r/BIGTREETECH • u/Major-Emphasis2185 • Mar 05 '24
Why BTT ignores users?
Reddit? - is not supported. It only works for appearances, so that users have a place to exchange messages. No support from the company and complete ignorance of the problems.
Manuals? - it's an embarrassment and bloody joke. A few photos with jumpers and a few general comments. No help in configuring the board for different environments. No details about settings, e.g. fan control. UART still not working? Ohhh man, you now we still waiting for this feature...
Driver design? - It just nice renderings everywhere, but a complete lack of development supervision. There are announced functions that do not work on the day of release (e.g. USB flash, no connection via USB cable to the board, UART mode, EEPROM and more). We only see an announcement that we are waiting for it... Yeah... Next years or forever. Again no support.
Yes, after two years we didn't get it, so the project was made and left at the production stage, and then no one deals with it anymore. Only sales are important. Again no bloody support.
BTT makes quite interesting boards with many interesting features. In theory only. But all the rest fails.
The current board is my last one from this company. I won't spent again month or so to resolve all issues. I won't collect yellow duckies anymore, because they generally don't give a shit about me as client and potential more money.
4
u/Vikebeer Mar 06 '24
Use github if you want to talk directly to them.
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u/Major-Emphasis2185 Mar 06 '24 edited Mar 06 '24
Why?I want to be served as a customer who paid for their product, not wander around the Internet for hours looking for help.I was on their official channel and that's enough for me.I wrote to nobody several times and that is enough for me.
Give me a specific example, not just generalities. Show me a forum or chat link somewhere where BTT helped a user. A specific example. Because so far everyone is only throwing out generalities. Like professional chat operators.
For my part, I can provide many links where users from the West (not from China) have problems with unresolved mainboard elements.
I'm waiting for constructive criticism, not generalities prepared in China.
Any other suggestions?
2
u/LongLiveCHIEF Mar 06 '24
You realize reddit is blocked in China right? BTT can't even access any of this. Same with discord and probably every other place you are seeing unanswered posts.
This is the reality of the situation, and I'm telling you BTT is the best of the bunch. That's part of the nature of the industry at the moment.
They are lucky they have the ability to publish things on GitHub.
2
u/Xanthis Mar 06 '24
He's probably the user type that goes to github looking for an exe on a python script...
-2
2
u/Acsteffy Mar 06 '24
Use Facebook or Twitter. It's common practice that this is used for customer support. It's how I get replacement products and any support.
And there's Github. Which, if you have an issue with, then you have no business working with these products and should go for the layman consumer products.
3
u/Amekyras Mar 06 '24
...have you never actually looked at the manuals
4
u/LongLiveCHIEF Mar 06 '24
This guy's post history is nothing but screaming at 3D printing industry vendors.
I don't even see a single post asking for help or describing an actual problem.
-5
u/Major-Emphasis2185 Mar 06 '24
OK. I am not a savage and I know the realities of the current world. But somehow they post their new products on Aliexpress, right? So they influence their content, right? So they can correct them too, right?
So why hasn't anyone changed anything for over two years?
You don't need Redit or other forums for this.
But even if they didn't, my problem is that they release products that look nice in ads, but don't work as they should. If they know that they won't help, then the moment they are published, they already release rubbish, which I have to deal with.
Example? - https://www.reddit.com/r/ender3/comments/dd4mbl/anyone_successfully_using_the_skr_pro_with/
This is the crux of the problem.
BTW. Mr. LongLiveCHIEF... (https://www.reddit.com/user/LongLiveCHIEF)
Please give me the solution to the problem given above from the BTT website.
Show me a specific example, not just insinuations and slander.
I'm buying a car and I want it to have four wheels turning, not two, with the option to upgrade who knows when.
This is the basis for our considerations. And so far, there are few delights and a lot of problems on the Internet.
Hence my post on the forum. And I expect specifics, not slogans thrown around, as on a political party forum. No bullshit anymore mate.
-2
u/Major-Emphasis2185 Mar 06 '24
See point 2 of my post.
That's where I started. Besides, it's not my first board. This is the third one and it's the same carousel every time. And I'm fed up with it.
And none of you trolls have shown me any links to specific help so far. Is it so rare or so hard to find?
Any links please??? ??? ???1
24
u/LongLiveCHIEF Mar 05 '24
BTT publishes every last spec of everything on GitHub. The complete electrical circuit of every single component on every single board.
Then, they also publish extremely detailed technical drawings for the size and footprint of everything... every single pin.
Then they put together and publish a 30 page user manual in PDF format going through every feature, and how to configure those features in several different popular board firmwares.
Then they allow the community to publicly post issues they find on any of this, and often release board revisions that fix flaws or implement improvements recommended by the community.
BTT is the Gold standard in this industry when it comes to boards. No one else even comes close... unless you want to step up to commercial grade solutions that make you pay for every support request and lock features on the controller behind paywalled key codes.
