r/snapmaker

/rant

I genuinely regret buying the Snapmaker U1.

The reason is simple: poor reliability.

I do not consider myself a complete beginner. I have been 3D printing for about 1.5 years now, starting with an Ender 3 V3 SE. That machine may be based on an older design, but it has been extremely reliable. If a print failed, 99% of the time the fault was mine.

I know my way around a 3D printer. I have taken apart my Ender 3 more times than I care to admit, and I have almost finished building my first Voron. I understand the basic parts of a printer, what they do, and how they work. In fact, those are the parts of 3D printing that fascinate me the most. I am not afraid of opening up a printer and getting my hands inside it.

And yet, the Snapmaker U1 has tested my patience like no other machine.

From the very beginning, it has been one problem after another. Toolhead swapping anomalies. Filament getting stuck inside the toolhead. MCU communication errors. Every time I solve one issue, the printer seems to grow a new one.

The auto filament feeder is maddeningly unreliable. It might load filament. It might not. It might unload filament. It might not. There is absolutely no confidence that this machine will simply do what it is supposed to do.

And toolhead clogging is an entirely different nightmare.

To start almost every other print, I either have to unclog the toolhead or take it apart to remove some badly mangled piece of stuck filament. That would still be somewhat bearable if toolhead disassembly was quick and sensible. But no. Getting to the extruder gears takes a ridiculous amount of time.

Honestly, I feel like the engineer who decided this toolhead needed ten different types and sizes of screws in random places has never taken apart anything in his life, let alone a 3D printer.

The bundled slicer is slow. Firmware updates can completely screw things up. Every day, there is some new problem waiting.

Yes, Snapmaker customer support has been good. They respond quickly, they are polite, and they genuinely seem to try to help. But I did not buy a printer so that I could keep emailing customer support every time a new issue appears. I have better things to do.

I wish I could return this printer and buy something else, but unfortunately that is not feasible for me now.

In my honest opinion, the Snapmaker U1 is not a beginner-friendly 3D printer. It is also not reliable enough for production runs, at least not in its current state.

I regret buying this machine.

/endrant

I apologise for the wall of text. Its midnight where I am and I spent the last 2 hours wrestling this machine to start an important print. I finally got it going but I was angry and frustrated by then and this post is the result.

Is there a phisical store where we can get the snapmaker in Australia or is it just online?

Hello,

I’m a complete beginner and am torn between the U1 and the X2D. I know they are two very different printers, but I still have a few questions. Perhaps some of you own both printers.

Personally, I wouldn't do much multi-color printing right now; I’d lean more towards materials like ASA and ABS, since I do a lot of work with microcontrollers.

However, I have a daughter (5 years old), and I’m sure that, in the end, I would frequently print using multiple colors.

The H2D or H2C is out of the question; that’s too much money for a first printer.

A question for those who might also own the U1: If I were to buy a hood for the U1 and perhaps a chamber heater (like the Panda Breath), would the U1’s print quality with complex materials then be comparable to that of the X2D?

As anyone used a usb hub with any success? I've got a webcam plugged into the usb and have to unplug it to do the firmware updates, not hard but it's a pain moving everything to get to the back of the printer, it would be better if I could leave an extension cable plugged in and the webcam.

Had the fun of picking up a printer two weeks ago, I still have yet to use it.

I figured I'd try going with the U1, arrived with a damaged USB Hub only for it to spiral from there. Reach out to support, got the part, went through all of the steps. Was finally able to start calibration only to be met with several errors, several failed attempts.

Went through all of the troubleshooting options I could, each error, I followed the troubleshooting guide. Followed every single error to the best of my ability, still ran into repeat performances from errors I had once cleared. Support has already done what I suspected they would do, have me re-run the same troubleshooting steps I've already done on three separate instances. I've gone through other troubleshooting options that other's have recommended here for similar issues, yet haven't seen any effective change in how the printer wishes to behave.

I've disassembled the toolchanger to verify the belt tensioners weren't binding, I have removed the side and rear panels to check if the belt was pinching on the idlers, to see if there was any signs of the belt scraping against anything. I've fully exhausted troubleshooting and I can't get a 10th of a way through a print before getting one of several errors: "Parking Failure," "Picking Failure," "Corexy home is unstable," "homing anomaly," "Axis movement anomaly."

I feel like I'm at my wit's end trying to get the printer to play nicely. I've done what I could and this isn't the first printer I've owned. I've had several Corexy machines in the past and all have worked flawlessly up to this point. In cases I did have an error, it was just a simple small adjustment to fix all of the problems that would show. In a previous ticket, I had shown there was damage along all of the panel tops, as if something happened in shipping.

I honestly wanted to love the printer, but if something doesn't change support wise, I feel I'll have to force a return by warranty. I'll be nearing the 30 day point in just over a week by now. Anything I may have missed that other's could recommend? Or did I get a shipping damaged 3d printer?

Hello Everyone,

I am having real struggles removing supports from prints on the U1. I am coming from Bambu and the supports that the snapmaker produces are consistently far more challenging to remove than the ones from my Bambu printers. I never really messed with support settings on Bambu outside of just choosing support type or angle.

I did some googling and have been playing with the top and bottom z distances, but I am yet to find a good balance between ease to remove and preventing spaghetti. I tested using a different filament type as the support layer and that worked out well but that takes up on of my color choices. May times I find myself reducing colors just to get to 4. Would not want to have to go to 3 for all prints that require supports.

Anyone have some good settings for 4 color prints with supports?

This INDX review reminds me not to take the U1's print quality for granted. Its a new system, I hope its gonna get better so we can also see it in other brands of 3d printers but the INDX core one costs more than double the price of U1. Let that sink in. Here is the review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khf-A6ofChE

Left one INDX, right one is snapmaker U1. Further in the video he shows similar problems from other people.

https://preview.redd.it/ab2dan9srdbh1.png?width=1733&format=png&auto=webp&s=091135e511abfcd3407b6961f3b22a4434212e72