How is Mendel-parts still in business?

I ordered the gen 6 electronics over 2 months ago and I am still waiting. This was order 814, I even mailed with James to confirm everything I wanted was gonna be shipped as the electronic from order 814 was combined with order 807. When the box arrived only items from order 807 where in there together with the invoice of order 814 but none of the items.

My Mendel is completely finished but without electronics I can't do anything...

Well, we may be off topic ... but who knows? Maybe we're not!

;o)

Happy Xmas ... I'm off to Florida today, back 1/1/2012, so happy new year, too.

Finally the money refund arrived. (Although I never got in contact with Camiel again. I tried to call 24 hour every day after my last message here)

A big thanks to you James, I don't want to know how long I would have been forced to wait without you! I was really worried that I would do a big net loss because of the problem in the Euro countries (Sweden is like UK using its own currency even though it's a member in EU), but it ended up being "just" about 10 Euros. So my experience with Mendel-parts ended up with having to worry about a lot of money over a month, several hours work trying to call and write and a total loss about 25 Euros. (10-15 euro in cost talking to a full answering machine). Not to mentioned the work James also had to do and the cost for him to travel to Holland. At least I learned to never order a larger thing again without being in contact with a store BEFORE paying.

A wish you a really happy Xmas (and everyone else)! Have a nice holiday at Florida!

Any idea when he will start accepting orders again? Anybody?

I've only ordered once from him, and my only mistake was not getting absolutly everything I needed.

I see he's hiring a helper. I'd seriously consider it if I had a place to stay and food (I live in the US).

Any updates?

Based on my experience of the last week I would suggest avoiding any contact at all costs. I've spoken to Camiel 3 times in the last 10 days or so and each time hes said my orca is going to be shipped in the next few days. I think hes ignoring the phone now (i've been calling him pretty much continuously for a couple of hours today so i'm guessing hes turned the speaker off). Not sure about the helper either. A vague post on the company forum isn't going to find anyone and I don't see any sign of the last helper he had (Mathias?).
There was a post form someone else trying to make orcas in the UK. Might be worth getting in touch with for the sake of anything actually turning up.
Pete

I wouldn't hold your breath on him hiring a helper!

Right now I'm in Florida, on vacation, and I just pledged for a PrintrBot! I will be completing my two Orcas when I get home.

Ron Gerrits has posted an x-axis carriage for LBs for the O3 (probably work on O2 as well) on Thingiverse, but I have no means of checking it out here (I only have my iPad, and I have to go to Wynn-Dixie to get a half-decent Internet connection!)

I will be visiting the Sarasota Fab Lab next week: looking forward to that!

i hope someone does start selling copies of his stuff and putts him out of business altogether.
i think this guy is either on drugs, or blowing all the money from his webshop without filling his orders.
i wish i could call him, but my prepaid cell wont, i am wondering how i can get my money back.
please spread the word to others not to fall victim to this deadbeat like i have.

If you paid via PayPal, then you can get a refund via them.

ok, contacted paypal, they said that since its over 45 days i had to contact the creditcard company. so i did and apparently they are handling it now.

i could have built 10 printers from parts on ebay by now.

what do you guys think about mendelmax? (srry off topic)

I tried checking them out, but the mendel max website keeps 404'ing me. Anyone know of a place that sells a /quality/ complete extruder (hotend, heater, plastic bits/hobbed bolt) ?

People really need to stay away from this clown..... he is a train wreck waiting to take you down with him... I don't care how "nice" James and his "buddies" make him sound, his action's speak MUCH louder....he can really put a damper on the excitement of a new person joining this hobby....

Apparently someone is already selling Orca v0.3 clones: [makemendel.com]

Please note I've just read about this on the forums: I have yet to hear any feedback good or bad about their product.

misan

MakeMendel is in Mumbai, India. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it is even further away!

And their business and their website seem to be a complete clone of Mendel Parts ... So who knows where the similarity stops.

I'm not sure that I want to be the first to send them $500 to find out!

Quote

this clown

People complaining here should probably run their own RepRap business, just for a few months. Then they'd have experience in what it means to swim in a market with super small margins, dozens of competitors and hundreds of customers ringing and mailing in all the time.

Bigger companies have people paid solely for calming down customers. They have people solely for running the production machines. They have production machines with a six digit price tag, because these are more reliable than a Mendel. They have people solely for organizing shipping. If this is what you want, pay. Like EUR 4000.- for a Mendel-like machine: [desktopfactory.com]

Within this topic, paying a PrintrBot in advance is even more funny. This guy hasn't even delivered a single kit, yet. Zero customer experience. Zero success reports. Is this PrintrBot actually capable of printing at all?


You see what I mean? RepRap is about replication. People with too much money in their wallets (purchasing more than one kit!) should simply go away.


To those offering complete kits: please raise the prices. This will allow you to employ people dealing with customers on the telephone.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

ok now my card says ive been credited $765
that is alot less than the $896 that i paid.
so basically, i have lost $131 because camiel wont do his job.
im gonna try to recover more, but im not holding my breath.

TraumFlug, respect!

