Batch #4 Fulfilled, New Shipping Schedule, and Snapmaker Public Roadmap
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jul 03, 2020 at 10:04:59 AM

Hi backers, we have some great news for you regarding the shipping schedule. We managed to fulfill all orders from batch #4 of the machine and batch #1 of the enclosure and have made a new shipping schedule. We also published our Snapmaker public roadmap and are going to show you some third-party reviews. Please read on to learn more.

Machine Shipping Schedule

The shipping situation has been tough and we have run into many issues over the past couple of months, but things have taken a turn not long ago. Now as it currently stands, we don’t have nearly as many issues as we had a month ago and can now more confidently provide a rough shipping schedule. We have learned our lessons the hard way and this time, we will stick to what we know and the shipping schedule would be more accurate. But please note that everything is still subject to change due to COVID-19, and you should keep this in mind when checking our new shipping schedule.

We have finished shipping batch #4. They are on their way to your doorsteps either by boat to countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Australia or by air to other regions. Looking back to a month ago, we barely shipped out any of the orders from batch #4 due to weight restrictions. For anyone who doesn’t know of the shipping restrictions, please refer to update #19 for the information. In summary, we have shipped all 1791 devices from batch #4 by 20/6/29. Please note that your shipping status on the Google Docs. might not have been updated. This is due to the fact that the package was shipped by sea and is still in transit. Once the package has arrived at the destination country, you will receive a tracking number and a shipping notification and the shipping status on the Google Docs. will be then updated.

We are already in the process of fulfilling batch #5. It is expected that we will be shipping batch #5 between 20/7/1 and 20/7/24 and batch #6 between 20/8/3 and 20/8/31. The shipping is still subject to change due to COVID-19 and the estimated shipping dates largely depend on existing shipping limitations. We hope that you can understand and we will try our best to fulfill your orders before the new deadlines.

We have also sent out the surveys to batch #6 on 6/19/20 and will lock them on 7/5/20. If you are in batch #6, please fill out the surveys at your earliest convenience. Thank you!

Enclosure Shipping Schedule

In terms of the new enclosure, we finished shipping the first batch on 20/6/16 and are in the process of fulfilling batch #2. Batch #2 will be shipped between 20/6/24 and 20/7/23 and batch #3 will be shipped between 20/8/3 and 20/8/30.

Our new warehouse is almost completely set up. The production capacity has increased 3 to 4 folds. What that means is that we can now fulfill backer orders much more easily and can handle higher demand volume.

Snapmaker Public Roadmap

It is our belief that we need to be as user friendly and transparent as possible to our users. And with your support we grew from a company of a few people to a company of over 50 employees. Almost everything about the company has changed but what remains the same is our goal and work philosophy. We put our focus on makers, and we want to give back to the maker community. That is the reason why we published the Snapmaker public roadmap on our forum.

The Snapmaker public roadmap has 4 main columns. The column “In Progress” shows what we have been and are working on at the moment. “Planned” shows what we will start developing next. “Ideas and Requests” shows what is on our radar and what is requested most by our users. There are also two more columns, one of which contains information about our firmware and software, and the other one is about what was accomplished in the last month. Please upvote the cards you are most interested in on the roadmap, and send us feature requests with prefaces in the titles such as "feature request Snapmaker Original/2.0 Hardware/Firmware/Touch Screen/Snapmaker Luban." That way we can learn about your requests and improve our products and services accordingly.

Snapmaker 2.0 Reviews

Recently both All3DP and TechRadar have released their reviews of the Snapmaker 2.0. They wrote, and we quote, “There were, and continue to be minor frustrations with it (be them bugs or poor UI choices – there’s a smattering of both), but fundamentally the hardware is tip top, can handle whatever you throw at it and offers enough to suit the multi-talented maker looking to up their game without sacrificing desktop space.” “The SnapMaker is a 3-in-1 machine, and while it does take time to swap tool heads and calibrate, it manages all three tasks with incredible accuracy and quality… If you're a maker, modeller or crafter then the SnapMaker 2.0 is the ideal machine for you, it is so full of potential it inspires you to get creative.” We are stoked that they enjoyed using their Snapmaker 2.0s and commanded us for our vision and belief. The Snapmaker 2.0 was also given the title of the “Best 3-in-1 3D printer” on TechRadar. You can read the full All3DP’s review and TechRadar’s review here.

