RE:
So my experience with Prusa was simply great. However I think there are different expectations here.
Some expect a working unit that has no issues or issues get fixed by support (or at least guided by them). Totally fair to expect that and standard with other machines that do not have an open design. This I think where Prusa currently has problem.
Personally I see Prusa more of a Provider of a Design, some Info, software and parts. I have a Problem and I fix it with Information provided by Prusa and the community on the internet. I can do that because of the open design. Here the support simply works great - they quickly send me spare parts and even without charge if they feel it was only partly my problem. Same with operating systems I rather fix my Linux problems my self with the community. For me it is more enjoyable than Windows.
Of course the latter does not work for everyone and I 100% understand, but I just don`t mind it my self.. I like it. Would you guys agree with my Observation?
RE: Feeling really let down by tech support
Sounds legit, IMHO.
There's also a secondary effect. When I go into a support chat fully accepting that the poor slob working on the other side of the line isn't the person who caused the failure, we'll start working on the issue together. But if I enter the chat in an angry mood and dumping that mood on the support person, the entire exchange will neither be pleasant nor helpful. I do NOT accuse any of the previous posters of being pricks when dealing with support - but one can't know if the previous person that support person had to deal with was one... Always assume that the other person is underpaid, stressed, tired and potentially pissed off by the last customer.
RE:
Very, very disappointed.
Techs don't even read the background to my problem, every time it is starting over from square one.
I'm having a problem with my extruder motor, the tech asked me to take a picture of the motor to see if it looked "ok". I told him, "no", I will not. WTF kind of a question is that?
RE: Feeling really let down by tech support
I can't say that. We got XL for work. It's been absolute cluster fuck of an printer and I've contacted support for I don't even know how many times within few months. But support staff has worked just fine and gotten replacement parts for the printer. Now today just was so fed up with frequent problems that we decided to ship printer to Prusa for repairs whatever. I'm not spending anymore time on it as I've already spend like 10-15h of trying to figure out stuff in it.
This all being said, printer is still here. But everything should be proceeding. Only really bad minus from Prusa is that they didn't agree to ship us new printer. Imo it would've been easier for us all if I'd just got new printer, packaged that piece of junk we have in box and ship it back. But nope. For some reason it doesn't work like that for Prusa. Many other company friendly companies have excelled in this arrangement in warranty things. Ok and one more minus. I'd like to have email support for being business user. It's royal pain in the ass to contact them via chat trying to work simultaneusly.
When was the last time you contacted Prusa support? It was good years ago but now is just a sewer of useless people who have one job and one job only: Get rid of the complainer. They want you gone anyway they can as long as it doesn't require actually helping you.
I'm surprised by the harsh criticism of Prusa's support staff. Apart from one specific person who should _not_ do a job with customer contact, I always found them extremely helpful and friendly.
RE: Feeling really let down by tech support
I can't agree on that. We bought Prusa XL for work and for that price point we expected to get functional and reliable printer. I did get that mentality with MK3 series price point. But absolutely not on XL. I don't consider XL to be hobbyist grade printer anymore. Heck it was like almost 2000€ for Enclosure XL with single tool. It must not have a single issue for that price point in printing space. We unfortunately relied on that and previous good Prusa experiences.
So my experience with Prusa was simply great. However I think there are different expectations here.
Some expect a working unit that has no issues or issues get fixed by support (or at least guided by them). Totally fair to expect that and standard with other machines that do not have an open design. This I think where Prusa currently has problem.
Personally I see Prusa more of a Provider of a Design, some Info, software and parts. I have a Problem and I fix it with Information provided by Prusa and the community on the internet. I can do that because of the open design. Here the support simply works great - they quickly send me spare parts and even without charge if they feel it was only partly my problem. Same with operating systems I rather fix my Linux problems my self with the community. For me it is more enjoyable than Windows.
Of course the latter does not work for everyone and I 100% understand, but I just don`t mind it my self.. I like it. Would you guys agree with my Observation?
RE: Feeling really let down by tech support
The XL is Thousands of Euros cheaper than any comparable machine. What exactly do you mean "at that pricepoint"?
Well you do you, but I think you may be overwhelmed with the printer you bought. Maybe you are better off with a consumer china printer or even just using a printing service.