---

regards,
Tom

Exactly why I'm not understanding all the hate, Traumflug. He's extremely understaffed, and think of how many orders he has received. Could he be doing better? Probably. But for how few people are working with him, I'd say he'd doing pretty good. Everything I've ordered from him in the past, despite being late, was (in my opinion) pretty high quality. I'd order from him again, once he catches up on his orders and I can expect the parts to arrive in at most 3 months.

This really makes me wish I hadn't graduated highschool yet. I was friends with the metal shop teacher, I could probably be making hotends on the lathe and other parts on our CNC-plasmacutter and offering them to you guys.

James,

I have built my Orca ... and now I have problems when printing ...

the extruder jams after 1-2 minutes of printing ... and the hotend is leaking...

only now I have seen your youtube videos on how to assemble the hotend.

for me is too late because I already have melted plastic leaked ... so I'm in the process of disassembling the hotend.

I have one question: why the hotend is made of 2 (brass) parts ? Why is not only 1 long tube ? 6 cm I think that both have together.

sorry for posting here ... but my message on mendel-parts is still waiting for moderation since 2 days ago ...

thanks,
mihai

JamesHardiman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Depends why yours isn't printing!
>
> If it prints OK, then it doesn't need tweaking.
>
> Mainly, during the build stage, make sure that
> everything is square, or parallel, as necessary.
>
> If you run into particular problems, post them
> here ... there are lots of people who may answer
> them.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2011 11:37AM by moltean.

You can clean your nozzle free of plastic very easily. Disassemble the two parts from each other by either turning on the heater if still attached or using a blow torch. After taking them apart, burn off the remaining plastic per spacexula's (repraplogphase) video: [www.youtube.com]

thanks,

but why is made of 2 parts ?
why not a long one ?

mihai

glrra19 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ok now my card says ive been credited $765
> that is alot less than the $896 that i paid.
> so basically, i have lost $131 because camiel wont
> do his job.
> im gonna try to recover more, but im not holding
> my breath.

This is how he steals from people.. you are NOT the only one..

Why two brass tubes? ... It's fundamental to the design of a hot end ... The HOT end of the hot end needs to be at (say) 230 deg C, so that the plastic melts OK. The top end needs to be less than 60 deg C, because otherwise the plastic will be too soft to push with the extruder.

So there needs to be a thermal break between the bottom and the top, and, quite often, a heat sink at the top.

On the Orcas the heat sink is the aluminium plate that is the base of the extruder ... and it's why we have the 40 x 40 fan blowing on where the plastic is clamped between the extruder rollers.

20 a week and hé is at order 8xx and i am 100x
Well the weeks become mounths så i have to waith 18 weeks.
A bit more than the 4-5 weeks to start off.
Hope that All good things comes to he Who waits !!!! Nice to see
That there Are progress.

seems like every order should be send out today.

i've ordered before, and yes it came a lot later that said, but i always got everything, and build quality is awesome.

i'll probably get a V9 extruder. i've tried ordering the arcol one, but he is working on a new one as well, but don't like the design that much
i like the V9 has a fan, i think that is what is the problem with the ones i'm using know

ps:
in a way i like the fact that these printers/shops are build by people who don't know how to run a business
this at least tells me people are not here for the money, and that makes me thankful and makes me not mind the waiting.
i'll get it when i'll get it. i like that.

I saw that note on the mendel parts blog earlier but i'm not holding my breath. No notification that anythings been sent yet so as far as i'm concerned i'm still waiting. Its good to see that hes considering some form of stock control though! Selling 200 orcas without being geared up to make them is just stupid.
pete

yeah, the whole: "will ship week" thing is getting pretty tired.
im still watching tho, cant wait to see this company fold.

I still have problems with the hotend.

The original one was leaking and I have no tightening it (I was under impression that this problem was solved back in Octomber and I have received my kit in December 5).

When I disassembled the hotend I have managed to destroy the thread of the PEEK core ... so I had to create a new one.

I did one made of teflon ... see the picture here:



the peek core is not leaking anymore ...but I still have the original problem: there is no melted pla coming out of hotend after 1 minute after the start of the print process.

I had the same problem with the original hotend and now I had the same problem with this one.

I have increased the power of the extruder to 11 o'clock as I have read on mendel-parst forum ... but no success...

any idea ?

thanks,
mihai

Still nothing...
pete

moltean: quote: "the peek core is not leaking anymore ...but I still have the original problem: there is no melted pla coming out of hotend after 1 minute after the start of the print process. "

You might have one of the following problems:

#1.Problem: Machine starts to print but Temp drops after sending Gcode to the machine.

Symtoms: machine works as expected reading, setting the temp and turning on the heat to the extruder manually, then you send your Gcode to your machine(Print) and the temp starts to drop.
Solution: >>>Set your temperature in SFACT

or

#2. Sensor issues.

Are you sure the machine is not turning off the heater because of a problem? Some firmwares have safety routine/feature to turn off the heater if it detects a problem (disconnect or short).

@cdnrap: I had similar problems ... Totally fixed by turning on PID control in configuration.h

You just have to un-comment one line, about 2/3 of the way down the file.