It’s really interesting that @Rita closed your topic while there was active conversations going on.
Why? It’s a Support Ticket and it’s been resolved.
Problems and Support is an official Glowforge Help Desk. New threads create Support Tickets. It’s not a place for discussion, per se. When the issue is resolved (which it was), the topic is closed.
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Briefly, cosmetic issues (small misalignment to glass designs or scratches) are still permitted for shipment; functional problems (lid refuses to close, cracks in the plastic) are not.
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Fair enough. Do you have an idea of when you will stop allowing cosmetic issues? I know some people may want to consider waiting for their unit.
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Sorry I never mentioned it.
It wasn’t a big deal to me. Some time between agreeing and receiving my unit, Dan dropped the news that there would be a black crumb tray.
I never had the opportunity for declining my machine in favor of that.
I never told you all that my offer email included information that some parts were likely to be updated in later machines as they were likely to switch suppliers for parts as they ramp up. I got assurances that this machine was indeed a production machine; but not the final production machine. It gets the warranty and the guarantee; but it may not be exactly parts-matched to the machines that will roll off the line in several months.
My apologies, all. I didn’t mean to be hiding that.
I thought it was no real news, or I would have shared.
I buy 8-year old and 11-year old cars pre-scratched and worn in, and I’m happy that I didn’t have to make the pie. I’m a clearance rack shopper at the thrift store.
Truth be told, I feel like my [edit: not-black] crumb tray is a pretty neat thing, because it is rare. I know… scratches aren’t rare features and they don’t up your value. I acknowledge that people like shiny and are willing to pay for it.
I will here and now tell any reader:
My forever Glowforge was built with non-final parts.
That means that I’ve been using this fantastic tool for 3 months, rather than wondering if it’s going to arrive in 2018 or not.
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Thanks for that. BTW, the crumb tray is steel, aluminum is non-ferrous so magnets won’t stick to it.
Yeah, I have thought about asking to keep the original tray and just paying for it for the same reason. It reflects the battle scars of my education, and my very first products using a laser.
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True, poor choice of words, they are very very late. I just meant signed to have a unit now instead of later in the run.
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Thanks so much for that! I really appreciate hearing about the “inside scoop” of Dan’s communications with the production machine recipients. Makes me feel more connected.
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I think this comes down to how people see their machines. Some people have a shop type environment, where only care about it working and know its going to get dirty, scratched, dented, etc. Others have a home/retail environment in mind like the video, where the unit is part workhorse, part show piece. For the latter group, they do care about things not looking good, or the unit not looking great when they receive it. Not all of the latter users will care, but for those who do, they should know these things in advance.
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Call me old fashioned but you don’t start mass production until the design is finished and pre-production units are easy to make and work properly. Then you make thousands of production units that are all the identical.
If you are making small batches, waiting for feedback, halting production to implement engineering change orders then making another batch these are not production machines.
But GF always try to hide how far behind they so they call the first machines produced back in May “production machines”. They aren’t if they aren’t the final design and this explains why they haven’t ramped up to mass production volumes yet.
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I don’t think he really was. I think the comment is sarcastic. Or facetious, maybe? My brain can’t words right now.
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I sure wish that “in production” actually meant “final design”.
That would have made my last 25 years in product development, engineering management and sourcing/supply chain a whole lot easier.
The World sure is working hard to make sure that never happens though, whether it’s vendors discontinuing a COTS item or making revisions or substitutions that force a product design change, or having to keep 3 vendors for every component, none of which make them all exactly the same, or vendors/subcontract manufacturers that close up shop. The last one is the best (sarcasm) when you have only one vendor for an item and it’s their proprietary design, then they decide to close their doors and you can no longer get that item nor have it duplicated, and you have literally thousands of structures out in the wild with that component and it can not be maintained, repaired, nor easily replaced.
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Hahaha!! I have a t-shirt that reads “I can not brain today, I have the dumb”
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My personal favorite, (which I have on right now as a matter of fact) reads
“Out of My Mind”
(Back in Five Minutes.)
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Spent 29 years designing things for mass production, up to a quarter of a million of some things. Yes of course you have ECOs over the lifetime of a product but you don’t develop it during production. The first production units are fully fledged and work properly. Over time you might have to adapt to supply chain issues like component obsolescence but you phase in those changes. You don’t stop production or build in small batches with incremental changes.
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My favorite shirt has to be a toss-up between “Warning, allergic to stupid people” and “Smile if you’re not wearing undies!”
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ROFL! That second one…
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I havent seen GF making major design revisions through production. Maybe they change the color of the tray but the tray itself is the same size and construction. They made changes to packaging but that’s not the actual product. I don’t see changes being made to the laser or the mechanical design or the design of the head.
I doubt there will be any revisions to the case tooling to make it more rigid or thicken the walls/reduce print-through on the ribs but if they do, it won’t be for a good long while until their current tooling wears out and needs to be replaced. At that point it’s expected they would make updates and improvements.
I just don’t see all this supposed starting and stopping, batch production with revisions between batches. Nobody knows what’s actually happening behind the scenes and all this talk is made-up narrative.
Some of the recent photos showing things like glue on the top of the units show some sloppy QA checks going on, I will give ya that. And that does give pause to wonder where else QA might be lacking, but IF there is any stoppage on the production lines I’d say it’s to address the QMS processes/procedures and not making design revisions to the product itself.
If they want to make new tooling and jigs, etc. to improve assembly and take some of the human factor out of the equation, that seems acceptable to me. If they want to stop the line in order to implement those changes so they don’t continue repeating the same error, by all means they should do that.
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yeah I really like that one too. One day I will fit into it again. 
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