You do you, but it seems your expectatians clash with reality.
I can't agree on that. We bought Prusa XL for work and for that price point we expected to get functional and reliable printer. I did get that mentality with MK3 series price point. But absolutely not on XL. I don't consider XL to be hobbyist grade printer anymore. Heck it was like almost 2000€ for Enclosure XL with single tool. It must not have a single issue for that price point in printing space. We unfortunately relied on that and previous good Prusa experiences.
So my experience with Prusa was simply great. However I think there are different expectations here.
Some expect a working unit that has no issues or issues get fixed by support (or at least guided by them). Totally fair to expect that and standard with other machines that do not have an open design. This I think where Prusa currently has problem.
Personally I see Prusa more of a Provider of a Design, some Info, software and parts. I have a Problem and I fix it with Information provided by Prusa and the community on the internet. I can do that because of the open design. Here the support simply works great - they quickly send me spare parts and even without charge if they feel it was only partly my problem. Same with operating systems I rather fix my Linux problems my self with the community. For me it is more enjoyable than Windows.
Of course the latter does not work for everyone and I 100% understand, but I just don`t mind it my self.. I like it. Would you guys agree with my Observation?
RE:
The XL is Thousands of Euros cheaper than any comparable machine. What exactly do you mean "at that pricepoint"?
Well you do you, but I think you may be overwhelmed with the printer you bought. Maybe you are better off with a consumer china printer or even just using a printing service.
You do you, but it seems your expectatians clash with reality.
Single tool XL that costs around 2000€? I can begin to throw stons of models that come into same feature set. No excuses there imho.
Only XL-multitool is model that doesn't have many competitors.
And overwhelmed? I've been using printers for is now +10 years. I'm quite well aware how they work. Besides it indeed would be same to use printer from China. If our friggin' XL has constant problems, why not? I honestly think K2 Plus might be better printer at least compared to unreliable heap of thrash we have at work.
RE:
Well, I just had a great experience with Tech Support. They were prompt, helped me trouble-shoot on the spot and tracked the problem to a faulty screen which needs replacing. Couldn't be better in my opinion ( apart from having to buy a new screen as it's out of warranty but that's within the conditions of purchase isn't it! ).
So I rate the tech support 10/10
RE: Feeling really let down by tech support
The XL is Thousands of Euros cheaper than any comparable machine.
Sorry but maybe 3 years back. And even then only the 5th. IDEX and large volume single heads were already there in a fraction of a price. After that H2D came and now snapmaker Multitool again cheaper than Prusa. I'm not mentioning the voron multiheads since its not a plug and play approach.
I have an XL and i used support quite a few times with Prusa. Is a hit and miss. Sometimes if the problem is clear i get a replacement part and great support , albeit having to go through all the steps and a lot of times unnecessary. Whenever escalated to email support it was tedious , time consuming and i had to constantly send reminder emails.Awful. After i bought the overpriced enclosure to stop ASA warping i get a tile overheating error every time i print in an enclosure. Chat support got me through the standard tests and send me a new heatbed board. That did not solve the problem. But im so f__ing tired that im printing ASA and ABS with the door open to stop the problem. The issue in my opinion is not the module or tiles but the actual design and lack of proper temperature control with the enclosure. But i really hate to go through the works gain, get it elevated to email support and send reminders for multiple weeks again.
Im glad they send me the replacement parts but i'm not praising them for this since its the least they could do for a 5k printer with this kind of faults. I love the things my XL can do and even with its problems is still my everyday printer. The problem that Prusa fails to recognize is that other companies have this or similar tech nowdays in a fraction of a price. In if QoS and quality of the end product does get up to their names price tag it will not be worth buying their products anymore.
Again i like my XL. I don't regret buying it. I use it almost every day. Multi tool is an AWESOME idea and Prusas implementation is good. For me the problem lies in the build quality, cutting corners, and "framework" around the multihead (i.e. the afterthought of enclosure, or the petg printer parts or actually the concept of printed parts on such a complex machine). In a few years when i decide to replace it , Prusa may not be even my first choice. For example i'm on the process of selling the again overpriced SLS1/CW3 2600E bundle and getting the saturn-4-ultra-16k-bundle for 600E