Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.

Nightowl

Being very new to the market and after a great deal of research into the alternatives, I chose the Duet (MB6HC) board for my CNC machine.

It took (and will take more!) time for me to become better aquainted with it, but there's one thing that stands out for me - the Duet warranty. I don't know if other (Chinese or otherwise) manufacturers would offer such a quick turnaround replacing a defective board, but Duet did (via the reseller), and any doubts I may have had at that point were dispelled.

zBeeble

@nightowl Wow. Machine of spinny death controlled by duet. Props. To your sig, I know enough about woodworking to have great respect (and a little fear) of routers... pretty much the second scariest powertool in the woodshop. The first being the thickness planer. Tailing on a thickness planer put me through the first year of university (and engendered a deep dislike of oak).

I have to say... there's a lot of difference between a machine whose malfunction creates an abstract silly-string sculpture and one that can maim.

Nightowl

@zbeeble said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

Wow. Machine of spinny death controlled by duet.

Oh yeah, and it works brilliantly!

There are a lot more 3D printer people on here than CNC people (and some that do both!) but they've been very helpful when I've been trying to get my head around stuff!

breed

@cthulhulabs agreed. I wasn't aware the mb6xd was out. But actually using external and stepsticks.

zBeeble

@nightowl actually... I was considering that my take on e3d's tool changer might have one of the tools being a dremel like device --- for cutting and buffing... but right now it's just a thought.

zapta

@sputnikoc3d said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

ABS Mafia in the voron community

'ABS Mafia'. I like it.

o_lampe

@zbeeble said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

Wow. Machine of spinny death controlled by duet.

[OT]
Although I agree about the dangers inherited in spinning tools, I'm sure people will use common sense and do some dry-testing before they put a tool in the spindle.
I'm more afraid of laser-modules run by hobbyists, because they can fire up during commissioning/testing. We only have two eyes, but ten fingers

zBeeble

@o_lampe said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

@zbeeble said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

Wow. Machine of spinny death controlled by duet.

[OT]
Although I agree about the dangers inherited in spinning tools, I'm sure people will use common sense and do some dry-testing before they put a tool in the spindle.
I'm more afraid of laser-modules run by hobbyists, because they can fire up during commissioning/testing. We only have two eyes, but ten fingers

[continuing down the OT rabbit hole]

The inherent extra redundancy of digits ... is a lie. The configuration, for instance, that makes our human hands useful for a wide range of tasks is the opposing nature of the thumbs. You only have two thumbs. Equally, spinny death can attack (say) the wrist or palm --- where you also don't have additional digit redundancy built-in.

That said, artificial eye prosthetics are in their infancy.

Notepad

prelude: I wont get into the whole moral dilemma of if you should buy a clone vs OEM, as that frankly, is up to you, and I don't think people should be telling others how to spend their money.

Abstract: FYSETC make ok products, some stuff they do better (in my opinion) such as the integrated screens, and others they do okay with like the logic boards. They are not to the same high standard as Duet is, however functionally, they are able to provide the same experience, and have been reliable in doing so.

Quality: The main difference when it comes to FYSETC parts vs Duet other than the substituted components (probably due to local supply differences) is that the FYSETC duets tend to be a bit weaker overall. They are more susceptible to EMI and as such the webOS tends to get negatively affected more often than a true Duet would.

Accelerometer support also backs up this as the official duets can cope will full speed data capture, however the FYSETC needs to be turned down to half speed in order for an uncorrupted data stream. This is still more than acceptable resolution, however it does show some of the differences caused by the design differences

Wire interferences is also slightly more noticeable with the FYSETC boards. For reference, I use a 7" PanelDue and a 7" FYSETC integrated panel across multiple machines. Both have the same behaviour independently. However, with the FYSETC Duet boards, the screens are more suseptable to the EMI the machine produces, and it has shown up a couple of times, where the data lines suddenly produce garbled commands, which show up on the screens as bad json commands.
With that being said, both official Duet boards, and FYSETC share this issue, however FYSETC appear to have a interference rate 5x higher than that of the official Duet boards.

This issue can be fully solved by using the new firmware that uses checksums

Panel Due:
Its kind of sad to say, but FYSETC make a much nicer touch screen. They have integrated the breakout board into their screens, and overall has made the PCB footprint smaller. You do loose the speaker for this, however for that size reduction, I have to admit that I prefer the FYSETC 7i screens, and they also support all the new PanelDue firmware.

Updating:
This is the only major difference I have seen between official Duet products and the FYSETC clones. When updating the firmware to new versions, the FYSETC boards don't tend to consistently update. The boards will download the files fine, and install them, however the firmware will not update after that - almost like it backdated the version to the one already present on the board. This isn't a massive issue as you can just upload it manually instead of through the WebOS, but it is a noticeable difference, as official Duet boards only rarely have this issue.

Conclusion:
FYSETC is fully functional as a board manufacturer, even if the quality is slightly lacking, the products do tend to work fit for purpose.
They make some really nice screens, and their logicboards - while not 100% clones - do act like official duets, except for some behaviour changes, where I think the corners have been cut for cost, means they are more susceptible to EMI/EMF.

