Great points. This is not just a 3d printer company challenge. It happens with all brands. I have a graveyard of products that never make it to publishing audio products, video, 3d printers, etc. You share a great perspective, I tell the brands I work with that my audience and my brand are paramount. Keep being true to your community and yourself. Thanks for publishing.
Worth pointing out that because of the pervasiveness of shills, a rating that's essentially "good, but not perfect" is taken as a scathing indictment by consumers. So now even honest companies are pressured to avoid honest reviews. Who among us sees 3/5 on amazon or w/e and thinks: 'oh, average'?
It’s all about affiliate links now and when a UA-camr says you don’t get charged extra it’s a half truth because that link doesn’t just take you to a product it also enrolls you in an AD campaign and the UA-camr gets paid a lot more for you to click that innocent link then all the ADs they put into there videos, which they have full control over!! Even this guy, lol it’s such a joke and every person in marketing knows this
Oh forgot to give you an example ClickBank is one that most use also check out SMZeus. This is called a buddy building video, where the salesman tries to seem like there on your side, they tell it like “it is” lol it’s a shameless scam
I know a guy who did this with a video game mod... People didn't like balance, model quality, texture quality, performance, etc. Rather than trying to actually fix the issues, he'd just "Yeah, that's your opinion" if he couldn't delete the feedback and block the person fast enough.
The life cycle of printers is why I could never endorse one or even want to mention the brands I use. All my friends with the same printer model have encountered similar problems down the line that are unapparent after a week or two of testing. Seeing friends disappointed with a purchase they paid hard earned money for, based on the endorsement of an online educator is frustrating and not something I could do after seeing it first hand. As a content creator you don't even need to endorse or talk about a product to influence your audience because there's already an established trust that you're using something, so it must be okay.
@@FuriousImp I have to say, I have a printer from a company that Angus reviewed, the first version was a fire hazard, had numerous issues. I bought the next version, they listened, made major changes and? It's an Anet A8 Plus. Still didn't get great reviews from Angus and the rest but? For the price, and my first printer? I love it. Took me awhile to get it dialed in, the entire time learning everything from MakersMuse, TeachingTec, CNCKitchen, 3dPrintingNerd. Hell, they were my 3d University. While from reviews, research, etc... I'm well aware I didn't buy a Prusa at the same time I'm kicking out quality prints that compare with and sometimes beat Creality, etc... So? I'm pleased with it. However, I'd be even less pleased to hear that they were one of the companies guilty of the things Angus refers to. In fact, it would prevent me from buying from them in the future. Anyway, my Chinese PoS is actually quite a fine piece of equipment. I like it.
This point encompasses any product you could think of ... I am target shooter gun owner in OZ .. A friend of mine bought a rifle on my recommendation and he has had lots of trouble with it and I feel SOOOO BAD ,,!
This video is spot on. The "testing on the user" thing is really annoying and I hope that people notice that we do take the time to qualify things we make. We hate purchasing products only to have to hunt around on forums and groups for solutions. The bit about companies making one machine and getting it right is also VERY good advice. Look at how many printers Creality makes just for one example. If they focused on one machine and put a ton of testing into it they could have something that works amazingly well. It will save consumers money as well. As for the blacklisting thing, Banggood blacklisted us after a bad review of a printer they sent us. There are a few others but it doesn't matter. We just end up purchasing the machines from resellers so they have no say in whether we do a video on it or not. Having our little printer parts store allows us to do that so we don't have to rely only on companies sending us machines.
im old and a gamer. and back in the 80 and 90s b4 the internet games had to be complete and fully tested and work correctly. After the internet when you could patch and fix later is when this started and it has gotten increasingly worse over the years and has expanded past games and apps into the physical world but enabled by user grps and communities.
Thanks for making this video (and thanks for the shoutouts)! Fully agreed with the points you're making - it's trends that are slowly, but persistently creeping in and as "influencers", I think we've got the leverage to not just influence viewers, but also influence manufacturers for the better. Or maybe we should all move on to making bird videos. Lot less stressful 😉
How about this addition to your review policy: "Any attempt to exert pressure on me to alter or delete the review video or to bribe me into changing the results or my review will result in an immediate and irrevocable publication of the entire unredacted correspondence in order to make my audience aware of the attempted manipulation." (Modulo some legalese to protect personal data, addresses and so on, obviously).
"All correspondence can and will be made publicly available at the content creator's sole discretion, up to and including, but not limited to, all Non-Disclosure Agreements made and their terms, and will be recorded and retained indefinitely for this purpose."
While commendable and a great standard to follow, the manufacturer would simply decline and hand their printer over to someone willing to "play ball". Unfortunately, there's no shortage of channels willing to schill for free gear. Just look for reviews of Anet stuff. You'll find a ton of VERY dodgy reviews. They're not alone, but they were prodigious for a bit there. Edit: changed "school" to "schill". Fkn autocorrect.
@@Samqdf that's impractical for most companies to do in such industries. If every company were so punished for every failure, few companies would be left, and few new companies would rise up to fill their place. Often times the flaw is easy to fix/alter, especially if the company is one which acknowledges and remedies it's errors. There is always risk a product won't live up to expectations, and a smart consumer knows this and accepts that risk.
@@SoloRenegade What I meant by comment is that I would be highly suspicious of such claims in the first place and I would use such a statement to shut them down. Is it fair? No, not completely, I admit I have become jaded over time
@@Samqdf intolerance of failure is partly how the Japanese lost WW2. Intolerance of failure is how communists handle their problems. Intolerance of failures is unscientific. Intolerance of failures is anti-progress. Intolerance of failure is anti-learning. The best and fastest way to learn and progress is through incremental failures. This is why SpaceX is so amazing and successful for example, because they aren't afraid to try and fail. people with your attitude towards failure are impediments to progress. When is the last time you bought a Perfect product from any company? Never, because perfection is not achievable. All designs involve compromises, must balance features, and costs.
@@SoloRenegade I no way do I disagree with you, after-all I know all too well what it's like as I am a supplier manufacturer myself in a very niche auto related sector. Rather I think I am not doing a good job of expressing my point. What I mean is that it's hard to know which company has actually rectified and updated a printer model compared to those that are falsely claiming that they have done so so as to remove any form of negative publicity. I think that your original statement is likely the best way for a company to show they made actual changes, sure there is still the chance that they will send you a model that is better than what they will actually send to the public but still it's something.
As someone who does reviews and is trying to grow their channel doing this very thing, I can confirm that shady tactics do take place. In my experience, it’s almost always a 3rd party store that sells a companies products and is trying to push that product via their store. As Angus mentioned in the video, it’s hard to turn down a free machine but as soon as you sense that there is any force or anything that would make you feel uncomfortable posting your true opinion, I would instantly deny the transaction. No one will win in one of these situations because if you lie about the product you recommended, people will come back to you and associate you with their bad experience. So it’s literally a lose lose situation. No one wins except the shady company who got a forced positive review. Thanks Angus for making this video. It’s a reminder for us to stay true to ourselves and our viewers.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino I would never do that. Some companies would take that challenge and then you have your video hacked into pieces, turning into an "I said / they said" scenario.
@@shirothefish9688 Or just send them hours and hours worth of livestreamed footage. Not only that they get it raw (with all the hassle included, of course), even the people watching the livestream would also see how it works in real time. And no, that "hacking into pieces" of a video won't happen because there is an audience, and VODS exist and the only hard part of clipping a livestream for some footage is knowing where the said footage actually is. The rest is just like two clicks and voila, you're done.
“A good review doesn't just have positives, that's called an advertisement” I think this line changed a lot for me. Not only being at the receiving end of such products, you gotta think about who a real review is for: the consumer. If the review is good, that means it's thought out, well done, really takes a look at the product and doesn't just promise things that aren't real / tells lies. This just goes to show how the word “good” changes meaning depending on how says it. Good for business, or good for the consumer?
One of the callouts you made about companies being appreciative of the negatives is honestly how I think so many machines have improved over the past 5+ years. If that wasn’t there then we’d still have some fairly large crap designs out there
Uncle Jessy a very fair point but they are putting out a lot of unfinished printers and getting the community to fix them, it’s a double edged sword. Thing is it moves so fast the companies know that if they put out an unfinished printer with problems the buyers will fix it within 3 months. They know the printers have issues. They must know as some printers break after a handful of prints or don’t print at all when they are assembled. They are pushing out untested printers as they want their new printer to be the thing in the forefront of people’s minds and people always talk about the latest printers. Love the channel by the way.
@@paulmilne3038 ohhh I 110% agree with you. I have more than a handful of printers that have never made it into videos because they were hot garbage and clearly lacked any sort of quality control or properly designed/built. Thanks mate!
@@UncleJessy but those didn't make it to video? there's the problem, right there! i'll bet you would get slammed with views on a title that reads "this printer was a hot mess and i can't review it". what's more important? your viewers or your printer companies and free shit. you will need to decide.
Jesus jessy is like the biggest schill out there..... surprised you raised your head mate. Your videos I take with a pinch of salt your entertaining don't get me wrong... but you know , you go through so many printers to hard to take you seriously
@@av8rdoug824 Uncle Jessy’s videos are entertaining, but to me they end up getting really close to feeling like shill videos. It’s possible that this is because so many of these “hot garbage” printer reviews don’t see the light of day. I would never buy a printer off of his advice.
I appreciate the unbiased opinions about technology on this channel. Being able to watch videos with informed decisions about products that work well and don't is very useful for someone that doesn't have the same access to these technologies. It goes without saying that not being bias towards companies and simply providing information on how the product works objectively is extremely useful, and I appreciate that.
I don't think it's indifference on this channel, I think Maker Muse just can't lie and he knows it. His face says it all and you just have to see his face when he talking about something he thinks is bad. If he was to try and say something was good when it wasn't his body language would just easily give it away.
Great points. I'd rather use a good printer I like than shill a new machine every week. I only accept printers I'm generally interested in having but I still buy most of my own in case they're not too great so I can pass on using them in my videos.
Good video! I am legally blind, and picked up a 3D printer a few months ago after months of research. I've had constant struggles calibrating my machine due to the difficulty it is to see nuances in my prints. This video really set it straight, and brought back a lot of memories of the dozens of machines I looked through before settling on one. If this gets read, thanks for the info. I hope that one day I can get my machine to a standard I am happy with printing, seeing all the cool things you showcase! Cheers
"We will pay you to meet your expectations" sums them up to me, lol. Thanks to you and all the bigger 3D printing channels, appreciate you all being forthcoming and retaining integrity. I see so many of my favourite content creators in the comments which never fails to make me smile.
You'll get less review units that the company doesn't fully support. I think that a video like this will improve the value the viewers give to your opinion. A company that are confident in their product will keep sending you review units because your approval value has just increased by a lot.
That's what I was thinking. If this video stopped a company from sending their printer to be reviewed then they know they give out subpar machines and don't want that to be known to the public. If they know they'll consistently have good quality (and a good support system for the inevitable less fortunate ones), then they have nothing to worry about because they're the companies everyone is looking for.
"your approval value has just increased by a lot." I wish more reviewers recognized this. The restaraunt industry understands it, Michellin stars are so valuable because they're _hard_ to get. A good review from an obvious patsy is no more valuable than your own product page.
I don't think that's fair, if I reviewed water I wouldn't be able to find bad points. Plus, there are products that are indeed just good. You have to look for good reviewers which test the real world performance, but who also stress test the parts, and demonstrate knowledge about the industry and possible alternatives.
The key is staying away from reviews which don't really tell you anything besides superficial opinions that anyone could make or the marketing material. Those are most likely written by either bots or incompetent fools.
This is why I'm so happy with Prusa. "Hey we realized this design kinda sucked, here's some STLs if you want to fix the problem free of charge". And when the problem does require hardware fixes (like the filament runout sensor), it's a pretty cheap kit and they send it free to those who ordered recently.