To sum up, the delivery of Snapmaker 2.0 is getting back on track and the shipping situation is more stable now. We also published the Snapmaker public roadmap and received great feedback from third party reviewers. If you have any feature requests for the hardware or suggestions for the Snapmaker Luban, you can send us emails with prefaces in the titles such as "feature request Snapmaker Original/2.0 Hardware/Firmware/Touch Screen/Snapmaker Luban" to our support at [email protected] or go to our Snapmaker Luban GitHub page to leave suggestions. And don’t forget to upvote cards you are most interested in on the Snapmaker public roadmap. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Team Snapmaker

Delivery Update for Mid-June
almost 4 years ago – Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 01:07:01 AM

Hi everyone, the purpose of this update is to provide shipping information to our backers. We would also like to answer some frequently asked questions since the last update. But please allow us to take this time to say thank you all for your understanding and support during these tough times. And our team is sincerely thankful for that.

 Delivery Update for Snapmaker 2.0 and New Enclosure 

• Batch 4 – Previously Updated Delivery: May – Original Delivery: Dec
• Batch 5 – Previously Updated Delivery: June – Original Delivery: Feb
• Batch 6 – Previously Updated Delivery: July – Original Delivery: Mar

In the past two weeks, we have shipped about 750 machines from Batch #4 of the Snapmaker 2.0. There are about 700 machines left to fulfill. Good news is that the weight restrictions have been raised to around 1000 kilograms, and the shipping capacity is a lot larger now compared to two weeks ago. We are looking to fulfill all the orders from Batch #4 in 3 weeks, if nothing goes awry. We apologize that we still can’t provide a definite shipping schedule for the following batches for now, because the weight restrictions are still there and shipping policies can change easily. But it seems like things are going to get better from now on.

We have also shipped 85 enclosures from Batch #1 in the past two weeks. There are 41 enclosures left to ship. Batch #1 is expected to be fulfilled before next Wednesday. And Batch #2 will start shipping soon.

There are two things to keep in mind. First, depending on the region (U.S., Canada, or Australia), some orders are shipped by sea, and it could take as long as 30 days for transit. For those orders, backers will receive tracking numbers only after the packages have arrived in their destination countries. Secondly, the Google Docs. is updated regularly by our staff. The shipping status will be changed to Yes once we have your tracking number ready. But in the case of order shipped by sea, the shipping status will be updated once the package has arrived in the destination country. You can refer to the Google Docs. for your batch information and shipping status. Thank you.

FAQs

We would also like to answer some questions our backers raised, and we hope that this update can address some of your concerns.

1. Why did you open an online EU store when you haven’t fulfilled all the Kickstarter orders yet?

We opened the online EU store solely for the purpose of making our products more accessible to customers in the European union countries. We brought multi-language support to our website and the online store is localized for the whole region. Users that speak German, Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish can now browse our store without any language barrier. The new EU store doesn’t affect our progress of fulfilling Kickstarter orders at all.

2. Is the pricing on the EU store lower than the pricing on Kickstarter?

No, the Kickstarter’s pricing, even with taxes and customs fees added, is still lower than the pre-order’s pricing on the EU store. One of the advantages of backing us on Kickstarter is to have the lowest pricing possible.

3. It shows that the estimated shipping date for the pre-orders on the EU store is in September, but you haven’t fulfilled all the Kickstarter orders yet?

The expected shipping date is just an estimate and is sharing the same shipping date for the pre-orders on our main website. The delivery of pre-orders will have to be pushed back if necessary to make way for Kickstarter orders. All pre-orders will be backer ordered and they will be shipped after the Kickstarter orders.