OwenD

@notepad
Whilst it is true that the "moral dilemma" is one for the individual, the results of the lower quality you have pointed out is not only an initial loss of revenue, but an increase in support requests here which are directly attributable to that lower quality.
This has a compounding effect whereby Duet developers and support staff are spending time on things that Fysetc should take responsibility for, when they could be advancing the platform.
Clone users are treated very well here and the warranty support I've seen given to genuine duet users is very very good.
The price of the clones is not substantially lower, but it is attractive to less knowledgeable users, which compounds the support problem further.
Perhaps to round out your well considered report you could send some support requests to Fysetc and post the results?

zapta

Duet also has a much better warranty policy and for me its important to support free-world vendors.

Notepad

@owend

Perhaps to round out your well considered report you could send some support requests to Fysetc and post the results?

Thats actually a great idea, itll be a good apple to apple comparison to see exactly what your (not) getting,

What @zapta says is also absolutely correct, Duets warranty support and after care is exemplary. for me, this is why I would always choose to buy official when I can.

elmoret

@notepad How about Fysetc patenting the work of others? How’s that factor in to them being a “fully functional board manufacturer”?

Notepad

@elmoret I haven't heard about, but do you have a link because I want to get up to date. Patent stealing is a nasty game to play.

oliof

@notepad see here https://twitter.com/LDOMOTORSJASON/status/1524842345685913601 for one example, there also is a list of trademarks they registered in China at https://www.psych0h3ad.tech/entry/3Dprinter/trademarkandpatent/fystec (translation makes this legible), including "DUETWIFI" (@T3P3Tony not sure if you ever saw this).

note: "LDO Motors Jason" is a competitor (or a victim of FYSETCs more shady tactics, depending who you ask), but he's not the only source reporting this. I know of at least one European project that has spent considerable amounts of effort recouping their trademark registration.

dc42

@notepad said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

Its kind of sad to say, but FYSETC make a much nicer touch screen. They have integrated the breakout board into their screens, and overall has made the PCB footprint smaller.

I guess you don't realise that we (Duet3D) did this first, with the PanelDue 5i and 7i. The Fysetc PanelDues are near-copies of these.

You do loose the speaker for this, however for that size reduction

The genuine PanelDue 5i and 7i have the piezo sounder.

Rushmere3D

@oliof Important to read the reply from FYSETC on this and take into account that the Voron team, don't talk about it, nor want it talked about which suggests to me they are ok with it.

My only comment on this is that for 3d printing to become a much wider spread thing it needs affordability, companies like FYSETC, mellow, bigtreetech bring that CHOICE to the market. I do and will continue to buy their products alongside original brands.

oliof

@rushmere3d It's completely fine for the Voron team not to talk about it -- but they also had a prior partnership with FYSETC (the Spider was a design marketed "for Voron"), so lots of variables to keep in mind. I know most projects/companies don't talk about this in the open, but some of the backchannel chatter seems to indicate that "not talking about it in the open" doesn't necessarily mean they're happy or fine with it. I am not involved with Voron at all, so I am not commenting on their stance (-:

Like you, I am a big fan of choice (and I have a number of products by manufacturers you name), but choice really only is possible on a level playing field. I'm also not judging people on how much weight they give to this whole endeavor -- I just made a choice for myself.

Besides this topic, we've had some reports of higher error rate, and worse performance, of FYSETC products that are spun off of the Duet designs (completely in line with the license by the way and I support that), so I'll keep those factors in mind as well.

zapta

@dc42 said in Opinions on "FYSETC" ... politely, please.:

I guess you don't realise that we (Duet3D) did this first, with the PanelDue 5i and 7i. The Fysetc PanelDues are near-copies of these.

I believe that he is referring to the smaller footprint of the FYSTEC's screens, without the extra PCB area on the side. They could still install at the back a low profile buzzer like 458-AST1640MACTRQTR-ND but didn't.

China is following Japan's and Korea's path, low quality cloning, better quality cloning, modified cloning, and then own original designs such as their new 3D printer controllers.

BTW, FYSTEC didn't open source it's panel due variants.

Notepad

@zapta Exactly this. not heaving the PCB breakout board as extra space just gives a lot more flexibility on design choices.

@Rushmere3D makes an incredibly valid point. Affordability is a massive part of 3d printing nowadays. If you can get new users into the Duet ecosystem via clone brands, it still means there is a much higher chance they will buy official products later down the line. Its a win win.

.

Also I'm not entirely sure why the review is getting downvoted on something that is purely an unbiased review. Its obvious Duet products will be better than clones. But that doesn't stop the fact that some one asked for their opinions on FYSETC products in an unbiased, non confrontational manner, and that can only be done without taking a stance.
Also please remember, Duet hardware is open source including licence agreements. There is also an argument to be made that elitism on an open source design goes against the whole concept of open source.
FYSETC are completely within their rights to make their own version of the hardware.