@@AshrZ I was with a high-end video service in the U. S. It was not cheap. When I had a problem, I could talk to a tech that knew the product and could work me through any isuues.
2:50 I would consider "good review video" to be technically well done, accurate and honest. Tha also means unbiased as a result. If that means demonstrating the problems with the unit, so be it. *I don't expect any 3D printer to be perfect* so a "review" that has only positives is obviously dishonest.
DUDE!!! It is your honesty and frankness that has had a big influence on my personal purchases in the 3d world... I give you a standing ovation and heartfelt salute for being and STAYING real for the community.... I may not be a paying member, but you are one of my highest respected opinions for print machines and results... I know your pain firsthand as well. I prototyped a machine, offered some critical opinions... And soon a "Pro" version was released with some of my mentioned fixes in place.... I feel you, I really do... Just keep it really as you always have and you will always have my respect and support.... You are doing everything right for the audience you are wanting to reach.... Just wanted to jump in on your aide dude... Keep it real!!! Amen, Brother!!!
"the review you did for us..." there's the mistake there. You aren't doing a review for them, you are doing it for the community. They make their own judgement whether the potential for publicity makes it worth sending you free hardware, but if they do, then they send it to you under your review terms and your obligations to them are defined by those terms, not by what they feel they should be getting out of the investment.
@@nerys71 the review is posted *for* the community, not whatever brand sent you the machine. How you do the review is irrelevant for who the review is directed towards.
@@davidwarford3087 I don't know about whatever machine you got but every machine I got was contingent upon a review Of course I make it crystal clear that they'll have no editorial control over the review :-) so the machine better be good or they'll regret it :-)
useful insight into this aspect of the tech community, seeing the same dirty deals being offered to critics in 3D printing, as are being proposed to influencers in every other field the thing that reviewers need to keep in mind is that it's your integrity which is your greatest asset, and if you tarnish your reputation in these shady deals, it will come back and bite you
That was a spectacular, and accurate, summary of the current state of 3D printer reviews. It's also a big part of why I rarely do reviews anymore (besides the fact that I don't fall into that "tinker" category you mentioned. Well done, Angus! 👏
he never mentions the offending companies though guess he still doesn't want to be blacklisted? do you know WHO he is talking about specifically, and what is your opinion of the ender 3 pro? I am asking because I just bough tit cause it was on sale for $100 and this is my first 3d printer and I still have not unboxed it yet
@@andreamitchell4758 Andrea, naming and shaming goes a bit beyond not wanting to be blacklisted in legal areas. That can get you sued by companies with a lot more time and money on hand, who want to pressure you with the financial ruin of a dragged out court case, even if you were right and had the right to say what you did.
I have made a few printer reviews on printers I purchased and now I'm getting emails from 3D printer companies asking to review their units. Some like you point out have some shady behavior. Basically, they want positive reviews only, I've turned them all down. Not worth it for a "free" printer. Thanks for bringing this issue up to the masses.
@@stewartross1233 can you read? how is putting out a bad review about a bad product lacking integrity and respect? I said a true review- so if it's good it gets a good review, if it's bad it gets a bad review, you idiot
@@tumbles8350 because you lose the integrity of not lying to someone to get free product, you're lying to the company about giving them a good review. you don't have any integrity at all at that point.
Just take the unit and never review it. Predatory companies should be expect to be preyed upon by predatory reviewers and consumers. Imagine the change in the industry that would be brought about by predatory companies simply losing thousands of dollars for attempting to do shady things.
Love this! I just recently (about 8 months) to 3D printing. I took my time to do research into which type of printer and landed on a resin. Then researched all the different brands and sizes by price and print resolution. I picked the one I did because it was everything I was looking for. I ended up buying a second one so that I could print more at the same time. About 4 months ago I started to look into an SLA 3D printer. This was a nightmare purely because of the market saturation of every company having 20 different printers, all with different names. So looking up reviews was a headache. I ended up picking one from the company I bought my resin printers from based on the reviews and reliability. One thing I think a lot, if not all consumers should know is the 3 driving points of a product. 1. Lead time/turn around time/time to deliver the product. 2. Cost. 3. Quality. Everything boils down to these 3, you can only have 2 of them and it will lower/increase the 3rd one. Need it fast and great quality? Gonna cost more. Need it fast and cheap? Gonna have crap quality. Need it great quality and cheap? Gonna take extra time. Keep that in mind when you shop for anything. If its cheap and readily available, question the quality. There's a reason why it's cheap.
Good on you Angus. I've been aware of your channel for years, I bought 2 x 3D printers in the past because of you, but I have only just subscribed. Should have done it earlier, but I don't just subscribe willy-nilly. I see so much "influence" in my industry and imagine that it it's even more rife in the life of a tuber. Good on you for keeping it real. I know it happens all over the shop (cash for comment etc) which is why I generally watch multiple channels and join FB pages before I commit to major purchases. You my friend have been straight up for years and I think that is highly commendable. Stay true blue. : )
I'm wondering if the YT algorithm will flag this because it's something they're not used to seeing or calculating for: INTEGRITY Thank you for what you do.
Funny you mention that. I just went on a tangent about AI because the YT algorithm managed to recommend something I am interested in without ever having visited this channel before.
11:13 right around the time you start speaking of community dependence, an amazing topic that could be explored is Right to Repair. While it is not relevant yet, the 3D printer industry WILL eventually reach the stage where their private designs are closed off and fixing printers becomes nearly impossible.
Dude in my experience, headphone reviewers are the WORST when it comes to releasing unbiased content. literally none of their videos ever state any bad points but then you buy the product and its the worst sounding garbage product of all time and its just like, really? 400 dollar product sounds like a dollar store pair of ear buds with worse bass. its just disheartening. Thank you for making this video, all of youtube needs to hear it honestly.
You making this video made me respect you even more. I already counted on you for high quality 3d printing videos and cool things to do with my own, but you furthered that trust by showing what comes first. Us :) (Love the shirt btw)
In the past he's said that he's had legal threats and takedown requests, but to note that there are no gaps in his video numbering! Guess it helps being a lawyer...
There have been a handful of companies that actually took LPLs reviews seriously, fixed flaws and then sent him the new model for another review. I don't remember the company names but there's only been a handful and they often even post a comment on his video with their corporate YT account. That's the definitely the way to do it. Even for bad reviews, if they have improved the model since, honest reviewers will have no problems updating the video description or highlighting a comment with a link to the new model/video.
@@TheBrain2K for sure. And I think you'd find the same in the 3D Printing industry as well. "Help us dominate our market by making the best product possible." Unfortunately, you've got (predominately) 3rd party resellers trying to artificially grab market share/sales with some misinformation via endorsement at the expense of the endorser. To them, there is a unending supply of endorsers.
I know next to nothing about 3D printing and this just popped up in my recommendation feed! I'd take that as a good thing, since it might mean an influx of attention to the issues and to your channel. Mad props for making a video like this what with the risks involved. I hope you both don't get too hurt by it in the short run, and that it helps your channel and the 3D printing community as a whole in the long run!
Your video talking about leveling a printer bed by using a feeler gauge rather than a piece of paper was incredibly helpful. Thank you so much, my elephant foot problem is almost entirely gone
For me Angus, your honesty and openness is absolutely priceless and I hope your channel - and all other channels that have this philosophy - keeps going from strength to strength to ensure that younger or newcomer hobbyists aren't put off by a negative experience because of some POS from a shady company like you describe. I'm a businessman (CCO) as my day job, and the sad news is this sort of practice is unfortunately prevalent wherever there are people, regardless of how many laws and regulations are brought in to try to curb it. The good news is that there are good companies run by honest people who genuinely believe in the products they're making, and I'm glad you've worked with a number of them. In the end, the truth will out. Good products and companies get good reputations, just like good UA-camrs like you. Shady shysters will get exposed, but they burn people along the way. Thank you so much for all you do to help protect people and inform the community! Also, your bird videos are brilliant...more please!
I appreciate your reviews and honesty, I hope the reviewer community can keep up the fight. Sadly when combating corruption, there is no victory only vigilance. They'll never completely stop trying to manipulate but it doesn't have to work either.
Thank for making this. I recently had exactly the experiences you describe after posting a negative review. I was particularly startled by the similarity between what you describe and what I experienced: "please say some good words to help us."
Dead truth here, the tool companies are doing the same number on me too. I have told them it will be unbiased and they do not send me the tools for review. Your points and time on this video are excellent like always. Keep up the good work !
This video is so refreshing to watch. As someone who encountered so many problems with a recently bought printer, and these were out of the box manufacturing problems. But they were commonly accepted on the community as “simple fixes”.
This is pretty spot on with Hobby vs. tool. My first printer was so unreliable (one of the 3 in 1 out there), I completely scrapped it, and I was about to altogether give up on 3d printing. I caved and picked up a different printer all together, and it was at least "acceptable" enough to get started, even with firmware issues out of the box the manufacturer knew about; I learned A LOT from the community to get going, and wouldn't be happily printing these days if it weren't for channels like yours (You, Teaching Tech, and Kersey Fab have been lifesavers). Even with all that, the only reason my 3d printer has evolved towards a reliable tool that I'm happy with the quality of, the only things that remain stock from the manufacturer are the frame and the Power Supply (Mean well 500W, and I still had to fix a known manufacturer's issue with grounding); this plays back to your other point about us having to fix their problems.
This is very well done and appreciate your honesty. I have experienced similar behaviour but not with printers. In my case, after having an issue I contacted the company and told them from the start the phone call is being recorded which they accepted. They told me to go away after I said they did bad, so I left a product review on a site they don't control and quoted the phone call...benefit of it being recorded.....they contacted ( I told them it was also being recorded).....and demanded I remove the feedback and they will give me $300 to remove it...I kept saying no and if they fix the problem, I'll updated the review but not delete it saying it atleast shows they eventually fixed a problem. They weren't happy and kept negotiating up to $650 for me to take it down.....I said no as they are trying to bribe me to leave a dishonest review...yes the money is nice but I'm like you and have morals and want to hold these people to account. I told them the attempt to bribe me for a review is what will be added to my initial review which I did
By you making this video I now know that I can trust your word with recommendations. Ive saw this same stuff happening in the quadcopter world. On behalf of the community, thank you
This is an incredibly honest assessment of your specialty, and it's much appreciated. It really shows the level of integrity you have. Thank you for your contributions!
I know this was posted a while ago, but THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO. It's sad to think that 3d printer companies can stoop down so lowly and even have such low standards that makes it so much more potentially dangerous to buyers and reviewers. This is also why I tons of research on 3d printers for 3 years before I bought my first ever 3d printer a year ago. Enough research for me to feel very positive and sure enough that the kind of 3d printer I bought is the kind that is for me. I'm still new, yes, but I am and had been VERY pleased with my 3d printer. It's only had one major break having me to replace a single part in the whole year of usage and I 3d print nearly every day or at the least a couple or more prints once a week maybe twice, or thrice. I don't have to replace nozzles constantly either. (Was a previous problem before until I realized my mistake even with all that research). Only spent a goodly nearly $500 on this printer itself. Not including the spools, tools and extra parts to have on hand for being able to repair or replace parts without having to wait for parts to arrive to knows when they'll arrive. Currently has at least $300 worth of spools of filament. I can safely say, I've spent roughly a thousand dollars in my investment of the FDM 3d printer. Second one MSLA resin 3d printer which I'm also QUITE happy with, spent $300 on the machine itself, but in total of at least a goodly amount of $700 with the replacement parts, tools and resins. My second ever printer. I always do my research beforehand to make sure there isn't anything sneaky sneaky going on behind the printers that may bite you back in the future rather than blindly buy cause it looks and sounds really awesome. So I'm just, really happy to know that there are people out there like you, telling others on such a subject that is... A bit of a pain knowingly there's companies that are just... Downright doing things not cool at all. And everyone should be made aware of this. Again, thank you for this.