That’s it for update #19. We can now ship more devices each day and we hope that this update has addressed some of your concerns. You can refer to the Google Docs. for the latest shipping information. There will also be a big Kickstarter update near the end of June. Please stay tuned and happy making!

Sincerely,

Team Snapmaker

Delivery Schedule Update on Snapmaker 2.0 and New Enclosure
almost 4 years ago – Fri, May 29, 2020 at 01:04:38 AM

Dear backers,

It’s almost summertime here. We are usually busy around mid-year, and this time is no exception. Initially we were to fulfill all the orders from Batch #4 by June but things have changed. The overall shipping for the Snapmaker 2.0 and enclosure will be further delayed due to COVID-19 and the shipping schedules for the following batches will have to shift as well. But on the bright side, we are transitioning our production to a new warehouse.

Shipping Schedule Delayed Due to COVID-19

Due to COVID-19, the number of cargo flights has reduced drastically and the impact has been global. The logistics companies are prioritizing the shipping of medical supplies and necessities. Other commercial products including our machines are of less importance and therefore the shipping of our products is restricted. New policies are imposed and are constantly changing which affects us and consequently our shipping schedules. We have to adapt to the situations and react to them as best as we can.

To be more specific, there are new restrictions imposed by the logistics companies on the total weight of the shipment. The restriction ranges from 50kg to 300kg per day and affects most regions we ship to. For reference an A350, A250, or A150 is already roughly 25, 20, and 15 kg respectively. We can’t stick with our original plan anymore. Instead we have to ship both by air and by sea as a workaround.

• Batch 4 – Previously Updated Delivery: May – Original Delivery: Dec
• Batch 5 – Previously Updated Delivery: June – Original Delivery: Feb
• Batch 6 – Previously Updated Delivery: July – Original Delivery: Mar

On May 9th, we sent out a private message to backers in Batch #4, addressing the estimated shipping dates for their orders. Only those who are in Batch #4 received our message. We have delivered 339 devices since then, which is a lot less than we anticipated. We are still in the process of shipping out the rest of the batch but the shipping schedule has been heavily affected. And unfortunately, we can’t meet the deadline scheduled in the message we sent out on May 9th. Our logistics department is trying to ship the devices we have in stock, but it is simply impossible to ship them all due to the new restrictions. We are expecting to ship more orders though before June. We are sorry for the delays but please understand that we are trying our best here.

Due to the tentative nature of the current situation, we have decided not to provide a definite timeline as we have always done before because we can’t provide an accurate shipping schedule anymore with things that are happening and restrictions that are changing all the time. However, that doesn’t mean we are not providing shipping information anymore. Instead we will release an update biweekly from now on until the situation gets better. The biweekly update will contain shipping information for the past two weeks.

To reinstate, we are anticipating to ship out all the U.S. orders from the rest of Batch #4 in two weeks. But we will have to follow the weight restrictions for the rest of the batch and they will unfortunately suffer longer delays due to COVID-19. The estimated delivery schedules for the following Batch #5 and Batch #6 will have to shift accordingly. The shipping schedule for the enclosure has been delayed as well, since the weight restrictions affect both the machine and the enclosure. We have shipped 70 enclosures from the first batch to backers in various regions, and we are constantly checking with the logistics companies and are hoping that the restrictions will be lifted soon.

Above anything else, we wish that COVID-19 will be over soon, as it has affected so many lives and businesses. We are also hoping that the weight restrictions will be lifted in the near future, by then we will have to obey the regulations and act as told.

New Warehouse Located About 8 Miles Away From Our Office

On the bright side, we have moved our warehouse to a new place, which is now larger and geographically better. The new location allows us to recruit production workers much more easily. What that means is that we can hit a larger production volume with less hiccups and further guarantee the timely deliveries of orders (after things have resumed normal from COVID-19 that is). This new workplace offers a better environment for the workers and we are glad that we have made this move to meet the increasing demand.

