Finished initial assembly of my Shapeoko 5.1 4x2. Took about 6 hours of assembly over 3 days. I want to say, first, that I’m really impressed by the systems engineering, designing, and precision machining that has gone into making this tool and getting it to the user, and I haven’t even made anything with it yet. That said, as a systems engineer, I, umm, have some thoughts on the instruction manual.
The bottom line on my feedback is that, for me, both the PDF and the YouTube video were necessary-- but neither was sufficient. And in my opinion that’s a problem that can and should be be remedied.
Now, I will grant that that many in this group may be able to assemble the machine with much less issues. To those folks I say, I respect your innate mechanical talent. My thinking, though, is that a primary goal of Carbide 3D is to democratize the use of CNC across many more people than just those with the innate talent to read between the gaps, so to speak, of the manual.
Now, I’m not a complainer! And I’m not complaining. I’m just offering to describe my user experience on assembly if anyone is interested enough for me to write it up.
Compliment sandwich time. Let me repeat. I am hugely impressed with Carbide 3D’s incredible achievement of designing and manufacturing this machine, and getting it to my doorstep with the necessary knowledge to assemble it. The experience could be even better, though. <3
As a person who did the assembly instructions for a past iteration of the Shapeoko, these are an intricate balancing act where:
new technologies/hardware are being introduced
complex assemblies are being aligned and fastened
a myriad of fasteners are being put in place
and I am pretty confident that if we did a set of assembly instructions which addressed every possible aspect it would be so long that folks who were printing it would nope out when their printer ran out of paper/ink, while people following along viewing the pages on a tablet would glaze over and skip past what they viewed as meaningless detail and get tripped up by something which they swiped by to the next page w/o reading.
I had thought that the assembly videos were getting sent as links with a machine purchase, and it seems that folks who watch the videos (to become familiar with the technologies/hardware/fasteners) and then carefully go through the textual instructions are successful (based on support tickets).
A good example of this is Carbide Create and Motion where folks seem to do well learning it from the official videos, and not too many ask after more detailed/traditional print manuals such as my:
(that last page in particular is instructive for the text being many variations of, “To set up the machine, press the “Setup Machine” button.” and only one person thus far seems to have read it to the end and bothered to note a typo which I have intentionally left in as a trip-wire/check on reading)
That said, we would be glad of any detailed and constructive criticism (which is hard to get — folks are excited about assembling machines and it’s pretty rare to get detailed notes/feedback), so if you are the exception who took notes/photos, please send them in and we will look into revising the instructions as appropriate based on them.
Basically - have images that match the current state of the product and packaging - make sure the images show the key features - and make the 80mm spindle a real part of the product set.
It takes a company’s conscious commitment (financial) to produce really good documentation - particularly for products that are changing so rapidly. And it may not be worth it to the company. If your primary audience is made up of engineers who love to tinker and love to experiment to get something done, then sending someone to more than one reference and expecting them to piece disparate information together to get an answer may be acceptable. But if your primary audience are consumers, who are using your tools as productivity enablers - then you will be more likely to consider their time in your expense priorities.
Hi Will. Appreciate the response. Please note that I tried my absolute best to respectfully share my thoughts on the assembly process. My compliments are genuine. From your response (and with the built in trip wires you included), it seems that your team are pretty particular on suggestions for improvement. I get it. Pride of ownership, in addition to nitpicking by folks who don’t read all the way through.
Here are some quick notes that drove some frustration for me.
There is inconsistency between the labels on the bags and the instructions. And sometimes bolts are mentioned by names and sizes that don’t align to the bag. Recommend you consider an alphanumeric label on the bags to reduce ambiguity. This has the added benefit of making the actual labels themselves agnostic.
There were many issues where having additional wording or pictures for the 4x2 (or router) would have helped tremendously. I understand that consolidation is cost effective, but man… I wish I had that time back. I spent a lot of time trying to look for a cord that didn’t apply to me, for example. I have a router, and for the router, turns out I’m routing the power cable NOT a “spindle” cable. (I’ve seen “spindle” used in the community agnostic to “router,” so I figured you must be referring to a cord I wasn’t finding). The video, though, was clear on this (because it used a router in the build). Not suggesting a second document… just a few more callouts for the less innately mechanically inclined.
Anyways. Please take or leave my suggestions as you see fit. I was trying to be helpful is all. I do think this is a great product, and I was telling my wife last night that I bet y’all are a great team to work with. There seems to be some self awareness and a sense of humor, in addition to attention to detail and actual concern for the customer experience.
I enjoyed reading your write up, Gary. You hit on a lot of points that I just didn’t include in my less comprehensive description. The “open first” box was a real head scratcher