Don't be afraid to call out specific brands for doing this or not doing this and contact large youtubers to help increase the voice. If companies see this hitting their bottom line they will change. Some of the tech guys have gotten MSI, LG, and even NVIDIA to change shady review policies by calling them out.
GamersNexus leverages that by making clear he doesn't need the company's pity, as he can simply buy the review product himself and therefore bypass all ndas, embargoes and such. Not everyone can d do that, but it's one start.
#4 was the most disappointing thing with Naomi Wu and the CR-30. The only support is "go to the discord" where you're entirely reliant on the luck of some other user being willing to give support.
Hey Lloyd! All the rocket stuff is DMLS, though I do want to try the newish FDM to stainless process from BASF some time. I bought the CR-30 to see if it would work for prototyping UAS, with the idea that you could run an entire wing or fuselage instead of the usual printed planes where they are a bunch of prints glued together. Have successfully printed a couple 1m wings with unusual geometries, but I'm still fighting slicers and speeds etc.
To be honest, I am not sure I want support to be included in the price. I would rather that I pay for a quality product - at whatever price point i choose - and that is what i get for the money, but i like to tinker and try things myself. For a company that needs to produce on a deadline, it is a different matter. Crealitys products has flaws for certain, but they made 3D printing accessible to the masses by producing a "quality" product at a very low price point, and because of the flaws, enthusiasts have been more or less required to learn the inner workings and principles of how the printer works, how to improve it and how to fix it, and that has grown the community massively.
I'm not afraid to name names. Creality! They break several of these, And then there is the refusal to follow Marlin licensing and release source/configs as required.. I really wish people would stop buying creality products! As for Naomi, No source or configs have come from creality since she made her printer with them.... Sold her soul and lost all her credibility for a printer.
Bingo. It was all I got reccommended, and while it wasn't a bad buy, I wish I had spent my money with a company I can respect. Even after 6 years of the same product they still sell you a malfunctioning printer, and licenced upgrade kits to fix what they intentionally left broken. Pisses me off.
Agree. It's ridiculous. Their firmware support is non-existent. And they have a support video telling customers to scrape off the paint on the printer to properly ground it, instead of doing the right thing and recalling it. Truly astonishing.
Wholeheartedly agree. Mine has become a big paper weight and hasn’t run in years. Creality is a joke and yet their fanboys defend them tooth and nail claiming anyone who can’t use them just don’t understand the hobby. Naomi Wu gave away what little credibility she held by even interacting with them.
Naomi made a deal with Creality that if CR-30 reaches 5 mil on Kickstarter they will open source it. And that is instead of her getting some commission for CR-30. Kickstarter didn't reach 5 mil, so CR-30 is not open source. Now Naomi left Creality because they wouldn't listen to her on new printers quality etc.
Much support to you for coming out to say these things and make this video. Unfortunately this speaks to a deeper, wider issue that is present in almost every industry that I would love to see companies held accountable for. While I completely understand the allure of presenting your product in a favorable light and maximizing profits it will NEVER be okay to lie to your customers, or cut corners on safety issues, bribe or threaten people etcetera. It has long been a truth that, especially with large companies, where they have that "delightful" formula where if the cost of a recall or upgrade is higher than the cost of legal settlements/refunds to harmed or dissatisfied customers, they will NOT recall or improve even dangerous products.
My favorite one: "Free trial"/"full refund" and when you actually want to return the product or cancel the membership (which you can buy with two clicks), they give you some BS about "beginning the cancellation process" etc., and it takes half a dozen mail exchanges and two weeks before you actually see your refund. Happened to me with Simplify3D and IO3DP.
Any trial that wants payment up-front I nope right out of. Too many push the subscription and have in their EULA start and end times of the trial which are unrealistic (usually less than the actual time) and a maze of requirements in order to get the trial cancelled (including minimum paid months after the trial ends).
What@@thatguyvince8767 said. Looking at you, Adobe. Edit: For context, when they switched to Creative Cloud, I ended up being forced to pay a full year's subscription despite opting out of CC. Paypal sided with them when I tried to chargeback.
The biggest problem I see in manufacturing is quality control. Few have any. They rely on the assemblers and the customers to know if it works. The assemblers often only check it goes together though. That does not mean it works, or the parts are not defective.
such bullshit... we have no people to sell stuff too compared to too many other countries. Shipping costs too much and our labour isn't special, just cost's a lot. We made cars in Australia for 10 years too long, and the only reason we did is that the government kept giving GM millions in kickbacks. Subsidising a private company for a few jobs... so pathetic.
Australia is run by the mining industry, they can easily remove anyone from public office if they don't do what's best for the mining sector. This is very bad for Australia long term, simply because mining is not a growth industry. Manufacturing is vital to a nations future.
@@Leadvest it was, because previously the logistics of global trade were in their infancy. Also you don't even need a long established manufacturing facility to mass produce things anymore. Look how quickly the Tesla gigafactories go up from nothing and start producing cars. There is no reason to keep manufacturing alive "just in case" it becoming financially advantageous or other countries suddenly refuse to trade a specific thing with us... which will never happen anyway.
I appreciate you making this video. It confirms what I have thought for a while about some UA-cam reviews. I trust your reviews amongst a few select other reviewers.
True. As a company in general you have a responsibility when selling things esp for larger sums of money to then also deliver for that money. Tit for Tat as you use to say. Things should work properly and be tested and also BE SAFE! Happy seller and happy customer, win win. If i buy a machine or whatever from a good renowed brand (Like I how read lots of reviews for the Ender3 V2 when decided on what first 3D printer to buy. Result: Sure It has a few quirks and firmware bugs but mostly nothing that I did not expect (Beware however of the forgotten vent holes for the PSU that is a potential fire hazard that I dont get how Creality have missed for so long but I hope they have finally fixed it by now in some way.) Removing the cover + some minutes with an angle grinder and a cutting disc fixed that for me and the PSU is now properly cooled). The machine performs really good for that price still and also quirks and firmware bugs are quite easy to fix/update. This is again in this case however, as said in the video, mostly due to the large community around this particular model. In general however still very happy with this machine.) I expect it to work properly and be of expected quality and if not my wiew of that particular company will go down and in the other way it will go up/be positive and I will then recommend the brand to others as well like: BUY THIS CAUSE THEY ARE MAKING GREAT QUALITY THINGS AT THIS COMPANY. That is what a company should strive for first of all: Happy customers that will definitley come back and buy more from you! Also: Good product = good review, simple as that!
Great points Angus, and it appears to be a trend across many genres. You do have an advantage that much of your content is advice and troubleshooting, as well as projects you work on. This gives you credibility in terms of technical knowledge. Unfortunately I did not find your videos until after I had bought a printer - which will be the case of many who enter 3D printing for the first time. Creators like yourself need to make generic review videos, along the lines of what should I be looking for in a printer or printer review, what compromises/trade-offe am I likely to have to make at a given price-point etc. This then allows the audience to get a flavour of what to expect, to generate a short-list and also quickly accept/reject a model as a potential worthy of further investigation. Keep up the great content - your videos in general give an impression of your passion, transparency and integrity!
This was an interesting video for several reasons. First off, I've been a software and hardware engineer for 50 years, so I know how these industries worked 40 years ago. Second, being a mold designer, I worked in my dads mold building and injection mold shop when I was 13 through 16, so I am experienced at plastic injection molding going back 54 years. Being a embedded CNC controls designer for 40 years, my experience with embedded systems is extensive and involves everything from small controls to full scale CNC machining centers and large printing presses. I bought my first 3D printer over 3 years ago and currently own two metal multi-axis machining center, a woodworking CNC machine, three 3D printers, 2 Diode, and one Co2 laser. They all run my own firmware, and I have designed countless mechanical upgrades as well. With over a half century of experience in mechanical, electrical, and embedded CNC, including from scratch GCode generators, I would like to respond to your rant. First, there have always been two types of reviewers, pre-production, and marketing. Pre-production reviewers usually get a late stage limited prototype because their input is intended to be used to fix any bugs design and manufacturing missed. They use to be engineers who provided useful feedback on what they found wrong so the company could fix issues with more than "this doesn't work right!" comments. To know it doesn't work right, you would need to be able to identify what is wrong. Marketing reviewers simply test a production machine to see if it works as the manual states it should under a set of given conditions. You are correct about kickstarter, however kickstarter is the problem for not limiting established companies from using their service as a marketing tool. Kickstart is having a lot of problems because they are not immune from production problems as the point of financial collection. The means by which to hold them accountable is done through your credit card company. Next, some of the issues with 3D printers are due to new untested designs that need some tweaking. For example, most 3D printers use a thermistor and no a thermocouple as you stated. There is big difference between the two with a thermocouple being enclosed in a copper tube, a thermistor in a metal stub, like the one that goes into the heater block for the extruder. It has exposed heavy gage wire but the actual thermistor is the size of a grain of rice. There are two types, one increases resistance as the heat goes up, the other lowers its resistance instead. They are about $0.20 USD each, 20 cents. They are not terribly accurate, and that's why the thermal runaway is off from the factory. There are routines in the firmware that allow a testing cycle that greatly improves the accuracy usually within 1 degree centigrade. The routine is documented and anyone who uses a 3D printer is usually aware of how to do this procedure. Symptoms are not always useful to the person who doesn't care to understand the technology. For example, one printer had a number of issues that converged to appear extremely serious by their symptoms. What was really going on was a controller board mounted in a pocket that was large enough had issues with high voltage regulator that had heavier gage pins than normal. Those pins were not snipped short enough because the solder ball was bigger due to the amount of current. If both the power and ground leads were too long, they shorted against the top of the aluminum pocket and burned up the board. If only the power lead was too long and rubbed the chassis, it would burn up the USB cable by raising ground by 24 volts. While the problems seemed very severe, someone familiar with the design could diagnose it and fix it. Reviewers should provide honest reviews but they have sponsorship by viewers who do donate if they do good reviews that are seen as useful. I have written professional engineering books for over 30 years. But my books sell for $35-50. I am solving issues and I expect to be compensated for sharing my knowledge, its that simple. But how does a professional compete with 100 people who pretty much all same the same thing and never offer solutions to the audience or the printer manufacture? Maybe reviewing 3D printers just simply isn't your cup of tea. Or maybe you should use the money to take an engineering course. And as far as people changing the printer firmware and not getting paid I would like to say the following. I looked at Marlin and it was never designed to operate the 3D printers available today. I took out my own firmware, and wrote a replacement from scratch because it was easier to do that for me, that fix something that was never fully implemented. Yes Marlin was never fully implemented. Not anyone can write machine control firmware, just as not everyone was meant to review 3D printers. Why haven't I released my firmware to the public you ask. Well with so many people doing the same videos over and over again, I'm not certain there would be anyone interested in s true experts review, they are all funding the people who rant. It would seem the little income derived from some of this has a message in there somewhere. I'm not sure what that message is, but if I were you, I would look for something more rewarding and less frustrating to do with my time. But what do I know, I've only been doing this successfully for half a century.
Before I purchased my Prusa MK3S I spent a lot of time watching 4 reviewers including your channel. I was impressed with the honesty of your reviews in which you pointed out the pros and cons of each printer. I have had my printer for 2 years and all I have had to do to it is buy a new build place. The support from Prusa has ben excellent.
Hear, hear! There should be a code of reviewers - if a reviewer capitulates to manufacturers' influence, they lose their rating. Angus, you set the gold standard for reviews. Tom and others are right there with you, great to have such transparency on UA-cam. It is great you shared this so your viewers don't take your commitment to Truth for granted. I worked for a Fortune 100 technology product company and those years were formative in design for manufacture, design for sustainability, and the exhaustive testing that went on. The cost of the product above tangible materials (electronics, mechanical, etc) was many multiples of that base $$$number. That's how you achieve World Class status. Thank you for your great standards!
I like your bird videos. But all of your content is top notch. I don't watch it often but it has helped me immensely over time. I do really appreciate this video specifically. It's brave of you and refreshing to see true integrity.
