I bet part of the reason international sales are this low is there is the reciprical pain in the arse for the buyer that you allude to above.
It’s a shame there isn’t at least an EU distributor.
I agree, global trade is really messed up.
We’d welcome you to Colorado if you ever get the itch to move 
I am sure there never will be, can you imagine the 2 or 3 year no questions asked returns policy you have to honor. No way. The mark up on this sort of machine is not possible to cover that sort of thing. If you have a 400% markup to cover your butt people will just buy from aliexpress.
This lower tier business model is starting to show its issues as is, easily sourced designs do not jive with how inexpensive it is to import one tiny part from across the globe. Until we can ship one tiny part back for the same price we are in trouble.
I did live in Aurora for one year, too young to remember much though. Seems like a lot of Colorado is just as pricey as Cali, and I would have to deal with snow!
That’s because one nation has prioritized it’s manufacturing base by subsidizing shipping.
I’m always surprised this isn’t more of a hot topic for the other trading blocks to counter.
We’re drifting towards politics so I’ll stay shy of going further.
Bet you’d miss the ocean, too.
You need to think in terms of any machine built outside of your borders. The paying field is leveled. My machine is by far the least expense, and by far the least expense to ship, therefor the taxes would also be by far the least. So if you are going to compare a full sheet machine and all the cost that go with it to get to you, you should at least show the rest of the ~12k daily viewers what another machine costs to get to your door as well.
Very true, I am a water lover. The ocean does feel like home.
Exactly.
It is pretty crazy how it all works. I had a pretty in depth discussion about that recently with a company outside the US. It works very different for everyone else. I could set up shop in Mexico or Canada and drastically decrease my prices, including shipping. When I lived in San Diego a lot of companies had headquarters in socal, and manufacturing and shipping in Mexico. It took me a long time to understand why I though it was just labor costs.
Man, I have actually talked to a lot of companies recently, I wish I could share more info about how a lot of them operate.
I am not going to compare it (at least not negatively), don’t worry. 
Your machine is definitely the best bang for buck, my frustration is not directed at you in any way! I am mainly pissed about taxes and DHLs 6€ they collect from me for pre-paying my taxes… Daylight robbery, I tell you!
I think I need to take the printer calibration warning out of the instructions. It is freaking people out. The parts will fit enough and the machine will function. Doing a skew calibration is ideal, but far from required.
I think you should say to print a couple of parts first and test fit them (say Z stub and Z nut holder) and then if those don’t fit you have work to do.
It’s more of an order of operations thing, and less of a “you should panic if you don’t” thing.
If you register as a self-clearer, you can avoid the 6 euros, but the downside is that you have to pick up your packages at the customs office yourself.
Yeah, I used to do that then they cancelled it because you had to register with their online platform which I didn’t want to. Then I fought a mini legal battle with them because I thought they never told me (which they did, I just never openend the letter, found it while cleaning my room…)… 
I would have saved myself a lot of trouble had I done a calibration on my Mini before printing the LR3. So I’d have liked that warning. You might remember the looking for errors we had in my thread.
Certainly that. Or may I offer from my experience, more parameters. For instance you mentioned just a bit ago .07 skew angle or less and you are good to go. I personally would rather have the warning with the parameters than the warning without, or just blank. But then again, no one asked me. 
It is a little more nuanced than this. The 2 year return policy in the eu is applicable on 3d printed parts. But the return policy is only for defects in products. These defects need to have been there from the beginning. After 6 months the consumer is responsible for proving that the problem is caused by a manufacturing fault.
So in my understanding, if a 3d printed part cracks or fails after six months. The consumer needs to prove this is due to a manufacturing fault. This is very hard to do and is not something which is commonly done in the eu.
Also as long as the instructions are clear, for example not to overtighten parts, issues caused by assembly and user error are also not covered by the 2 year warranty.
A vague part is that the warranty is also voided when a part undergoes expected wear, or is misused. So if it is broken by pushing the machine too far, or running it a lot which causes more then normal wear this is also not covered.
So I understand your view on the warranty and that it looks like this would cause a lot of returns, this is often not the case. Also the warranty does not state a refund is required, only repair or replacement of the part.
Ps. This is to my best understanding and experience, if I made any errors please correct me
Talking about skew… I remember when I first fell into this rabbit hole. I got a second hand Ender 3 that was suuuuper skewed. Didn’t need to measure anything to see that it was totally wrecked. I ended up shimming all the axises, got it fairly square. (after a year or so) When the printer was decent enough, I was so fed up that I bought a Prusa. Those were the times!!
That is great to hear. Sounds waaaaaay more reasonable now.
My only experience is using Amazon payments, they, at the time, require no proof of anything. I only had those payments enabled for about a month and got a full refund issued from amazon, not notice to me at all prior. I asked why and for my product back they said, the customer was not satisfied, and they do not need to return it. I assumed that is what it would be like. Very glad to hear that is not how it is.
I still have nightmares. That picture you put up with your parts next to the square is burned n my memory.
I am honestly not sure that sort of thing will show up in a Z stub test part. Those two being crooked will still fit fine but you will never get your coupler aligned.
Maybe we don’t need no fancy tests. Just check your parts with a square 
That is actually probably a perfect compromise. Use a square, print the stubs. If it looks okay you are good to go.
Amazon is incredibly easy and loose with their return policy, I assume the cost to have people checking returns is more then the loss in returned products for them. I think a large part of it is also that they are willing to take financial loss in order to keep a customer by providing easy returns.
But honestly apart from the very big webshops like Amazon and (no clue if it is known in the us) Zalando most companies have stricter return policies.
Yes, that was a lot better than I explained it last time. We were talking about me not soldering anything on a board I bought but would send it back because of those 24 months warranty. Especially with electronic components it is pretty impossible to make the user at fault (if he has not tampered with it). That’s why you can basically always exchange electronics in those 24 months.
And yes, the manufacturer has the choice of exchanging the product or repairing it, two or three times actually, then the customer can ask for his/her money back.
Printed parts are a different thing thought, you can always say that it was wrong use.
I did this when printing the LR3. After reading I think @Tokoloshe his build log I decided to check my printer before starting my own build. I just printed a big partial cross so I could check squareness for the three axis. It looked good so I continued.
I think this might be enough for most people. Check for square with a fast and simple print. No calipers required. If it is out of square they can resort to the more complicated skew corrections, or ask for help on the forum
