I completely understand however the only vendor we can do business with is an edu vendor that works for Stratasys, the insult is they “take care” of edu entities; it’s a complete joke. They don’t take care of they only take advantage of.
At least if your gonna screw me please tell me, I don’t want to wake up soar…