Yeah I never understand why they take it offensively. They should be utterly embarrassed if a reviewer cash find defects in their design and quality control procedures, and should be scrambling to fix them, and appreciative they were found so early.
@@Griffin12536 I think that 'constructive criticism' = 'feedback'. There is a big difference between explaining which details can be improved and saying 'this sucks.'
Great that you are staying true to yourself! Scary to see some of the tactics being employed against the honest reviewers though. Appreciate that you are staying strong. It benefits us all (including those employing these tactics!) By the way it’s pretty easy for the community to spot dodgy reviewers (you know who you are ;-))
"then there's this pro version," he says... Elegoo. Now I like my Elegoo printer but I find it incredibly annoying how hard it is to get the right parts when you're new to the 3D printing world. Do I have a pro or a pro 2? The screens are the same size but will they work on both machines? The answer to that last question is NO I found out.
Creality is another bad one when it comes to multiple versions of essentially the same printer. My Ender 5 Pro is just a standard Ender 5 with a few minor updates that should have been included with the standard Ender 5.
@@naktaal I just sent back an Ender 3 S1 Pro, because of their abhorrent support. At first, it was just the CR-Touch not working (a Creality-made levelling probe). Then I thought I'd turned it into a €540 brick with a bad firmware update. Then it turned out, you'd had to update the Board AND the display, with the display first, since otherwise the display will be dead until upgraded - which is the exact opposite of what they show in their upgrade video. Then it turned out, that it only takes cards up to 8 GB, and the display only takes a MicroSD card, which is not included. Not to mention, that you need to have the firmware file as a copy in another directory, because they have 2 different models with different CPUs, that will search for the file in different directories - and there is no way to distinguish the models other than actually opening up the printer and looking at the CPU. And then, when everything was working again and updated to the newest version, the CR-Touch was still not working. In all that time, Creality never replied to my initial support request. If it weren't for its price tag and miserable support, I'd have absolutely loved that machine - with some manual tweaks, the Auto-Level was not really needed. But all things considered, I was just pissed. Sent the machine back and ordered a Prusa thinking "this price tag actually ouchies lot, but if they stay true to their claim, it's worth it". My best friend and I already bought a TronXY XY 3 SE (the fundraiser edition) which needed some loving hands at first. But after some calibration, it actually had results on par with the Creality - at less than a third of the price.
I feel genuinely thankful that you made this video, really, thank you. This is the part of the hobby/community/whatever that really needs to be tackled more, especially because there are people actively encouraging it
Not really want to mention the company name but Creality is part of this game. The CR6-SE had disastrous motherboard burning issues and their crowdfunding was a joke. Will never back them in the future. PS: both a CR6-SE backer and Patreon ATM.
Angus, keep making the great videos you have always made! We know you have high morals, you speak only truths about any machine reviewed, and you make it informative and entertaining at the same time....I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of the community when I say we all stand with you!!! How can we help change the "manufacturers standards"?
Appreciate your fair evaluation of what’s going on with 3D printers and equipment. This “sales bias” has gone on in every industry it seems for a very long time and is only getting worse. I subscribed because of your honesty in your reviews. Keep up the good work, and don’t be intimidated!
@@scarfbandit177 well MSI and NVIDIA did recently. Pretty sure Asrock are still refusing to talk to a certain reviewer after doing 13 good reviews and one negative one lol. These large Tech companies are definitely not above the ol' "Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't recieve anymore review samples from us? Are you sure you don't want to look again at that video you just posted about our latest motherboard/graphics card/laptop?" I think it was MSI that both tried to bride and threaten lawsuit a few months back? They did something really bad, worse than nvidia, can't remember exactly.
If you watch Linus Tech Tipps he mentioned similar stuff. Never so clear and precise as Angus here, but there have been hints of getting offered payed reviews of crap, getting threatened to ruin your name and never send samples again.... And this is all across the industry. Probably at some companies it was just that one marketing guy who is now fired, but they all did it once and lots are still doing it.
Sure these 7 deadly sins can apply to most companies. If a company insists on 100% positive reviews, i would recommend reviewers to take inspiration from Matt Stone and Trey Parker's apology to China.
I'm behind you 100% This is a growing problem, and Design Prototype Test also touched on this not that long ago, his was specifically regarding the enormous duplicative product coming out of more and more new brands, all wanting the same 15 minute rocket to stardom, on what's essentially 3D printings model T. Thank you for speaking up loudly about this!
I bought my first and only ever 3D printer a few years back. The market wasn't as saturated, but I was still VERY iffy about buying, until I'd seen some good amounts of quality testing, of the large volume printing surface, that I was going for. I'm really pleased with my 3D printer, although I seldom use it, due to one single issue with it... noise. I'm not the only one in this building complex and on two separate occasion, I've been asked about a "sound", which brought down my urge to 3Dprint larger, long-time projects, which continues into the night and onward for days. I know thanks to communities, there are ways of greatly reducing these noises. (I might look into getting those parts). It's great to know there are reliable people out there, making sure companies don't just get away with anything they want, even if they throw money at the reviewer! 👍
Okay good overall video but most importantly, THANK YOU FOR THE SHOUTOUT FOR NAOMI!!!! She is a total badass. Who else can go and curse at the engineers for doing a shitty job? The only reason I was willing to support the printmill is because Naomi worked hard to get it out and worked with others in the community to be something that would be a good start for the mass market of it. I don't watch all of her videos, but I do respect her a ton and when a friend tells me that there isn't a place for her to try this I point them to a few of her videos. (and Tom's and yours and Michael's)
You have basically summed up the state and the problems of the entire consumer society we live in today very clearly and succinctly. A very good presentation of the multitude of issues both reviewers and consumers face today.
i wrote tons of amazon reviews a few years ago , i stopped , yes people send you free stuff to review but a large amount is junk, then they get mad you write negative things about the product, i will never read an amazon review and trust it again. Been following you for years , i love the format of pros and cons for your reviews and super happy you made this video, you and Naomi keep fighting the good fight. ty
I noticed one of your screenshots said "post a good review". I got that same thing in a recent product I reviewed. I told them I would post a "good quality" review, like with proper testing and opinions, both positive and negative. I will only post a good (positive) review if it's a good product.
This is why I'm subscribed to your channel. Because you stick up for the community, rather than the companies. I still remember your review of that machine (forgot the name) which you totally shredded, the one that was so garbage it was ridiculous, plus a massive danger. That video really showed me that you do not butter up for the companies. If their products are broken dangerous crap, you will absolutely say so. Keep up the amazing work!
"A good review doesn't just have positives. That's called an advertisement." :-)
Sounds like unbox therapy
Sounds like the bleeding obvious. 😎
That needs to be on a plaque somewhere
Yes!!!
Your wrong @fourpodcast
Great points. This is not just a 3d printer company challenge. It happens with all brands. I have a graveyard of products that never make it to publishing audio products, video, 3d printers, etc. You share a great perspective, I tell the brands I work with that my audience and my brand are paramount. Keep being true to your community and yourself. Thanks for publishing.
Oh yeah it definitely does. You should see how many reviewers get black listed from getting graphics cards when they put out an honest review.
Worth pointing out that because of the pervasiveness of shills, a rating that's essentially "good, but not perfect" is taken as a scathing indictment by consumers. So now even honest companies are pressured to avoid honest reviews. Who among us sees 3/5 on amazon or w/e and thinks: 'oh, average'?
It’s all about affiliate links now and when a UA-camr says you don’t get charged extra it’s a half truth because that link doesn’t just take you to a product it also enrolls you in an AD campaign and the UA-camr gets paid a lot more for you to click that innocent link then all the ADs they put into there videos, which they have full control over!! Even this guy, lol it’s such a joke and every person in marketing knows this
Oh forgot to give you an example ClickBank is one that most use also check out SMZeus. This is called a buddy building video, where the salesman tries to seem like there on your side, they tell it like “it is” lol it’s a shameless scam
I know a guy who did this with a video game mod... People didn't like balance, model quality, texture quality, performance, etc. Rather than trying to actually fix the issues, he'd just "Yeah, that's your opinion" if he couldn't delete the feedback and block the person fast enough.
The life cycle of printers is why I could never endorse one or even want to mention the brands I use. All my friends with the same printer model have encountered similar problems down the line that are unapparent after a week or two of testing. Seeing friends disappointed with a purchase they paid hard earned money for, based on the endorsement of an online educator is frustrating and not something I could do after seeing it first hand. As a content creator you don't even need to endorse or talk about a product to influence your audience because there's already an established trust that you're using something, so it must be okay.
Miscast under Makers Muse! Hello Aussie's watching Aussies!
it is sad. Im in a group for my 3d printer type. people who ask what to buy as their first printer, I cant even recommend them.
@@DeltaOps3 Same with my printer. Chinese PoS.
@@FuriousImp I have to say, I have a printer from a company that Angus reviewed, the first version was a fire hazard, had numerous issues. I bought the next version, they listened, made major changes and? It's an Anet A8 Plus. Still didn't get great reviews from Angus and the rest but? For the price, and my first printer? I love it. Took me awhile to get it dialed in, the entire time learning everything from MakersMuse, TeachingTec, CNCKitchen, 3dPrintingNerd. Hell, they were my 3d University. While from reviews, research, etc... I'm well aware I didn't buy a Prusa at the same time I'm kicking out quality prints that compare with and sometimes beat Creality, etc... So? I'm pleased with it. However, I'd be even less pleased to hear that they were one of the companies guilty of the things Angus refers to. In fact, it would prevent me from buying from them in the future. Anyway, my Chinese PoS is actually quite a fine piece of equipment. I like it.
This point encompasses any product you could think of ... I am target shooter gun owner in OZ .. A friend of mine bought a rifle on my recommendation and he has had lots of trouble with it and I feel SOOOO BAD ,,!
This video is spot on. The "testing on the user" thing is really annoying and I hope that people notice that we do take the time to qualify things we make. We hate purchasing products only to have to hunt around on forums and groups for solutions.
The bit about companies making one machine and getting it right is also VERY good advice. Look at how many printers Creality makes just for one example. If they focused on one machine and put a ton of testing into it they could have something that works amazingly well. It will save consumers money as well.
As for the blacklisting thing, Banggood blacklisted us after a bad review of a printer they sent us. There are a few others but it doesn't matter. We just end up purchasing the machines from resellers so they have no say in whether we do a video on it or not. Having our little printer parts store allows us to do that so we don't have to rely only on companies sending us machines.
ROFL... look who is talking!
im old and a gamer. and back in the 80 and 90s b4 the internet games had to be complete and fully tested and work correctly. After the internet when you could patch and fix later is when this started and it has gotten increasingly worse over the years and has expanded past games and apps into the physical world but enabled by user grps and communities.
Dude, thx for doing the right thing, me either can get around that exact point
Thanks for making this video (and thanks for the shoutouts)! Fully agreed with the points you're making - it's trends that are slowly, but persistently creeping in and as "influencers", I think we've got the leverage to not just influence viewers, but also influence manufacturers for the better.
Or maybe we should all move on to making bird videos. Lot less stressful 😉
tom bird review
Could give you tons of them. ;) Birds at home everyday.
cat videos are where the big money is.
Bird videos are awesome.
@@Lidocain777 Use birds as bait for cats.
How about this addition to your review policy: "Any attempt to exert pressure on me to alter or delete the review video or to bribe me into changing the results or my review will result in an immediate and irrevocable publication of the entire unredacted correspondence in order to make my audience aware of the attempted manipulation." (Modulo some legalese to protect personal data, addresses and so on, obviously).
I wish all youtubers would immediately publish any attempt of bribery. It would make quick work of these kind of tactics
"Legalese" nice new word for the day
@@heh2393 I remember hearing and using that word, "legalese", when I was in school before graduating high school in 1964.
