Ordered a Shapeoko Pro some weeks ago. Both boxes came a week or so later, and I had to tear down my old machine to make space for this new one. When I reached the assembly step to put the Y-axis rails on I came to find that they were the wrong ones. The box was labeled wrong and didn’t match what was on the big box it was inside of. They were rails for the Shapeoko 4. Ok, so I contacted support and they had the correct ones shipped the following night. UPS “Next Day Air” doesn’t seem like it is what you’d think it is, and is probably a waste of money.
I just received the correct parts for my new machine. They are from a used/returned machine instead of brand new parts. There was wood dust on the linear bearing rails that led me to draw such a conclusion. That’s fine, I just don’t appreciate being sold a brand new machine that’s supposed to have new/unused parts, and receive used parts instead. Why wasn’t I sent new parts, or informed that the parts I would receive are used, with a partial refund of some kind? The picture this paints is that they just didn’t even have any new Y-axis rail parts and threw a box of S4 parts into my machine shipment to buy time. As far as paintings go, that’s not a pretty one.
If I was sold a used machine (or parts), I would expect to be told it was used up-front, and it should be priced accordingly. This sleight-of-hand, pulling a switcheroo type stuff is not a sustainable approach to business. Honesty and reputation go a long way, and this is some shady goings-on at Carbide by the looks of it.
Also, this:
This clearly hit a hard surface, likely a concrete floor in a shop (seen it a number of times) when it was dropped. This is how it came right out of the undamaged box. I don’t imagine Carbide is shipping brand new parts like this, it likely was the result of whoever sent the machine back that they were assembled into.
This isn’t what I paid thousands of dollars for.
As far as I understand, the ends of these rails aren’t super critical to machine squareness, only the endplates sit against them. I imagine that the endplates are assumed to be flush with the rail, however. This isn’t going to result in an endplate being flush.
Granted, I can fix it myself with some time spent filing it flat again, but I paid for a brand new machine that didn’t require repairing damaged parts. If I was going to receive used (let alone damaged) parts, I should’ve been offered some kind of compensation because I didn’t pay for a used machine (or a machine that has used parts).
Being that I tore down my old machine and already started putting this machine together in its place a week ago, there has been a lot of unanticipated downtime just from the wrong parts being shipped with the machine in the first place - where I’m without a running machine.
As far as first impressions go, this experience leaves quite a bit to be desired, if I’m being honest. I’m hoping that this is the only problem, and the machine goes together without issues, and runs without issues.
Thanks for your time.