That’s it for update #18. We will keep you guys informed via messages or emails so that you guys will always get the most up-to-date information. Please expect a biweekly update from now on. We are looking forward to our new warehouse, which has so many advantages over the old location. Lastly, please stay safe and enjoy the rest of the week!

Sincerely,

Team Snapmaker

Snapmaker 2.0 Research Progress and Our Response to COVID-19
about 4 years ago – Fri, May 01, 2020 at 12:38:14 AM

Hi everyone, it has been a busy month here at Snapmaker, and we’ve got a lot of things to cover in this update. Our research team has pinpointed the cause of the issue of auto-leveling. We have also been trying to help people around the world fight COVID-19. Please read on to learn more.

Snapmaker 2.0 Research Progress

Since the launch of Snapmaker 2.0, we have received a tremendous amount of feedback and have a good grasp of what you guys liked and disliked about your machines. It is amazing to see that many praised the build quality and things beyond their expectations. However, we tend to put more focus on the negative feedback we received. Because this is how we can improve continuously. Now, we’ve summarized a couple of glaring issues a fraction of the users reported, and we did not take them lightly.

Auto-Leveling Issue

Even after months of internal testing, the Snapmaker 2.0 still has some issues at launch as every new product. The majority of the issues reported were related to the auto-leveling feature. So we will address that first and foremost.

The mechanism of Auto-leveling on the Snapmaker 2.0 is essentially a proximity sensor that detects the distance between the heated bed and itself. By design, the sensor should be installed next to and just slightly above the nozzle by 0.15mm. The installation height should be no larger than the upper bound of the height tolerance, otherwise the proximity sensor would not detect the heated bed, and the nozzle would hit the heated bed. A quick fix is provided here if you run into this problem. For future devices, we have implemented better testing equipment to further assure that the proximity sensors are installed at correct heights.

The other potential cause of the issue is the Fast Calibration feature. The Snapmaker 2.0 runs fast calibration every time before a print, as an added security to ensure the best printing quality. What we overlooked was that the temperatures of the spots on the heated bed during the Fast Calibration could be quite different from those during regular calibration. And temperature greatly affects how the proximity sensor works. We have heard complaints about the print nozzle gouging the heated bed, which could be potentially caused by the different temperatures between the two processes. As a result, we’ve decided to disable the Fast Calibration feature in the latest firmware update. We are still looking for a permanent solution to the problem, but Fast Calibration should stay turned off for now.

A minority of users also reported that their heated beds were not completely flat. We are going to push out an update in the next couple of days that would bring you the feature of 5 × 5 calibration, which would help prevent the issue. We will further investigate the problem and will update you as soon as we have more information.

Firmware Update

Over the past couple of months, we have released updates that bring new features, bugfixes and performance optimization to your devices. Here is a summarized list of the most important tweaks and improvements. You can download the updates and check out the complete changelog on our forum.

• More robust 3D printing experience
• Improved privacy settings
• Various bugfixes
• Better data transmission and wireless experience

We’ve listened to our users and address their concerns accordingly. We fixed the issue where the touchscreen would sometimes show the notification of not responding and optimized the overall performance of print data transmission. Manual confirmation on the touchscreen is no longer needed once you have confirmed connection to Wi-Fi for the first time. Some users expressed their concerns regarding privacy, so we added an option for turning on/off anonymous data sharing (the data we collected before were all anonymous already and in no way identifiable to us.) Tower temperature would still be valid after users adjust temperature settings. We also fixed a bug where the machine would switch to a wrong coordinate system in 3D printing mode. And as stated above, we disabled Fast Calibration temporarily for your devices to prevent the auto-leveling issue. There will be more firmware and software updates in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned for those.

Our Response to COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, the new reality is that we must beat the virus before normal life resumes. Fortunately, as a 3D printing community that sells our products mainly overseas, there are many ways we can contribute to and help the community.