"All correspondence can and will be made publicly available at the content creator's sole discretion, up to and including, but not limited to, all Non-Disclosure Agreements made and their terms, and will be recorded and retained indefinitely for this purpose."
While commendable and a great standard to follow, the manufacturer would simply decline and hand their printer over to someone willing to "play ball". Unfortunately, there's no shortage of channels willing to schill for free gear.
Just look for reviews of Anet stuff. You'll find a ton of VERY dodgy reviews. They're not alone, but they were prodigious for a bit there.
Edit: changed "school" to "schill". Fkn autocorrect.
vendor: "we've changed it since your review"
creator: "then send me the new one to compare so i can do a new video on it"
I would ask them if they then intend to recall all of the prior models and give the customers the upgrade for free then
@@Samqdf that's impractical for most companies to do in such industries. If every company were so punished for every failure, few companies would be left, and few new companies would rise up to fill their place. Often times the flaw is easy to fix/alter, especially if the company is one which acknowledges and remedies it's errors. There is always risk a product won't live up to expectations, and a smart consumer knows this and accepts that risk.
@@SoloRenegade What I meant by comment is that I would be highly suspicious of such claims in the first place and I would use such a statement to shut them down. Is it fair? No, not completely, I admit I have become jaded over time
@@Samqdf intolerance of failure is partly how the Japanese lost WW2. Intolerance of failure is how communists handle their problems. Intolerance of failures is unscientific. Intolerance of failures is anti-progress. Intolerance of failure is anti-learning. The best and fastest way to learn and progress is through incremental failures. This is why SpaceX is so amazing and successful for example, because they aren't afraid to try and fail. people with your attitude towards failure are impediments to progress. When is the last time you bought a Perfect product from any company? Never, because perfection is not achievable. All designs involve compromises, must balance features, and costs.
@@SoloRenegade I no way do I disagree with you, after-all I know all too well what it's like as I am a supplier manufacturer myself in a very niche auto related sector. Rather I think I am not doing a good job of expressing my point. What I mean is that it's hard to know which company has actually rectified and updated a printer model compared to those that are falsely claiming that they have done so so as to remove any form of negative publicity. I think that your original statement is likely the best way for a company to show they made actual changes, sure there is still the chance that they will send you a model that is better than what they will actually send to the public but still it's something.
As someone who does reviews and is trying to grow their channel doing this very thing, I can confirm that shady tactics do take place. In my experience, it’s almost always a 3rd party store that sells a companies products and is trying to push that product via their store.
As Angus mentioned in the video, it’s hard to turn down a free machine but as soon as you sense that there is any force or anything that would make you feel uncomfortable posting your true opinion, I would instantly deny the transaction. No one will win in one of these situations because if you lie about the product you recommended, people will come back to you and associate you with their bad experience. So it’s literally a lose lose situation. No one wins except the shady company who got a forced positive review.
Thanks Angus for making this video. It’s a reminder for us to stay true to ourselves and our viewers.
Everyone go check out this guy's channel. His videos are awesome.
@@RameshKumar-mv3jd only dude actually putting out content for the Voxelab Aquila
Thank you for being honest man.
Bought my first printer (aquila) after your recommendation and I am loving it!
"We can't let you have editorial control" "No worries! I've already ordered one and will make the video anyway, thank you for raising the issue :)"
"Okay. I'll direct you to a cloud storage account where I posted the raw video footage for you to edit."
@@BrunodeSouzaLino I would never do that. Some companies would take that challenge and then you have your video hacked into pieces, turning into an "I said / they said" scenario.
@@LabGecko But I never said the video had to be easy to edit.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino Just leave the camera on the entire month and ship em that like "good luck assholes"
@@shirothefish9688 Or just send them hours and hours worth of livestreamed footage. Not only that they get it raw (with all the hassle included, of course), even the people watching the livestream would also see how it works in real time. And no, that "hacking into pieces" of a video won't happen because there is an audience, and VODS exist and the only hard part of clipping a livestream for some footage is knowing where the said footage actually is. The rest is just like two clicks and voila, you're done.
“A good review doesn't just have positives, that's called an advertisement”
I think this line changed a lot for me. Not only being at the receiving end of such products, you gotta think about who a real review is for: the consumer. If the review is good, that means it's thought out, well done, really takes a look at the product and doesn't just promise things that aren't real / tells lies. This just goes to show how the word “good” changes meaning depending on how says it. Good for business, or good for the consumer?
One of the callouts you made about companies being appreciative of the negatives is honestly how I think so many machines have improved over the past 5+ years. If that wasn’t there then we’d still have some fairly large crap designs out there
Uncle Jessy a very fair point but they are putting out a lot of unfinished printers and getting the community to fix them, it’s a double edged sword. Thing is it moves so fast the companies know that if they put out an unfinished printer with problems the buyers will fix it within 3 months. They know the printers have issues. They must know as some printers break after a handful of prints or don’t print at all when they are assembled.
They are pushing out untested printers as they want their new printer to be the thing in the forefront of people’s minds and people always talk about the latest printers.
Love the channel by the way.
@@paulmilne3038 ohhh I 110% agree with you. I have more than a handful of printers that have never made it into videos because they were hot garbage and clearly lacked any sort of quality control or properly designed/built. Thanks mate!
@@UncleJessy but those didn't make it to video? there's the problem, right there! i'll bet you would get slammed with views on a title that reads "this printer was a hot mess and i can't review it". what's more important? your viewers or your printer companies and free shit. you will need to decide.
Jesus jessy is like the biggest schill out there..... surprised you raised your head mate. Your videos I take with a pinch of salt your entertaining don't get me wrong... but you know , you go through so many printers to hard to take you seriously
@@av8rdoug824 Uncle Jessy’s videos are entertaining, but to me they end up getting really close to feeling like shill videos. It’s possible that this is because so many of these “hot garbage” printer reviews don’t see the light of day.
I would never buy a printer off of his advice.
I appreciate the unbiased opinions about technology on this channel. Being able to watch videos with informed decisions about products that work well and don't is very useful for someone that doesn't have the same access to these technologies. It goes without saying that not being bias towards companies and simply providing information on how the product works objectively is extremely useful, and I appreciate that.
I don't think it's indifference on this channel, I think Maker Muse just can't lie and he knows it. His face says it all and you just have to see his face when he talking about something he thinks is bad. If he was to try and say something was good when it wasn't his body language would just easily give it away.
Yeah indifferent isn't the right word. It's not a synonym for unbiased.
Yeah I completely agree, it's comforting to know there's reviewers we can trust (keeping in mind that anyone can and will occasionally make a mistake)
Nothing indifferent about Angus' reviews. Wrong word error.
@@AlexanderNash oh true my bad
Great points. I'd rather use a good printer I like than shill a new machine every week. I only accept printers I'm generally interested in having but I still buy most of my own in case they're not too great so I can pass on using them in my videos.
Good video! I am legally blind, and picked up a 3D printer a few months ago after months of research. I've had constant struggles calibrating my machine due to the difficulty it is to see nuances in my prints. This video really set it straight, and brought back a lot of memories of the dozens of machines I looked through before settling on one. If this gets read, thanks for the info. I hope that one day I can get my machine to a standard I am happy with printing, seeing all the cool things you showcase!
Cheers
"We will pay you to meet your expectations" sums them up to me, lol. Thanks to you and all the bigger 3D printing channels, appreciate you all being forthcoming and retaining integrity. I see so many of my favourite content creators in the comments which never fails to make me smile.
It's a good community! This kind of behaviour might exist in other tech genres but I trust the 3D Printing / Maker community to not buy into it.
You'll get less review units that the company doesn't fully support. I think that a video like this will improve the value the viewers give to your opinion. A company that are confident in their product will keep sending you review units because your approval value has just increased by a lot.
That's what I was thinking. If this video stopped a company from sending their printer to be reviewed then they know they give out subpar machines and don't want that to be known to the public. If they know they'll consistently have good quality (and a good support system for the inevitable less fortunate ones), then they have nothing to worry about because they're the companies everyone is looking for.
Yo u are dam right
Exactly. If i had a product in this space, I'd be falling over myself to approach him at this point.
"your approval value has just increased by a lot." I wish more reviewers recognized this. The restaraunt industry understands it, Michellin stars are so valuable because they're _hard_ to get. A good review from an obvious patsy is no more valuable than your own product page.
What I'm worried about is quality control. They might send out working review units, but not everyone gets the same experience.
If I read or see a review that has no bad points, I'll immediately ignore it.
I don't think that's fair, if I reviewed water I wouldn't be able to find bad points. Plus, there are products that are indeed just good.
You have to look for good reviewers which test the real world performance, but who also stress test the parts, and demonstrate knowledge about the industry and possible alternatives.
The key is staying away from reviews which don't really tell you anything besides superficial opinions that anyone could make or the marketing material. Those are most likely written by either bots or incompetent fools.
You can find bad points about anything, even water. Have you ever tried Adelaide tap water?
@@WhenDoesTheVideoActuallyStart Nothing is perfect. Every review should include the less than perfect aspects of a product.
At a minimum I check other reviews of that person, if those are also of the positive only kind I ignore the reviewer from then on.
"Why didn't you contact us, we could have send you free new (better) parts" whilst not offering support to regular users probably takes the cake.
This is why I'm so happy with Prusa. "Hey we realized this design kinda sucked, here's some STLs if you want to fix the problem free of charge".
And when the problem does require hardware fixes (like the filament runout sensor), it's a pretty cheap kit and they send it free to those who ordered recently.
@@namAehT You get what you pay for. But you get good service, and it's more than worth it
@@AshrZ I was with a high-end video service in the U. S. It was not cheap. When I had a problem, I could talk to a tech that knew the product and could work me through any isuues.
2:50 I would consider "good review video" to be technically well done, accurate and honest. Tha also means unbiased as a result. If that means demonstrating the problems with the unit, so be it. *I don't expect any 3D printer to be perfect* so a "review" that has only positives is obviously dishonest.
DUDE!!! It is your honesty and frankness that has had a big influence on my personal purchases in the 3d world... I give you a standing ovation and heartfelt salute for being and STAYING real for the community.... I may not be a paying member, but you are one of my highest respected opinions for print machines and results... I know your pain firsthand as well. I prototyped a machine, offered some critical opinions... And soon a "Pro" version was released with some of my mentioned fixes in place.... I feel you, I really do... Just keep it really as you always have and you will always have my respect and support.... You are doing everything right for the audience you are wanting to reach.... Just wanted to jump in on your aide dude... Keep it real!!! Amen, Brother!!!
"the review you did for us..." there's the mistake there. You aren't doing a review for them, you are doing it for the community.
They make their own judgement whether the potential for publicity makes it worth sending you free hardware, but if they do, then they send it to you under your review terms and your obligations to them are defined by those terms, not by what they feel they should be getting out of the investment.
no. the review is for them. that is why they send you a printer. "HOW" you do the review? THAT is for your viewerbase :-) (just a small nitpick)
Depends on the terms of contract between the parties.
If there's nothing _written_ then it's just a free gift from the manufacturer.
@@nerys71 the review is posted *for* the community, not whatever brand sent you the machine. How you do the review is irrelevant for who the review is directed towards.
@@nerys71 no. you are wrong, the donation of the machine was not contingent on giving a review.
@@davidwarford3087 I don't know about whatever machine you got but every machine I got was contingent upon a review
Of course I make it crystal clear that they'll have no editorial control over the review :-) so the machine better be good or they'll regret it :-)
Mental Note to self: If a printer isn't reviewed by Maker's Muse, raise the red flag.
Davs.
Exactly!
The same would go for Thomas Sanladerer and CNC Kitchen if you ask me :)
@@WoLpH and teaching tech he is very clear about his review policy. I think he is definitely trustworthy
🎯
I always like videos calling this stuff out. Nexus gamers did a great one. Trust grows when you do stuff like this
Yeah! His support of TechTeamGB really made me aware of how common these dodgy tactics can be. He's a great dude.
