ravenology

So, as most of you know, back in 2014, when the Kickstarter campaign for the LIX 3D pen was launched, I pretty much jumped into it the moment I got my pay for the month (yes, I was pretty darn broke then, and yet I put a good $200+ into it - I believed in it that much). 

Being a tech-addict, I’d done my research and all before backing it, and I genuinely believed in them, all the way from back when the campaign was live, past their original delivery deadline, till recently, about 2 days after I received the pen. 

You see, they were quite on top of things with their updates in the beginning, letting the backers know exactly what’s happening, how the development was going, etc etc etc. When they missed their first delivery deadline, some of the other backers got angry and started being nasty and leaving condescending and angry remarks on the Kickstarter page. But hey, me being me, having worked on all sorts of different projects - I understood that they ran into some manufacturing challenges and safety issues, and got delayed. So it was okay. In fact, I would say, all crowdfunding backers should do some research and think about what it probably is like to be part of the team developing the product that you have backed - but that’s a topic for another day. 

So, back to this story. The LIX 3D pen promised to be the world’s smallest 3D pen - and I’ll have to say, 2 years later, they did deliver on that promise. But I have to point out a few issues - 

1. They were behind on shipping to the Kickstarter backers, but decided it was okay to go ahead and ship to the pre-order folks before fulfilling the Kickstarter orders - this information was gleamed from multiple angry complains on the Kickstarter page. 

2. Their updates all but disappeared past the end of 2014. It became so rare I everytime I googled for them I was expecting to see a notice that they’ve failed and my investment was gone for good. 

And now, issue 3 - sub-par product, sub-par service. 

See, before I recieved my item, I’d already read alot of comments on the page from others who had received their pen only to have it break within the first couple of uses. Initially, I thought, Well, there has been so many backers. Those are probably the minority. 

And then I got mine on the 1st of August. And it died on the 5th of August. Yup, 4 days. 

When I received it on the 1st, I didn’t have time to play with it...so the 3rd of August was when I first played with it. And boy, was I impressed. It heated up really quickly, was ultra-light, and could be powered with a battery pack (oh boy! 3D printed street art!). And the first little bit of random squiggles I made turned out well, and it was much easier to handle and use compared to the other 3D pens I’ve messed with. 

So on the 5th, when I headed down to the OMG prototyping labs, I thought I’d bring it along for the guys there to see. But when I fed the ABS plastic noodle LIX had send into the pen...nothing came out. I could hear the gear turning, and I could see the filament entering the pen, slowly, but surely, disappearing all the way into the pen... but nothing came out from the other end. So I touched the tip, thinking maybe something went wrong with the heating element. But nope. I got a nice tiny blister from it. So that was working. 

And then I thought, well, maybe the pen’s nozzle was clogged. This was common enough on desktop 3D printers, and on the other 3D pens out there, so I thought, well, simple enough to clear the nozzle, once the pen cools down and I can take a better look. Except...

As you can see... it wasn’t as simple as I thought. The teflon guiding tube had gotten chewed up and dragged all the way to the tip of the pen, and the filament, encased within the tube, had also suffered the same fate. The guide tube showed multiple horizontal cuts, inline with getting chewed up by the worn gear used to advance the filament. The entire mess presented itself like some balled up intestines of a worm... And then of course I did what I’d usually do in such situations. I documented it and emailed my feedback and the documentation to LIX (hey, I live by the motto  “If you break it, document it, so that we can replicate the error”). 

Later on, after receiving a reply to my email, I found out that the act of unscrewing the heat guard from the housing - at the point where it was actually made to be unscrewed, considering the threading - actually voided the warranty. Which, I might add, was never mentioned anywhere. But sure, well, so I voided the warranty. I was told that they’ll make and exception and repair it anyway, but at a cost - and at that moment I was like, wait, what? It’s an exception for you to repair your product? Or was it an exception that you’re charging me for the repair? Or, would you usually not repair your product any way, if the warranty was voided somehow, in a way that was not obvious / ever mentioned to your customers? (We’ll discuss the warranty and how things with regards to those terms some other time). 

Anyway, with that note, I decided, hell, I’m just going to go ahead and pull the entire inside of the pen out, since for me to mail the item back, plus the repair fees they had quoted me, was pretty much going to cost me the price of another pen. Provided they fixed this one. Also, that would be all of that waiting all over again. My conclusion? I’ll probably just fix it myself - with the addition of a few improvements of course. Because, hell, why not? 

As I did that, what I discovered was at once amazing and shocking. The pen’s components had been designed to be modular, so repairing and unjamming the stuck filaments would be a very simple job (So, dear LIX guys... you designed it so that techies like myself would be able to fix small problems. So why would trying to clear a clogged novel void the warranty?) That said, the point of failure in this instance was the fact that the Teflon guide tube had a section that was covering the filament at the level of the gear - and that got twisted and caught in the worm gear, resulting in the entire tube getting dragged down and coiled at the tip of the pen. 

Beyond that, I have to say, the housing and the finishing of the product is of top-quality, and was otherwise very pleasing. I’m just gutted that 1. The pen “broke” so quickly 2. That the terms of the warranty are dumb  3. The team doesn’t seem very interested in my feedback. 

And, to finish this post off...