We noticed that there are many face shield designs online, but not many can be produced on 3D printers with small build volumes. So we tried to solve this problem by designing a face shield that can be printed on almost any 3D printers. We call it the Snap Face Shield. It's composed of a 3D printed holder and a thin and flexible PVC film. It can be efficiently made with a small-sized 3D printer, and can be easily detached, stored and carried around as you go about your day.

There are also other gear designs that we believe have great potential and can be refined to become more useful in the future, such as the EVA goggles, mask, and mask buckles. They are still in the very early stage of development but we will keep improving our designs on Wikifactory and any inputs that help us achieve that goal is appreciated.

As stated in the last update, we have been in close contact with our distributors worldwide. We were concerned about their situations because we knew how hard it was at times like these. Most of our distributors were in need of our help. Up till now, we have donated hundreds to a thousand face masks to each distributor in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Italy, the United States, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, United Arab Emirates, and Japan. The face masks donated were sent based on the need of our distributors. And a portion of these face masks would be distributed to local hospitals by our distributors. We know this is not much, compared to how much supply big companies out there have donated, but we believe that every little bit helps.

 Quick Delivery Update

Due to COVID-19, our logistics has been greatly impacted and all our carriers are no longer able to guarantee timely deliveries. The cost of shipping has increased as well. As of this writing, we have successfully shipped out 1632 machines. We originally were to ship about 2000 devices before 5/12/20, but because of the new restriction of weight to each location set by our carriers, we need to adjust our shipping plan accordingly. The details will be finalized and the adjustment will be effective starting 5/11/20. We will send out an email to users that would be affected by this change with the updated information and delivery schedule. We hope you understand and please be rest assured. We will try our best to take care of everything on our end.

Fortunately, all departments at Snapmaker are getting back on track even under the influence of COVID-19. We are also closely monitoring the situation of the virus across the world. Things will get worse before it gets better, but they will be over soon. We are glad that the 3D printing community has stayed strong and provided help to people in need. Let’s stay home and get to making safely!

Sincerely,

Team Snapmaker

Unchanged Delivery Schedule and Open Source Snapmaker Luban
about 4 years ago – Wed, Apr 01, 2020 at 01:29:25 AM

Dear Snapmaker users,

We are happy to announce that we have mostly recovered in terms of production. The delivery schedule will remain unchanged. Our software has recently reached a milestone and is now open source on GitHub. But times are still tough. We are concerned to see all the news about the situation of COVID-19 escalating around the world. The majority of our users are in North America and Europe, and it is pretty saddening to see those regions are most affected by this pandemic currently. We sincerely wish everyone safe and we are all going to get through this.

Delivery Schedule Remains Unchanged

We are fortunate to say that our production has mostly recovered, almost to its full capacity. Our worker return rate is higher; our stock of Snapmaker 2.0 is replenished to some extent. The third batch that was originally set to ship in early April will be shipped ahead of schedule by approximately 5 days. 347 machines from that batch was already shipped by 3/28/20 and the rest will be shipped according to the timeline provided below.

However, there is one variable. As the pandemic is spreading across the world, the delivery efficiency is lower. Fedex has suspended their money-back guarantee (MBG) service as in the cases with many other carriers we work with. We have been told that areas impacted most by the COVID-19 can expect slower deliveries, and our carriers will no longer be able to provide definite ETAs of deliveries. There could be delays of a few days or even weeks in transit. Our carriers will continue operating as government restrictions and regulations allow, and we completely understand that they have little control over the situation because we were (and still are) in the same boat.

Revamped Snapmaker Luban

Snapmaker3D, the first software we ever made, was our first step to tackle the 3D printing software market. It had fundamental features like slicing models and exporting G-code files. The software itself was pretty bare-boned but served as the foundation of its successor, the Snapmakerjs. Snapmakerjs was a software we pushed out the same year as the Snapmaker3D. In fact, they coexisted for some time before the Snapmaker3D was integrated into the Snapmakerjs. The Snapmakerjs replaced the older software and increased the number of supported platforms. The changes were transformative in that now with Snapmakerjs, users were able to 3D print, laser engrave/cut, and CNC carve within one application. That was the goal and philosophy of our software design. The Snapmakerjs’ usability made it the go-to software to use with the Snapmaker Original for over 2 years.