@@MakersMuse Thanks for calling them out. The only way to keep companies (relatively) honest is policing their behaviour.
Angus has his own supercomputer in the background! You can tell by the number of blinking lights.
can i get the title of the video i want to see steves take on a topic like this
this level of integrity is SO important and NEEDS to be protected and cherished by the community.
useful insight into this aspect of the tech community, seeing the same dirty deals being offered to critics in 3D printing, as are being proposed to influencers in every other field
the thing that reviewers need to keep in mind is that it's your integrity which is your greatest asset, and if you tarnish your reputation in these shady deals, it will come back and bite you
That was a spectacular, and accurate, summary of the current state of 3D printer reviews. It's also a big part of why I rarely do reviews anymore (besides the fact that I don't fall into that "tinker" category you mentioned. Well done, Angus! 👏
he never mentions the offending companies though guess he still doesn't want to be blacklisted?
do you know WHO he is talking about specifically, and what is your opinion of the ender 3 pro?
I am asking because I just bough tit cause it was on sale for $100 and this is my first 3d printer and I still have not unboxed it yet
@@andreamitchell4758 Andrea, naming and shaming goes a bit beyond not wanting to be blacklisted in legal areas. That can get you sued by companies with a lot more time and money on hand, who want to pressure you with the financial ruin of a dragged out court case, even if you were right and had the right to say what you did.
I have made a few printer reviews on printers I purchased and now I'm getting emails from 3D printer companies asking to review their units. Some like you point out have some shady behavior. Basically, they want positive reviews only, I've turned them all down. Not worth it for a "free" printer. Thanks for bringing this issue up to the masses.
why not just take the free printer and put out a true review? if they don't want to give you more printers so what?
Tumbles, if you do that you are no better than the unscrupulous company. Where's your integrity and self respect?
@@stewartross1233 can you read? how is putting out a bad review about a bad product lacking integrity and respect? I said a true review- so if it's good it gets a good review, if it's bad it gets a bad review, you idiot
@@tumbles8350 because you lose the integrity of not lying to someone to get free product, you're lying to the company about giving them a good review. you don't have any integrity at all at that point.
Just take the unit and never review it.
Predatory companies should be expect to be preyed upon by predatory reviewers and consumers.
Imagine the change in the industry that would be brought about by predatory companies simply losing thousands of dollars for attempting to do shady things.
Companies that ship product with no support: We STRONGLY believe in your right to repair. Enjoy.
Best comment!
Sorry, that are nothing to support that.
they strongly support your right to buy another one more like
Love this!
I just recently (about 8 months) to 3D printing.
I took my time to do research into which type of printer and landed on a resin. Then researched all the different brands and sizes by price and print resolution. I picked the one I did because it was everything I was looking for. I ended up buying a second one so that I could print more at the same time.
About 4 months ago I started to look into an SLA 3D printer. This was a nightmare purely because of the market saturation of every company having 20 different printers, all with different names. So looking up reviews was a headache.
I ended up picking one from the company I bought my resin printers from based on the reviews and reliability.
One thing I think a lot, if not all consumers should know is the 3 driving points of a product.
1. Lead time/turn around time/time to deliver the product.
2. Cost.
3. Quality.
Everything boils down to these 3, you can only have 2 of them and it will lower/increase the 3rd one.
Need it fast and great quality? Gonna cost more.
Need it fast and cheap? Gonna have crap quality.
Need it great quality and cheap? Gonna take extra time.
Keep that in mind when you shop for anything. If its cheap and readily available, question the quality. There's a reason why it's cheap.
Good on you Angus. I've been aware of your channel for years, I bought 2 x 3D printers in the past because of you, but I have only just subscribed. Should have done it earlier, but I don't just subscribe willy-nilly. I see so much "influence" in my industry and imagine that it it's even more rife in the life of a tuber. Good on you for keeping it real. I know it happens all over the shop (cash for comment etc) which is why I generally watch multiple channels and join FB pages before I commit to major purchases. You my friend have been straight up for years and I think that is highly commendable. Stay true blue. : )
Thanks Mick! I only started this thing to help people avoid the pitfalls of a fledgling industry, so glad to hear it's helped.
B L I N K E N L I G H T S
Fancy seeing you here, Mange Tout.
didnt expect to see you here. ive been seeing you under alot of videos i watch :)
Barrister warrosa needs 3d printer informations for transferring of funds..
nicht fur gefingerpoken nur mittengraben
OK
I'm wondering if the YT algorithm will flag this because it's something they're not used to seeing or calculating for: INTEGRITY
Thank you for what you do.
Or it'll get promoted because it's "controversial" and that gets views.
UA-cam does weird things sometimes.
Doing the right thing isnt usually popular
As long as it generates clicks, I doubt the algorithm or anyone at YT (or any other company, really) will care.
Funny you mention that. I just went on a tangent about AI because the YT algorithm managed to recommend something I am interested in without ever having visited this channel before.
daym... sick burn bro
11:13 right around the time you start speaking of community dependence, an amazing topic that could be explored is Right to Repair. While it is not relevant yet, the 3D printer industry WILL eventually reach the stage where their private designs are closed off and fixing printers becomes nearly impossible.
Dude in my experience, headphone reviewers are the WORST when it comes to releasing unbiased content. literally none of their videos ever state any bad points but then you buy the product and its the worst sounding garbage product of all time and its just like, really? 400 dollar product sounds like a dollar store pair of ear buds with worse bass. its just disheartening. Thank you for making this video, all of youtube needs to hear it honestly.
past the hard data of the frequency response curve any headphone review is ultimately subjective
I just buy Sennheiser tbh
Good one, Angus! Happy to hear you're holding strong.
Glad you fallow Angus, Mihai! Your channel is on it way to the land of the greats.
You making this video made me respect you even more. I already counted on you for high quality 3d printing videos and cool things to do with my own, but you furthered that trust by showing what comes first. Us :) (Love the shirt btw)
What if this whole video was a ploy to make us trust him in his next review that'll be biased? 🤔
Jk lol
But what if? 🤔🤔
Would love to see what companies say to Lock Picking Lawyer.
In the past he's said that he's had legal threats and takedown requests, but to note that there are no gaps in his video numbering! Guess it helps being a lawyer...
those review locks know good and well what they're getting them selves into...
@@cooperised How stupid do you need to be to send legal threats to someone with "Lawyer" in their name (especially one who's a verified lawyer)
There have been a handful of companies that actually took LPLs reviews seriously, fixed flaws and then sent him the new model for another review.
I don't remember the company names but there's only been a handful and they often even post a comment on his video with their corporate YT account.
That's the definitely the way to do it.
Even for bad reviews, if they have improved the model since, honest reviewers will have no problems updating the video description or highlighting a comment with a link to the new model/video.
@@TheBrain2K for sure. And I think you'd find the same in the 3D Printing industry as well. "Help us dominate our market by making the best product possible." Unfortunately, you've got (predominately) 3rd party resellers trying to artificially grab market share/sales with some misinformation via endorsement at the expense of the endorser. To them, there is a unending supply of endorsers.
Man I trust your reviews so much that I bought my first printer because your review, and I am do grateful for your honesty. Thanks again!!
I know next to nothing about 3D printing and this just popped up in my recommendation feed!
I'd take that as a good thing, since it might mean an influx of attention to the issues and to your channel.
Mad props for making a video like this what with the risks involved. I hope you both don't get too hurt by it in the short run, and that it helps your channel and the 3D printing community as a whole in the long run!
Your video talking about leveling a printer bed by using a feeler gauge rather than a piece of paper was incredibly helpful. Thank you so much, my elephant foot problem is almost entirely gone
Wow, the photo of the burned down basement was my friend's place. His house was completely engulfed in less than 2 minutes!
Absolutely horrific, I'm so sorry that happened to them.
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He recovered, and they rebuilt the house. His unfortunate experience did put off a lot of my friends (including me) from getting a 3D printer.
For me Angus, your honesty and openness is absolutely priceless and I hope your channel - and all other channels that have this philosophy - keeps going from strength to strength to ensure that younger or newcomer hobbyists aren't put off by a negative experience because of some POS from a shady company like you describe.
I'm a businessman (CCO) as my day job, and the sad news is this sort of practice is unfortunately prevalent wherever there are people, regardless of how many laws and regulations are brought in to try to curb it. The good news is that there are good companies run by honest people who genuinely believe in the products they're making, and I'm glad you've worked with a number of them.
In the end, the truth will out. Good products and companies get good reputations, just like good UA-camrs like you. Shady shysters will get exposed, but they burn people along the way. Thank you so much for all you do to help protect people and inform the community!
Also, your bird videos are brilliant...more please!
I appreciate your reviews and honesty, I hope the reviewer community can keep up the fight. Sadly when combating corruption, there is no victory only vigilance. They'll never completely stop trying to manipulate but it doesn't have to work either.
Thank for making this. I recently had exactly the experiences you describe after posting a negative review. I was particularly startled by the similarity between what you describe and what I experienced: "please say some good words to help us."
I would love to see your future reviews include a "7 Sins score" where you score each printer (and company) on each of these proposed sins.
Dead truth here, the tool companies are doing the same number on me too. I have told them it will be unbiased and they do not send me the tools for review. Your points and time on this video are excellent like always. Keep up the good work !
Subscribed
@@williamchamberlain2263 Thankyou William :)
Off topic: Your synth rack have been slowly growing and it's looking like a sci-fi set now👌
i was looking in the comments to see what that was. decoration or tool.
Behringer 2600 is a beautiful monster especially.
I'm having flashbacks to William Shatner in Airplane 2 with the flashing and blinking lights
anybody here store stuff on top of your keyboard ....Represent!
"Computer.... Analyze the atmospheric composition and scan for intelligent life.... "
This video is so refreshing to watch. As someone who encountered so many problems with a recently bought printer, and these were out of the box manufacturing problems. But they were commonly accepted on the community as “simple fixes”.
This is pretty spot on with Hobby vs. tool. My first printer was so unreliable (one of the 3 in 1 out there), I completely scrapped it, and I was about to altogether give up on 3d printing. I caved and picked up a different printer all together, and it was at least "acceptable" enough to get started, even with firmware issues out of the box the manufacturer knew about; I learned A LOT from the community to get going, and wouldn't be happily printing these days if it weren't for channels like yours (You, Teaching Tech, and Kersey Fab have been lifesavers). Even with all that, the only reason my 3d printer has evolved towards a reliable tool that I'm happy with the quality of, the only things that remain stock from the manufacturer are the frame and the Power Supply (Mean well 500W, and I still had to fix a known manufacturer's issue with grounding); this plays back to your other point about us having to fix their problems.
Well said Angus! You highlighted some very important aspects!
Perhaps we should create our 3D Printing Community Blacklist 😎
That sounds like an amazing idea!
Oh, that would be a long list indeed. Fact is I can't think of any company I would not see on that list for something.
Community: How many blacklisted companies do you want?
marzgizmo: _y e s_
@@MCAlexisYT *printers, not companies, maybe even versions of printers
@@generalawareness101 Prusa?
Thanks for bringing this up, this is what the community needs : )
You’re such an honest and respectable guy, I hope you know we appreciate everything you do. 👏
As a company owner / product developer, while I'm not in the 3D printing industry, this video was a very healthy watch.
Kudos for taking note, and for commenting as such.
This is very well done and appreciate your honesty.
I have experienced similar behaviour but not with printers. In my case, after having an issue I contacted the company and told them from the start the phone call is being recorded which they accepted. They told me to go away after I said they did bad, so I left a product review on a site they don't control and quoted the phone call...benefit of it being recorded.....they contacted ( I told them it was also being recorded).....and demanded I remove the feedback and they will give me $300 to remove it...I kept saying no and if they fix the problem, I'll updated the review but not delete it saying it atleast shows they eventually fixed a problem. They weren't happy and kept negotiating up to $650 for me to take it down.....I said no as they are trying to bribe me to leave a dishonest review...yes the money is nice but I'm like you and have morals and want to hold these people to account. I told them the attempt to bribe me for a review is what will be added to my initial review which I did
By you making this video I now know that I can trust your word with recommendations. Ive saw this same stuff happening in the quadcopter world. On behalf of the community, thank you
“Somethings take a while to break”. It takes a least a month to properly test a 3d printer. I have a huge respect for this stance.
