Stratasys printers

[the_h4mmer]

Curious if anyone uses them or has worked with their service? We recently bought a Fortus 450 at my work (against my recommendation) and for the last 6 months has been nothing but trouble. The response (when we got any) from support was abysmal, and I'm interested to hear if anyone else has had experience with their customer "service" or products.

[SPerman]

The company I used to work for had a Fortus and all it did was make parts 24-7. It ran for about 3 years before I left. It was down one time for a few days, but that's the only downtime I know of. It was run by a different department, so I can't say what the service was like, but based on the output, it wasn't needed often.

[zwei]

We have a uPrint here. I had also used fortus and polyjet in my previous job.
Pretty solid printer.
Print quality is OK (not the best for FDM, but good enough).
Water soluble support is awesome.
Expensive material

As for the customer service, it is pretty ok for my side as i mostly deal with our reseller.

[the_h4mmer]

It's interesting because this company had a Fortus 400 when I started, and although old, it functioned quite well. In July 2021, they decided to get a Fortus 450, and for months it had nothing but problems. Every time I dealt with Customer Support, they insisted that they'd have a tech "come to check it out" which I told them was pointless since they already had a tech come to check it out and they found nothing wrong (it would've been the same tech as well).

The experience has not been great for me with Stratasys on multiple levels. Fortunately they finally replaced a faulty part and the printer seems to be working better (for now), but I would certainly pick any other printer manufacturer over Stratasys if/when looking at a new industrial printer.

[the_h4mmer]

Whelp, I spoke too soon. Literally 6 hours after my last post, the printer threw the same error...

[zwei]

Whelp.... seem like we are having issue with our Stratasys uPrint too :X

The printer had been down for months due to 5V PSU.
Finally got the 5V PSU replaced and now the belts and Rod is having issue

[the_h4mmer]

Whelp.... seem like we are having issue with our Stratasys uPrint too :X

The printer had been down for months due to 5V PSU.
Finally got the 5V PSU replaced and now the belts and Rod is having issue

Sorry to hear that...but unfortunately I'm not surprised. It really feel like I'm doing all the time when dealing with their issues and even more so with their support team...I really would love to just get a new Prusa XL (larger volume than even the Fortus 450) and wash my hands of the Stratasucks printer.

[SPerman]

I'm frustrated when I have problem with my <$5k printer. If I spent the money on a professional level machine, I would expect it to run 24/7 without issue.

[zwei]

Ironically, the printer was working well with almost zero down time for the past two year (since covid).
It seem like once it is down, all the issues come together

[the_h4mmer]

I have more disastrous updates to report, but since I'm short on time this morning, I'll have to post them later....

[the_h4mmer]

So final follow up on the Stratasys printer. The machine broke many more times since my last post (some of which was due to the Stratasys tech), but Stratasys's response, even after committing to replace the machine AND having record of this issue for months, was "you need operator training, it seems that someone is attempting to open the door when the error occurs."

I. wanted. to. scream.

I told them no one opens the door. I told them that I had no issues with operating their older machine that we had before upgrading. I gave them a hard time about doubling back on their word to replace the machine. In the end management at my company didn't want to push any harder about it; so I told management that I'm not dealing with that printer any more.

I'm completely sick of Stratasys, and to anyone considering one of their machines, I can tell you it's just not worth it. I speculate that in many instances where business are using their machines, I would presume the operators would be technicians (likely hourly) and probably don't mind problem after problem with these machines. The number of hours lost to back and forth with their support (all the way up to the VP of service), non-operational machine, or lost prints is beyond staggering, one machine, since the end of July 2021...

[AlexB]

I just now saw this thread and it definitely sounds like a frustrating situation. We have a 380mc and a F370 here and they run quite often for prototyping components. I don't recall the last time we had an issue with either of them, but your mileage may vary as you've shown. My only issue with these printers is that they crash/restart if you do things in the wrong order. Try to open the top lid while material is loading? Crash. There are a lot more scenarios than I can list but the usability leaves a lot to be desired. The material is pretty expensive too, but you'll have that with proprietary stuff. Overall, the parts they produce are good enough for what we need.