Picked up my Up Plus 2 on Friday, February 28th, 2020. Today, March 5th, 2020 I turned it on, it started booting and then went dark.
PSU checked fine, everything looked fine outside, so I opened it up and found… my CPU has a hole burned through it.
Here’s what it looks like
I’ve reached out to support and am waiting for a response one way or another about if it’s covered under warranty.
While doing researching, I also found that TinyFab makes a replacement CPU. Would it be worth getting this one instead and using Cura instead of UP studio? I had nothing but problems using UpStudio for the three days it worked, so my eagerness to do upgrades is there.
Anyone worked with TierTime support or encountered this issue with theirs? Is this something their warranty will cover?
My mother always told me to not say anything at all if I didn’t have anything nice to say so I’ll refrain from commenting on support experience. (But the “human malware” situation may affect your support experience and fulfilment either way, although Tiertime did send an general email two days ago saying “All our support agents are backed to work now, mostly working at home”)
I’d be a bit hesitant to go with the TinyFab route however, it takes a significant amount of current to burn a hole in the chip like that, which has to come from somewhere - either a short or other failure on the main board. No guarantee the same won’t happen with the TinyFab board as soon as you plug it in, which neither TinyFab nor Teartime will cover.
I picked up a cloned Duet 2 Maestro for $55 on a sale, but had to replace the SD card socket as was defective, so unless you’re prepared to do repairs I’d rather get a genuine one if you can afford it. Smoother and quieter printing as well as removing dependency for UpStudio (which is actually improving and Catfish is becoming a usable alternative)
The Up plus 2 was my first ever printer many years ago, I still have it and it has outlasted every other printer that’s come through my shop including a uPrint SE which I finally scrapped a few weeks ago.
They can be a bit sensitive to levelling, avoid crashing the nozzle, they really run hot and clog easily if that happens. Keep the filament really dry. Once it’s dialled in, it should give you many years of very reliable printing. If it has been problematic from the start then I’d suggest you must have had a faulty board from the start, hopefully TT can replace it for you, I’d go with that rather than the 3rd party one.
Things are a bit tough in China at the moment, only last week were companies starting to assess returning to the office. I’m in HK and have to work 1 week rotations from home.
Hello,
please check your junk mail, sometimes the support reply is treated as spam by mail server.
In your case we should able to provide free replacement.
@Jason-TT
Have you got a solution for my CPU / firmware on my and everyone’s UP Plus 2 at the moment?
We still can’t use the latest version of UP Studio because no firmware or ROM update has been pushed out.
一年之内都是免费保修的。您这个问题只要在购机一年期内 都可以免费保修的
Hi all, I forgot to check on this. They were able to replace my CPU and everything is working again. I also have the TinyFab CPU which I might switch to since I am having issues printing (walls don’t stick to the inside of the object)
jason did say they’d release a new catfish end of april, unless you’re in a hurry i’d wait. the one thing tiertime does better than everyone else is shrinkage, its accounted for in the slicer.
although, it wouldn’t be the first time they miss a self imposed release date.
Warranty duration is not the only factor. 3D printers cost more than mobile phones (which we expect to function for 2 - 3 years). To maintain a good reputation in the industry, companies must continue to support machines that customers expect to work for at least 3 years (value for money). If customer service is bad - sales will fall, and the company will fail. 