Sunlu offered to refund me 50% if I gave a positive review for their PLA I bought. I'm just a random consumer so I imagine this happens a lot.
This is an incredibly honest assessment of your specialty, and it's much appreciated. It really shows the level of integrity you have. Thank you for your contributions!
I know this was posted a while ago, but THANK YOU FOR THIS VIDEO. It's sad to think that 3d printer companies can stoop down so lowly and even have such low standards that makes it so much more potentially dangerous to buyers and reviewers. This is also why I tons of research on 3d printers for 3 years before I bought my first ever 3d printer a year ago. Enough research for me to feel very positive and sure enough that the kind of 3d printer I bought is the kind that is for me. I'm still new, yes, but I am and had been VERY pleased with my 3d printer. It's only had one major break having me to replace a single part in the whole year of usage and I 3d print nearly every day or at the least a couple or more prints once a week maybe twice, or thrice. I don't have to replace nozzles constantly either. (Was a previous problem before until I realized my mistake even with all that research). Only spent a goodly nearly $500 on this printer itself. Not including the spools, tools and extra parts to have on hand for being able to repair or replace parts without having to wait for parts to arrive to knows when they'll arrive. Currently has at least $300 worth of spools of filament. I can safely say, I've spent roughly a thousand dollars in my investment of the FDM 3d printer. Second one MSLA resin 3d printer which I'm also QUITE happy with, spent $300 on the machine itself, but in total of at least a goodly amount of $700 with the replacement parts, tools and resins. My second ever printer. I always do my research beforehand to make sure there isn't anything sneaky sneaky going on behind the printers that may bite you back in the future rather than blindly buy cause it looks and sounds really awesome. So I'm just, really happy to know that there are people out there like you, telling others on such a subject that is... A bit of a pain knowingly there's companies that are just... Downright doing things not cool at all. And everyone should be made aware of this. Again, thank you for this.
Don't be afraid to call out specific brands for doing this or not doing this and contact large youtubers to help increase the voice. If companies see this hitting their bottom line they will change. Some of the tech guys have gotten MSI, LG, and even NVIDIA to change shady review policies by calling them out.
GamersNexus leverages that by making clear he doesn't need the company's pity, as he can simply buy the review product himself and therefore bypass all ndas, embargoes and such. Not everyone can d do that, but it's one start.
#4 was the most disappointing thing with Naomi Wu and the CR-30. The only support is "go to the discord" where you're entirely reliant on the luck of some other user being willing to give support.
@@yozul1 They might still be too cheap for what they are offering, though. So you're still not paying for support.
What rocket parts are you 3d printing these days Ben?
Hey Lloyd! All the rocket stuff is DMLS, though I do want to try the newish FDM to stainless process from BASF some time. I bought the CR-30 to see if it would work for prototyping UAS, with the idea that you could run an entire wing or fuselage instead of the usual printed planes where they are a bunch of prints glued together. Have successfully printed a couple 1m wings with unusual geometries, but I'm still fighting slicers and speeds etc.
Naomi Wu didn’t seem to hold creality to any quality control on the product that displayed her name. I wonder why?
To be honest, I am not sure I want support to be included in the price. I would rather that I pay for a quality product - at whatever price point i choose - and that is what i get for the money, but i like to tinker and try things myself. For a company that needs to produce on a deadline, it is a different matter.
Crealitys products has flaws for certain, but they made 3D printing accessible to the masses by producing a "quality" product at a very low price point, and because of the flaws, enthusiasts have been more or less required to learn the inner workings and principles of how the printer works, how to improve it and how to fix it, and that has grown the community massively.
I'm not afraid to name names. Creality! They break several of these, And then there is the refusal to follow Marlin licensing and release source/configs as required.. I really wish people would stop buying creality products! As for Naomi, No source or configs have come from creality since she made her printer with them.... Sold her soul and lost all her credibility for a printer.
Bingo. It was all I got reccommended, and while it wasn't a bad buy, I wish I had spent my money with a company I can respect. Even after 6 years of the same product they still sell you a malfunctioning printer, and licenced upgrade kits to fix what they intentionally left broken. Pisses me off.
Thanks for that heads-up.
Agree. It's ridiculous. Their firmware support is non-existent. And they have a support video telling customers to scrape off the paint on the printer to properly ground it, instead of doing the right thing and recalling it. Truly astonishing.
Wholeheartedly agree. Mine has become a big paper weight and hasn’t run in years. Creality is a joke and yet their fanboys defend them tooth and nail claiming anyone who can’t use them just don’t understand the hobby. Naomi Wu gave away what little credibility she held by even interacting with them.
Naomi made a deal with Creality that if CR-30 reaches 5 mil on Kickstarter they will open source it. And that is instead of her getting some commission for CR-30. Kickstarter didn't reach 5 mil, so CR-30 is not open source.
Now Naomi left Creality because they wouldn't listen to her on new printers quality etc.
Much support to you for coming out to say these things and make this video.
Unfortunately this speaks to a deeper, wider issue that is present in almost every industry that I would love to see companies held accountable for. While I completely understand the allure of presenting your product in a favorable light and maximizing profits it will NEVER be okay to lie to your customers, or cut corners on safety issues, bribe or threaten people etcetera.
It has long been a truth that, especially with large companies, where they have that "delightful" formula where if the cost of a recall or upgrade is higher than the cost of legal settlements/refunds to harmed or dissatisfied customers, they will NOT recall or improve even dangerous products.
My favorite one: "Free trial"/"full refund" and when you actually want to return the product or cancel the membership (which you can buy with two clicks), they give you some BS about "beginning the cancellation process" etc., and it takes half a dozen mail exchanges and two weeks before you actually see your refund. Happened to me with Simplify3D and IO3DP.
@@adslf874yti3q7u4hf83 maybe try a chargeback if you paid with CC...
Any trial that wants payment up-front I nope right out of. Too many push the subscription and have in their EULA start and end times of the trial which are unrealistic (usually less than the actual time) and a maze of requirements in order to get the trial cancelled (including minimum paid months after the trial ends).
What@@thatguyvince8767 said. Looking at you, Adobe.
Edit: For context, when they switched to Creative Cloud, I ended up being forced to pay a full year's subscription despite opting out of CC. Paypal sided with them when I tried to chargeback.
@@MakersMuse
Today I realized that I've been watching you since 2015. I remember that video of the UpMini.
You make some excellent points, great work as always
If the rest of Australia had your forthrightness and honesty, we'd still have a decent manufacturing sector.
The biggest problem I see in manufacturing is quality control. Few have any. They rely on the assemblers and the customers to know if it works. The assemblers often only check it goes together though. That does not mean it works, or the parts are not defective.
such bullshit... we have no people to sell stuff too compared to too many other countries. Shipping costs too much and our labour isn't special, just cost's a lot. We made cars in Australia for 10 years too long, and the only reason we did is that the government kept giving GM millions in kickbacks. Subsidising a private company for a few jobs... so pathetic.
Australia is run by the mining industry, they can easily remove anyone from public office if they don't do what's best for the mining sector. This is very bad for Australia long term, simply because mining is not a growth industry. Manufacturing is vital to a nations future.
@@Leadvest it was, because previously the logistics of global trade were in their infancy. Also you don't even need a long established manufacturing facility to mass produce things anymore. Look how quickly the Tesla gigafactories go up from nothing and start producing cars. There is no reason to keep manufacturing alive "just in case" it becoming financially advantageous or other countries suddenly refuse to trade a specific thing with us... which will never happen anyway.
Australia isn’t the only country
I appreciate you making this video. It confirms what I have thought for a while about some UA-cam reviews. I trust your reviews amongst a few select other reviewers.
This is not just for 3D Printing Companies, but for all Companies in any industry.
Yeah, I’m sure criticism on 3D printing companies applies to every damn industry.
True. As a company in general you have a responsibility when selling things esp for larger sums of money to then also deliver for that money. Tit for Tat as you use to say. Things should work properly and be tested and also BE SAFE! Happy seller and happy customer, win win. If i buy a machine or whatever from a good renowed brand (Like I how read lots of reviews for the Ender3 V2 when decided on what first 3D printer to buy. Result: Sure It has a few quirks and firmware bugs but mostly nothing that I did not expect (Beware however of the forgotten vent holes for the PSU that is a potential fire hazard that I dont get how Creality have missed for so long but I hope they have finally fixed it by now in some way.) Removing the cover + some minutes with an angle grinder and a cutting disc fixed that for me and the PSU is now properly cooled). The machine performs really good for that price still and also quirks and firmware bugs are quite easy to fix/update. This is again in this case however, as said in the video, mostly due to the large community around this particular model. In general however still very happy with this machine.) I expect it to work properly and be of expected quality and if not my wiew of that particular company will go down and in the other way it will go up/be positive and I will then recommend the brand to others as well like: BUY THIS CAUSE THEY ARE MAKING GREAT QUALITY THINGS AT THIS COMPANY. That is what a company should strive for first of all: Happy customers that will definitley come back and buy more from you! Also: Good product = good review, simple as that!
Would you ever trust a mattress review?
Great points Angus, and it appears to be a trend across many genres. You do have an advantage that much of your content is advice and troubleshooting, as well as projects you work on. This gives you credibility in terms of technical knowledge. Unfortunately I did not find your videos until after I had bought a printer - which will be the case of many who enter 3D printing for the first time. Creators like yourself need to make generic review videos, along the lines of what should I be looking for in a printer or printer review, what compromises/trade-offe am I likely to have to make at a given price-point etc. This then allows the audience to get a flavour of what to expect, to generate a short-list and also quickly accept/reject a model as a potential worthy of further investigation.
Keep up the great content - your videos in general give an impression of your passion, transparency and integrity!
This was an interesting video for several reasons. First off, I've been a software and hardware engineer for 50 years, so I know how these industries worked 40 years ago. Second, being a mold designer, I worked in my dads mold building and injection mold shop when I was 13 through 16, so I am experienced at plastic injection molding going back 54 years. Being a embedded CNC controls designer for 40 years, my experience with embedded systems is extensive and involves everything from small controls to full scale CNC machining centers and large printing presses. I bought my first 3D printer over 3 years ago and currently own two metal multi-axis machining center, a woodworking CNC machine, three 3D printers, 2 Diode, and one Co2 laser. They all run my own firmware, and I have designed countless mechanical upgrades as well. With over a half century of experience in mechanical, electrical, and embedded CNC, including from scratch GCode generators, I would like to respond to your rant. First, there have always been two types of reviewers, pre-production, and marketing. Pre-production reviewers usually get a late stage limited prototype because their input is intended to be used to fix any bugs design and manufacturing missed. They use to be engineers who provided useful feedback on what they found wrong so the company could fix issues with more than "this doesn't work right!" comments. To know it doesn't work right, you would need to be able to identify what is wrong. Marketing reviewers simply test a production machine to see if it works as the manual states it should under a set of given conditions. You are correct about kickstarter, however kickstarter is the problem for not limiting established companies from using their service as a marketing tool. Kickstart is having a lot of problems because they are not immune from production problems as the point of financial collection. The means by which to hold them accountable is done through your credit card company. Next, some of the issues with 3D printers are due to new untested designs that need some tweaking. For example, most 3D printers use a thermistor and no a thermocouple as you stated. There is big difference between the two with a thermocouple being enclosed in a copper tube, a thermistor in a metal stub, like the one that goes into the heater block for the extruder. It has exposed heavy gage wire but the actual thermistor is the size of a grain of rice. There are two types, one increases resistance as the heat goes up, the other lowers its resistance instead. They are about $0.20 USD each, 20 cents. They are not terribly accurate, and that's why the thermal runaway is off from the factory. There are routines in the firmware that allow a testing cycle that greatly improves the accuracy usually within 1 degree centigrade. The routine is documented and anyone who uses a 3D printer is usually aware of how to do this procedure. Symptoms are not always useful to the person who doesn't care to understand the technology. For example, one printer had a number of issues that converged to appear extremely serious by their symptoms. What was really going on was a controller board mounted in a pocket that was large enough had issues with high voltage regulator that had heavier gage pins than normal. Those pins were not snipped short enough because the solder ball was bigger due to the amount of current. If both the power and ground leads were too long, they shorted against the top of the aluminum pocket and burned up the board. If only the power lead was too long and rubbed the chassis, it would burn up the USB cable by raising ground by 24 volts. While the problems seemed very severe, someone familiar with the design could diagnose it and fix it. Reviewers should provide honest reviews but they have sponsorship by viewers who do donate if they do good reviews that are seen as useful. I have written professional engineering books for over 30 years. But my books sell for $35-50. I am solving issues and I expect to be compensated for sharing my knowledge, its that simple. But how does a professional compete with 100 people who pretty much all same the same thing and never offer solutions to the audience or the printer manufacture? Maybe reviewing 3D printers just simply isn't your cup of tea. Or maybe you should use the money to take an engineering course. And as far as people changing the printer firmware and not getting paid I would like to say the following.
