Does anyone have any opinions of the Makibox? My friend is thinking about getting one, but from what I've heard they aren't very good. I heard one guy say that his caught on fire. Anyone here have experience with one?
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Does anyone have any opinions of the Makibox? My friend is thinking about getting one, but from what I've heard they aren't very good. I heard one guy say that his caught on fire. Anyone here have experience with one?
I have no experince with that particular printer. Although I researched it to death. It looks good on paper, however a few things put me off from buying one.
1 - delivery time is almost two months.
2 - seems to be in beta as far as I am concerned, people have gotten different printers over time.
3 - the control circuitry seems to be very weak.
The pros of the design to me are only two.
1 - if equipped with hot bed its using stainless steel, which makes for a good surface if they can control the warping.
2 - You have room for adjustment, which for some its a hassle and for me a bonus as I like to tweak things to my own liking.
I decided to stay away from the printer, although the price is very reasonable. I am rolling my own at this time, which as of now its two months into the build with no end in sight as I haven't had the time to do much on it the last two weeks.
Stay away at all costs. Looks like MakiBox may be going under. See video from founder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sc7vOWf7ZY
That is an utter shame. I feel bad for the founder. It is however not due to effort as much as its due to poor backing. Funding comes to those who can show solid gains, I belive the funders of this venture had no idea what this business is like. I see models and brands coming and going out in smoke in the same year. Vaporware, crapware etc. Maki was a bit better, it does not deserve to sink. However its still a poor performer. As they said in their website, 800 units a month.... Not sustainable, roi has to be in the 20-30%, that's 84K a month if they have a 30% profit margin. Lets say the have 20 employees with income of 60-80k, and average it to 70k, that puts them into the 1.4 million in expenses a year with an income of 108000 and that does not include any expense like office, facilities etc which can be 300k-1.2mill on their own. This puts them in a very very unpredictable place. No one is willing to fund a growing product for over 3 years that's hemorrhaging money at the rate of over 1.5mil a year. This operation is barely generating the small 2-3 person shop brake even point. The problem is that this type of business does not scale well until you hit the thousands a month range for the same number of employees or you take a cut on the profit margin and outsource almost everything out except the engineer and a few tech staff and an accountant, even then its in murky water.
Really too bad. Seems like a very honest guy. These printers really are getting too cheap to stay in the game. All you have to do is get on ebay and checkout what the prices of individual components are to guess that these folks are running way too slim on markup costs. Throw a bit of custom manufacturing into the mix and they are dead in the water.
Don't, Just Don't.Quote:
Originally Posted by donny
I paid over 11 months ago, nothing came, no communication, no refund. If you read the forums you will find about 800 others have been caught too.
Did you pay with PayPal? I also placed an order and after waiting for a month I asked Makible for a refund and was ignored, so I opened a dispute on PayPal and they got me my money back in a week.Quote:
Originally Posted by regpye
11 month is too late to open a dispute. But since the's a lot of problems, you might be able to ask for it.