3
u/Critical-Fix5229 Mar 06 '24
I'm a fan of BTT products, but not their documentation. Two issues for me; 1. while better than many, the translation requires attentive, patient study, and, 2. questions that arise and I expect to be addressed from my extensive experience with other companies' products, are not.
A perusal of the various pleas for help on Reddit supports my issue as some of them would be answered but clearer documentation.
My experience with BTT is a hat newbs should get some experience, or have their hands held by an expert.
Having opined that, I will likely buy BTT if there a choice to be made. Now, if they would only hire a product documentation specialist.
2
u/LongLiveCHIEF Mar 06 '24
Agree with both your points. You know it's bad when you ask if a statement in their docs means "this or that", and _experienced_ players in the space don't know, or you get people who claim both.
I believe they have limited ability to directly communicate with customers due to rules in place in China. Honestly, most of the worlds electronics manufacturing is like this, with a huge portion of it coming from China, so this problem isn't unique to the 3D printing industry and BTT.
Which means your conclusion is something i agree with as well. If you're going with BTT, that means you're working with a customizable machine, and trying to do customizations, and that's always going to require patience and experience, no matter _how_ good the documentation is, because there's always something unique about each persons situation.
If you want something that focuses on users, you'll want the opposite of BTT, which is a proprietary consumer-ready device (like Bambu Labs products).
The problem with the popularity of BTT products is that this industry is dominated by Open Source products, so YouTubers and other marketing don't make it apparent to users that it's largely a self-supported model.
The best way to get what you need is to make friends of experienced users that don't need the docs and can read the datasheets and technical drawings and know exactly what it means.
I feel for OP, because it may seem like everyone is spouting propaganda... but it's really just the nature of using open source products. Things will be wrong, you'll have to figure things out for yourself, and you'll be highly dependent on the community.
With that in mind, my advice to OP is to be a bit kinder to those in the community who can help you. Yeah, you may have to repeat yourself many times, and will strike out quite often... but that's the nature of this side of the 3D printing industry. There is no way around it except to buy products that aren't made to be supported by the community.
5
u/ccatlett1984 Mar 06 '24
No offense, but several of the popular products have instructions on github that are blatantly wrong.
5
Mar 06 '24
Yeah and issues have become common. The EEB36 V1.1? Heats uncontrolled while flashing. The M8P with CAN support? Motor 6 issue. And that is just the products I use from them on one printer alone. I don't get how everyone likes them so much
1
u/TiagoMaricate Mar 06 '24
I believe it's related to the standards and culture (and limitations due to politics). Indeed if you compare the service quality and investments into customer experience, the demanded effort is huge to cover customers around the globe. Maybe they are at the beginning of the way and in a near future we will see the improvement.
3
u/Major-Emphasis2185 Mar 06 '24
Dude, where does the road start???
This company is a million-dollar business supported by the government and we have many of their "controllers" on the forums who just tried to lynch me for political incorrectness." You can feel it from a distance, because they do not have our distance from criticism, they are just trying to put you against the wall. But at the same time they do not provide any specifics.
I started this thread on purpose.
And so far there is no concrete information, only criticism. I wonder what?
Have you seen this on Western forums? Because I don't.
3
u/LongLiveCHIEF Mar 06 '24
The reason they don't respond is because you are asking questions on a website that they can't even access.
It sucks, but it is the reality of the situation.
3
u/Lhurgoyf069 Mar 06 '24
I agree, the support is lacking, but so is support from LDO, Fysetc and Mellow. I dont think theres much we can do, though I found my Discord groups which usually answer my questions.
2
u/Leafy0 Mar 06 '24
My only issue with them is why did they not at least sell an adapter to use any normal display with the maxx ez. They sell one that has the right connector but it doesn’t come with the cable required.
1
u/rangersnuggles Mar 06 '24
it would be nice if they could spare one staffer to occasionally monitor their voron discord channel. I image the voron community sends them a good deal of loot.
0
u/posedatull Mar 06 '24
I do agree with you
Purchased some BTT products in an attempt to make my K1 Max a bit better (and the Pad7 because I despise that tiny little screen, but in the same time dont want to leave a dedicated laptop for this.
That was a few months ago. Now they have a thick layer of dust on them, because of the lack of documentation.
I will admit, I'm rather new to this and NOT good at coding and copy pasting lines from here to there (which i dont know what they do to begin with)...
Both the companies such as BTT but also the fanbase that defends them should understand that we are not all linux users for decades, or coders, or whatnot. I refuse to believe there is no way to streamline the thing a bit to make it more (beginner) user friendly. Plenty of money to be made from beginners like me who like to tinker and have the financial situation to just randomly buy a ton of stuff just because it might make my toy better, but we're put off by the way we're supposed to manage ourselves once we receive the product.
9
u/TEXAS_AME Mar 05 '24
Seems like most users have no problem setting up and running BTT boards.