I looked at Marlin and it was never designed to operate the 3D printers available today. I took out my own firmware, and wrote a replacement from scratch because it was easier to do that for me, that fix something that was never fully implemented. Yes Marlin was never fully implemented. Not anyone can write machine control firmware, just as not everyone was meant to review 3D printers. Why haven't I released my firmware to the public you ask. Well with so many people doing the same videos over and over again, I'm not certain there would be anyone interested in s true experts review, they are all funding the people who rant. It would seem the little income derived from some of this has a message in there somewhere. I'm not sure what that message is, but if I were you, I would look for something more rewarding and less frustrating to do with my time. But what do I know, I've only been doing this successfully for half a century.
This really makes me respect your content a lot more.
Good job, man. Keep up, I value your word more than any other.
Before I purchased my Prusa MK3S I spent a lot of time watching 4 reviewers including your channel. I was impressed with the honesty of your reviews in which you pointed out the pros and cons of each printer. I have had my printer for 2 years and all I have had to do to it is buy a new build place. The support from Prusa has ben excellent.
Hear, hear!
There should be a code of reviewers - if a reviewer capitulates to manufacturers' influence, they lose their rating.
Angus, you set the gold standard for reviews. Tom and others are right there with you, great to have such transparency on UA-cam.
It is great you shared this so your viewers don't take your commitment to Truth for granted.
I worked for a Fortune 100 technology product company and those years were formative in design for manufacture, design for sustainability, and the exhaustive testing that went on.
The cost of the product above tangible materials (electronics, mechanical, etc) was many multiples of that base $$$number.
That's how you achieve World Class status.
Thank you for your great standards!
I like your bird videos.
But all of your content is top notch. I don't watch it often but it has helped me immensely over time. I do really appreciate this video specifically. It's brave of you and refreshing to see true integrity.
We call people like you "Ehrenmann" here in Germany. A man of honour! Thanks Angus!
Rule 1 in indutry :
Take critism and improve, your customers would be liking you more and will help you reach the market demand.
*not critism, but feedback. There is a difference between those two
Yeah I never understand why they take it offensively. They should be utterly embarrassed if a reviewer cash find defects in their design and quality control procedures, and should be scrambling to fix them, and appreciative they were found so early.
@@HvV8446 What? That doesn't even make sense... Certainly *criticism can be used to improve. Both can be used.
@@Griffin12536 I think that 'constructive criticism' = 'feedback'. There is a big difference between explaining which details can be improved and saying 'this sucks.'
Companies shouldn't wait for their customers to give feedback, they should actively seek the customers opinions.
Great that you are staying true to yourself! Scary to see some of the tactics being employed against the honest reviewers though. Appreciate that you are staying strong. It benefits us all (including those employing these tactics!)
By the way it’s pretty easy for the community to spot dodgy reviewers (you know who you are ;-))
Thanks for maintaining integrity after all these years.
I especially love ur vids about the wacky mechanical contraptions you find :)
"then there's this pro version," he says... Elegoo. Now I like my Elegoo printer but I find it incredibly annoying how hard it is to get the right parts when you're new to the 3D printing world. Do I have a pro or a pro 2? The screens are the same size but will they work on both machines? The answer to that last question is NO I found out.
Creality is another bad one when it comes to multiple versions of essentially the same printer. My Ender 5 Pro is just a standard Ender 5 with a few minor updates that should have been included with the standard Ender 5.
@@naktaal I just sent back an Ender 3 S1 Pro, because of their abhorrent support.
At first, it was just the CR-Touch not working (a Creality-made levelling probe).
Then I thought I'd turned it into a €540 brick with a bad firmware update.
Then it turned out, you'd had to update the Board AND the display, with the display first, since otherwise the display will be dead until upgraded - which is the exact opposite of what they show in their upgrade video.
Then it turned out, that it only takes cards up to 8 GB, and the display only takes a MicroSD card, which is not included. Not to mention, that you need to have the firmware file as a copy in another directory, because they have 2 different models with different CPUs, that will search for the file in different directories - and there is no way to distinguish the models other than actually opening up the printer and looking at the CPU.
And then, when everything was working again and updated to the newest version, the CR-Touch was still not working.
In all that time, Creality never replied to my initial support request.
If it weren't for its price tag and miserable support, I'd have absolutely loved that machine - with some manual tweaks, the Auto-Level was not really needed.
But all things considered, I was just pissed.
Sent the machine back and ordered a Prusa thinking "this price tag actually ouchies lot, but if they stay true to their claim, it's worth it".
My best friend and I already bought a TronXY XY 3 SE (the fundraiser edition) which needed some loving hands at first.
But after some calibration, it actually had results on par with the Creality - at less than a third of the price.
"And rectify them..."
ElectroBoom intensifies
not a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!
@@Bobby11 but a RECTIFIER nonetheless
THE RECTIFYAH!!!! *insert fan sound*
I feel genuinely thankful that you made this video, really, thank you. This is the part of the hobby/community/whatever that really needs to be tackled more, especially because there are people actively encouraging it
Not really want to mention the company name but Creality is part of this game.
The CR6-SE had disastrous motherboard burning issues and their crowdfunding was a joke.
Will never back them in the future.
PS: both a CR6-SE backer and Patreon ATM.
Angus, keep making the great videos you have always made! We know you have high morals, you speak only truths about any machine reviewed, and you make it informative and entertaining at the same time....I believe I speak for the overwhelming majority of the community when I say we all stand with you!!! How can we help change the "manufacturers standards"?
Appreciate your fair evaluation of what’s going on with 3D printers and equipment. This “sales bias” has gone on in every industry it seems for a very long time and is only getting worse. I subscribed because of your honesty in your reviews. Keep up the good work, and don’t be intimidated!
doesnt seem like these issues suffered by only 3d printing companies
It isn't. I know 2 companies using bribery and lawsuit to remove negative reviews.
@@MakeTechPtyLtd what companies?
@@scarfbandit177 well MSI and NVIDIA did recently. Pretty sure Asrock are still refusing to talk to a certain reviewer after doing 13 good reviews and one negative one lol. These large Tech companies are definitely not above the ol' "Wouldn't it be a shame if you didn't recieve anymore review samples from us? Are you sure you don't want to look again at that video you just posted about our latest motherboard/graphics card/laptop?" I think it was MSI that both tried to bride and threaten lawsuit a few months back? They did something really bad, worse than nvidia, can't remember exactly.
If you watch Linus Tech Tipps he mentioned similar stuff. Never so clear and precise as Angus here, but there have been hints of getting offered payed reviews of crap, getting threatened to ruin your name and never send samples again.... And this is all across the industry. Probably at some companies it was just that one marketing guy who is now fired, but they all did it once and lots are still doing it.
@@scarfbandit177 sorry I can't disclose the info but one was an accountant and another is a residential builder.
Great video Angus! I couldn't agree more!
Sure these 7 deadly sins can apply to most companies. If a company insists on 100% positive reviews, i would recommend reviewers to take inspiration from Matt Stone and Trey Parker's apology to China.
I always leave positive reviews. pointing out all the flaws and how to fix them if possible is a positive to me :-) hehehe
I'm behind you 100%
This is a growing problem, and Design Prototype Test also touched on this not that long ago, his was specifically regarding the enormous duplicative product coming out of more and more new brands, all wanting the same 15 minute rocket to stardom, on what's essentially 3D printings model T.
Thank you for speaking up loudly about this!
I bought my first and only ever 3D printer a few years back. The market wasn't as saturated, but I was still VERY iffy about buying, until I'd seen some good amounts of quality testing, of the large volume printing surface, that I was going for. I'm really pleased with my 3D printer, although I seldom use it, due to one single issue with it... noise. I'm not the only one in this building complex and on two separate occasion, I've been asked about a "sound", which brought down my urge to 3Dprint larger, long-time projects, which continues into the night and onward for days. I know thanks to communities, there are ways of greatly reducing these noises. (I might look into getting those parts).
It's great to know there are reliable people out there, making sure companies don't just get away with anything they want, even if they throw money at the reviewer! 👍
"3D printers aren't toothpaste!" - great, now I started imagining an extruder for toothpaste.
Soon: "it 3d prints a toothpaste benchy in your mouth and brushes your teeth for you"
Have you a kickstarter for that? Lol 😆
The real problem isn't the extruder. It's the liquid nitrogen sprayer to harden it fast enough to hold shape.
@@EricHonaker negative thermal runaway lol
I got asked about printers once and the work know it all butted in and described it as just like squirting out toothpaste :)
"I strongly believe a good company only needs a few good products in each category-"
*cough* Creality *cough*
Why have a few good products when we can have a bajillion hit-or-miss ones?
Okay good overall video but most importantly, THANK YOU FOR THE SHOUTOUT FOR NAOMI!!!! She is a total badass. Who else can go and curse at the engineers for doing a shitty job? The only reason I was willing to support the printmill is because Naomi worked hard to get it out and worked with others in the community to be something that would be a good start for the mass market of it. I don't watch all of her videos, but I do respect her a ton and when a friend tells me that there isn't a place for her to try this I point them to a few of her videos. (and Tom's and yours and Michael's)
You have basically summed up the state and the problems of the entire consumer society we live in today very clearly and succinctly. A very good presentation of the multitude of issues both reviewers and consumers face today.
i wrote tons of amazon reviews a few years ago , i stopped , yes people send you free stuff to review but a large amount is junk, then they get mad you write negative things about the product, i will never read an amazon review and trust it again. Been following you for years , i love the format of pros and cons for your reviews and super happy you made this video, you and Naomi keep fighting the good fight. ty
I want a "3D Printers aren't toothpaste" Shirt. :D
I noticed one of your screenshots said "post a good review". I got that same thing in a recent product I reviewed. I told them I would post a "good quality" review, like with proper testing and opinions, both positive and negative. I will only post a good (positive) review if it's a good product.
Make a quality product and you won't have to worry about bad reviews.
Even better, notice the given feedback and make improvements based on them
No because it might not suit your needs and no matter how good it is, it's ewaste to you unless a reviewer tells you about it
This is why I'm subscribed to your channel. Because you stick up for the community, rather than the companies. I still remember your review of that machine (forgot the name) which you totally shredded, the one that was so garbage it was ridiculous, plus a massive danger. That video really showed me that you do not butter up for the companies. If their products are broken dangerous crap, you will absolutely say so. Keep up the amazing work!
This is what makes your channel stand out among the others. Genuine honesty, keep up the great work!!!