EZ3D Phoenix 3D Printer Review
On January 31st, I paid $100 deposit for a Phoenix 3D printer from EZ3D, based in Colorado. I was cautioned that there was a wait time of 8-10 weeks. I appreciated, however, that instead of demanding full payment at ordering – as many “Kickstarted” 3D printer companies do – they only required a deposit, with the balance due when they ship. Their website also mentioned a one-year warranty on parts, which spoke well for their company and how they intended to do business. I was also intrigued by the software, which was advertised as having the ability to “rewind” failed prints to continue from where it left off. All of these factors left me feeling pretty confident with my purchase, especially given the very reasonable price, compared to other printers out there.
The printer didn’t actually ship until May 14th and it arrived May 19th, approximately 15 weeks after it was ordered. For a new company with a high demand and the normal production start-up issues, this wasn’t that bad. Unfortunately, the problems began as soon as I opened the box. The printer came assembled, but it shipped with no printed directions, no software, and no guidance for how to get started. There was no link to the software on the website, nor was there any kind of support site or forums. After much searching, I managed to find a link to the software buried in a blog post about a software update. There were also no instructions on how to set up the spool holder (I figured it out by finding one of the few videos that showed the top of the printer), or how to get started setting everything up. I submitted a “comment ticket” through the website – the only place I could find to contact the company – asking for guidance. I never got a specific response, but as I had figured out most of my issues on my own, I wasn’t too concerned. I should have been, however, as this was a harbinger of much more serious problems to come.
In trying to level the hot end by following a video posted in their blog, I eventually deduced that there was no way that the hot end could ever be brought within about 3mm of the print surface – the belts, I discovered, were too short. I submitted another ticket, and after several days received a response asking for more photos. Several days after that, EZ3D confirmed that the belts I had been sent were cut too short. They would send replacements in the mail. The replacements arrived with no instructions. If you’ve ever seen this printer, you know that the belts are wound in a very intricate way through many pulleys, gears, and bearings. I managed to reverse engineer how to install the belts by taking many photos as I carefully partially disassembled my pre-assembled printer (NB: There is now a video showing how to do this).
Finally ready to try out the printer, I quickly discovered the software – one of the main incentives for buying this particular printer – is simply not ready for prime time. It is extremely buggy, at best a beta release. The program would not exit cleanly if you shut it down, throwing an unhandled exception that would refuse to let the program quit. You were forced to kill the process with Windows Task Manager. They later updated the software to “fix” this problem, however, the fix was to simply stop handling the exception and let the program quit. Unfortunately, the program did not remove itself from running, so still had to be killed in Task Manager or you would be unable to restart the program. This problem persisted until they released a new client-server version, which still has the server part running all the time. The downside of this arrangement is that the printer often loses connection to the computer, causing the print to simply stop in the middle. The “recover a failed print” option does not work if you manually stop the printer and try to restart (which was necessary because of the frozen client), so was never a useful feature – even though this is the only feature that sets this printer apart from others.
While on the subject of the software, not only is it buggy, but it takes away all ability of the operator to set custom slic3r parameters. There are a wealth of choices in a drop-down box, but as we all know, we often need to “tune” the print to the particular object, perhaps with a slower first layer, a change in temperature, etc. There is no way to do this with the EZ3D software. Unfortunately, because of the customizations EZ3D has made to the Marlin firmware, the printer will not work with other software such as MatterControl, Repetier-Host, etc. The RAMBo board can be flashed, of course, but then it will no longer work with the EZ3D software – and more importantly, EZ3D will refuse to provide support for the printer (not that they provide much support in any event, but more on that later).
I attempted to print in PLA, but never got anything to work at all. I’m not saying I couldn’t get a “good” print, I’m saying I could not get any print at all. Occasionally I could get some filament to extrude, but then the cold end would clog immediately. I submitted a support ticket and (after many days – typical response time is on the order of 5-15 days) was told that “If you have never printed on a 3D printer before I do NOT recommend starting out with PLA. PLA can be very stubborn to print”. This is, of course, simply untrue, as PLA is generally much easier to print with than ABS, however, the extruder and hot end design of the Phoenix is fundamentally flawed in that it can’t adequately keep the temperature of the cold end steady enough for the filament to flow smoothly, nor does it have a PTFE (Teflon) tube in the cold end to reduce friction. But instead of owning up to this issue, EZ3D simply washes their hands of it and says to avoid printing in PLA.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t handle ABS much better. Not only does the hot end still jam repeatedly (requiring disassembly and a two-day bath in acetone to clear), my heat bed would not heat to more than 92 degrees C, no matter how long I waited. I (again) submitted a support ticket, and after waiting the requisite week or so, was told that “There are many factors that can cause a heat bed to not reach 100C. However, as long as it reaches 80C, your [sic] golden for ABS filament.” Ticket closed, no assistance given. Now, his statement is patently untrue. While I eventually had more luck getting ABS to extrude than PLA (which isn’t saying much, since the PLA didn’t work even once), the ABS still would not stick to the bed. Even with ABS slurry, the edges of even small prints would curl up. This is a sure sign that the heat bed isn’t hot enough, as obviously 90 degrees isn’t.
On June 10 – still without a single print, successful or not – I noticed that the z axis belts were slipping off of the counterweight holders. The usual multi-day back and forth with support ensued, and EZ3D finally acknowledged that they had some “bad pours” with their resin parts that was causing them to fail. They said they would send me a new set of counterweight holders to correct the problem. After waiting a week and a half, nothing arrived. I submitted another ticket asking about the status. They claimed it must have gotten lost in the mail, so sent a new set. This finally arrived 18 days after I requested the parts, putting me to the end of June and still unable to use the printer. Unfortunately, the counterweight brackets I was sent also were apparently the victim of a “bad pour”, as they were about 1/8” too thin. They also sent the wrong size screws, which damaged one of the counterweight holders. I requested those parts the same day (June 28th), but as of this writing (August 11th) the parts still have not arrived.
Fortunately, as a maker, I’m never afraid to try to kludge together a solution. With some epoxy putty and a good deal of crafting, I was able to fabricate a counterweight holder that seemed to work, at least as a temporary fix. Someone who bought this printer as a turnkey solution and was unwilling or unable to reverse engineer how it works would have been out of luck, however. Sadly, this was not the only part with a “bad pour”. On July 6th, one of the filament spool holders broke – it simply cracked in half under the weight of an admittedly heavy spool of ABS filament. I requested a replacement, but again, it still has not arrived as of this date.
At this point, it was becoming obvious that the parts in the Phoenix 3D printer are substandard and the entire design has some very serious flaws. More critically, however, it was becoming equally obvious that EZ3D’s support was ill-equipped to handle the no doubt numerous complaints they were facing. They did finally set up a support site with forums, so users were able to begin swapping ideas, but it also became clear that many people were having many problems and were in general being met with silence from EZ3D. I posted a message to the company directly saying that while in general makers are a very forgiving bunch, we absolutely require communication and status reports. There was no response to my message. I learned later they had also shut down their Facebook page due to the overwhelming number of negative comments. One Kickstarter update from EZ3D implied that they were filling commercial (post-Kickstarter) orders first in order to generate the cash flow needed to hire people to make more printers. After the understandably loud complaints from Kickstarter backers, they later clarified to say that they were shipping one Kickstarter printer for each commercial printer sold. As of this writing, however, a number of buyers still have not received their machines and have gotten no response or updates from EZ3D.
[Continued next post]