But that is not the end of the story, Snapmakerjs is now rebranded as the Snapmaker Luban. The Luban symbolizes a new start for us and it is more polished than ever. It is truly a 3-in-1 powerhouse with the following improvements and features added from years of iterations.

Intuitive User Interface

We’ve taken a simplistic approach when designing the software, resulting in a clean and easy-to-use control interface. Your common tasks such as 3D printing, laser engraving/cutting, and CNC carving are embedded as icons on the left side panel. There are different modes and settings you can select on the right side panel. Everything is displayed in icons and large text.

Multi-Model Printing

Efficiency is a big reason why users prefer an application to others. Luban allows 3D printing, laser engraving/cutting, and CNC carving with multiple models in one session. That means users can upload multiple files to Luban and adjust the settings as needed to print, and their machines will take care of the rest. This can save users time and effort tremendously.

Camera Capture

Users are given this magical option where they can take background pictures using Luban with their machines, drag their models onto the background pictures, and then engrave in the background areas they select. We’ve brought “what you see is what you get” to Luban and this whole process is extremely intuitive and straightforward, so our users can utilize the time saved for other tasks.

3D Rendering Optimization

The performance of 3D rendering and G-code Preview has always been a known issue of 3D printing software, yet it is so essential to a slicer. After thorough analysis and testing, Luban can now render a model file that is twice as big and a laser/CNC file that is 4 times as big as before, while reducing the demand of RAM during use.

Wi-Fi Transfer

We added the functionality of Wi-Fi transfer in a recent update. You don’t even need a flash drive to transfer your print files. All can be done on your PC/MAC when you go to Wi-Fi Transfer in Workspace and choose to upload any files you want. You can command the machine through Wi-Fi as well to print right afterwards. It’s that simple.

In short, you can take full control of your workflow with Luban. The intuitive and feature-packed Snapmaker Luban now supports 9 languages, including English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese, and multiple platforms such as OS X, Windows, and Linux.

Open Source on GitHub and a Dedicated Website for Luban

The reason why we decided to open source the application was actually very simple. We wanted to give back to this amazing 3D printing community. The software was built on the codebase of cncjs and used CuraEngine as the backend 3D slicing engine, both of which were obtained from the open source community. Because the Snapmaker Luban has evolved to become a standalone application that is able to handle everyday tasks and is integrated well with the Snapmaker devices, there is no better timing to open source the Snapmaker Luban than now to further expand its customizability.

Snapmaker Luban is officially open source now on GitHub. All users are welcome to post any issues and/or bugs found in the software. We believe that great things happen when there is a gathering of great minds. Please read the "README.md" file for any heads-up. You can file an issue in "GitHub Issues" to submit a bug or feature request. Please make sure you have read our guidelines before contributing code. Thank you!

We will also set up a dedicated website for the open source Snapmaker Luban. The website will focus on providing the latest news about our open source project for years to come. It will be online before May. Thank you all for your support in making this happen.

Lastly, while we are working hard to ramp up production and develop our software, we want to address the current situation our distributors and users around the world are facing. The 3D printing community has stayed strong and connected. There are plenty of articles on the internet about doctors and nurses using 3D printed facemasks or face shields. We have the urge to share some of the amazing open source 3D printing communities out there on social media such as the Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies Facebook Group, a place where people share their designs of 3D printed medical supplies with local needs, and this Coronavirus Tech Handbook for solutions related to the outbreak provided by technologists. We’ve just recently pulled together some resources to help fight COVID-19 for the regions most in need. We will share more information in our community shortly. As always, please stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Team Snapmaker