Hi,

We have been reselling Makerbot since the wooden, dual extruder, ABS "The Replicator" model, at least that's what the one in my bot-office says. I wasn't around then.

This may go on for a while, but I plan to direct my comments mostly at our 5th gen Replicator, which is about to be RMAed back to Makerbot.

We only got it because we were heading to a show, for educators, last month (November 2014). It had arrived a good while before, but I hadn't expected any issues from it, naively. My sales manager brought it home to get to know, and soon brought it back in, saying that the Z-plate wouldn't get close enough to the extruder.

I gave it a cursory inspection, and the flex-cable was routed inside the rear frame of the printer, blocking the build plate. I fixed that with a little tug on the cable, and started experimenting.

All of the things you noted in your series are identical with my printer. I haven't printed that much with it. I checked the logs today, and with 85 hours of printing, I've had 65 attempted prints and 18 successful. I'm estimating, because a factory reset blanked those numbers for me.

I went from firmware 1.3x to 1.4 to 1.5. The last update happened yesterday.

I set the Z-axis offset to the smallest gradient closer to the build plate. 80 microns, I think. I also had severe inconsistency with the extruder z-offset with each build. Had the constant filament jam detections (every 5 minutes) with the 1.4 firmware. This hadn't happened with the 1.3 firmware. After prints got started, they would go and go. I did some 15+ hour prints with the 1.3 firmware. Not to say that the build quality was high, it was never very good, not as good as my our rep2. I did experiment a bit with temperature and offset in custom slicer profiles, but never had a great result with the offset.

Interestingly, I had asked for the Z-offset to be a feature on the printer during a "conversation" I had via Makercare. I asked for it to be on the printer, though, so that you could fix things on the fly.

Since I'm dragging this out, I should sum up.

My extruder failed today. Or so I thought. I put my extra extruder on to verify. Filament was no longer extruding from either extruder, unless I forced it in. The printer had failed about halfway through a 100% "Owl" (you know the one), with a filament jam detect.

I had re-enabled the filament jam detect when I installed the 1.5 firmware. I had it disabled with 1.4, because it prevented printing longer than 5 minutes. I had discussed this with Makercare.

This morning, I came in and discovered the problem. Called Makercare and, while on hold, discovered that the "castle nut" on the xy-axis gantry no longer turned. The shaft with the flat turns, but not the part that actually engages the extruder. 85 hours on the printer.

Notably, perhaps, this print was performed with a 80 micron (minimum setting) Z-offset toward the build plate. The first layer looked outstanding. Actually, and without hyperbole, it was the best print I have seen from the 5th gen replicator yet. It made it up about 3 inches, somewhere in the Owl's belly before complete failure. I have that on the shelf with 3 50% size owls from another manufacturer sitting on it now.

Disjointed summary?

I am so glad this happened to me. Prior to today's failure, I already expanded our product line again. We had been exclusive with Makerbot for a long time. Then we opened things up just a little, but there was no real incentive for our inside sales staff to push customers in another direction with the Replicator 2 being available.

With the discontinuation of the Replicator 2 and availability of the 5th gen printers only, I have found superior alternatives and initiated the process of educating our sales staff that we need to steer our customers in different directions, immediately.

Thanks, Makerbot.