not everything can be fixed in the field, by a user.
the situation for a lot of things really.
I shouldnāt even be worrying about that on a machine I got two days ago.
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The way the cuts fade across the wood is a mirror knocked out of alignment. Thatās shipping damage. It was probably dropped or rolled hard on the sides by FedEx/UPS at some point on its way to you.
It is impossible to eliminate all shipping damage when shipping delicate equipment around the country. Even freight shipments get damaged all day every day, thereās no alternative way to move a laser around that guarantees itāll be working when it gets to you.
So theyāre going to send you another and hope nobody damages it on the way to you this time.
I get that youāre frustrated with the timing of your upcoming events, but this current problem is not due to anyone being malicious or even negligent. Shake your fist at the universe and move forward.
Glowforge canāt be happy about this either, THEY are going to lose $500+ on shipping that machine back to them to be refurbished again, and shipping you another replacement, at no extra cost to you.
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If they are paying $250 to ship this one way they might want to looking into alternative shipping. There are plenty of them now. I just got a Fusion Hottronix un damaged delivered by Freight. With all the issues in all these years they need to do better. I was on their side taking up for them b/c they were new. Naw nope no more itās time to reevaluate business practices at the very least. This emailing crap is antiquated! The time I spent email could have been solved in an hourā¦ itās just dumb!
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Freight is NOT immune to damage! When stuff gets damaged in fright it gets damaged pretty good! Had to go pick something up from a freight terminal last year and they sent me back to the wrong area by mistake and there was a massive pile of damaged stuff, Refrigerators that looked out of a Dr. Seuss movie, an oven with a table saw iron top slicing it in half, it was just crazy the amount of damaged stuff in that pile waiting to go back out or be salvaged as it was prob all rejected by customers.
Many of the things GF did in the development of this machine were to save the customer money, sizing the unit and packaging to go standard delivery methods instead of freight at a much higher cost and extended delivery time, keeping costs low by not hiring massive amounts of people to staff phones all day ectā¦ I do agree with you tho that email only is super frustrating when you are deep in with issues but also I would rather have gotten the machine at its current prices then had they factored in the cost behind enterprise level instant support. You always pay for that somehow, large companies like say Dell factor that in over billions of products/units sold, where GF does not have that kind of movement so the per unit price would be rather high.
Statically speaking, most damage is in that last mile to the customer. May want to look into picking the next one up at the delivery terminal so it does not get tossed into a truck and rolled around all day before its delivered to your door.
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For them it is the easy answer. With my first machine I received was giving me problems (largely around using the magnets, though I did not understand that at the time) it was in late October but I made a deal because it was still usable to not send it in until the day after Christmas , then they sent me a basic after I had sent a Pro so it was not until Feb 3 or so that I got the referb Pro and could not tell if it was brand new. And it may well have been almost unused as far as I could tell.
So, here is my story. I bought one of the early GFs (Basic) and waited 2 years to receive it. I use it about 10 days a month at max. About a week ago, the laser stopped firing. Of course, after a bunch of useless emails, it was determined that the problem was not something that could be fixed remotely. So the offer was $1300 for a refurbished machine. I was leaving for St. Thomas, so I did not have time to go through all the hoopla of returning it.
Meanwhile, last year I made a referral ā¦my sister who lives in the Virgin Islands. She purchased the machine in early November of last year, right before I visited. She had to have it shipped from Miami by boat to St. Thomasā¦so roughly it took about 3 1/2 weeks for the GF (Pro) to get to her. I came about two weeks later. I used the machine about twice a week for the three months that I was there visiting. Because her life got really busy, she did not use the machine at all. So, from the middle of April until Dec. 6, the machine sat in her home office. On December 7, I tried to do a cut and the GF stopped in the middle of the cut. So, because you canāt get anyone by phone, I started the string of (again) useless emails. I explained to them that the head stopped moving in the middle of a print and now would not move at all. Initially, it said that it was printing, said it was going through all the calibration stepsā¦but the head was not moving at all. So, on their end they suggested 1. cleaning all the mirrors and running a test printā¦and I said āthe head is not moving.ā Then they said, 2. the connection to the internet is unstable; thatās why the head is not movingā¦then 3. the belts may be looseā¦and finallyā¦after 4 infrequent months of useā¦4) the motor is failing, you have to ship it back to us for a fee of $1700. Oh, I forgot to mention I found one of their tools in the machine. I am so disgusted with these peopleā¦it just feels like a racket. Has anyone else experienced the problem with the head just not moving?
There was another active member of the group from the VI that lost the machine in Hurricane Maria, I gather that circumstances are very difficult there. These machines do not respond well to corrosive circumstances.
When dealing with emails I have found that replying to emails works much better than masses of extra emails as the entire conversation is there and they do not have to chase them down. Not everyone manages to do this and are very frustrated as a result.
I agree.
and to avoid shipping damage I picked mine up from the depot.
the last mile is the worst.
I picked mine up from the depot. The box was banged to heck and when I got there it was leaning against a wall on a short side, which I discovered had caused coolant to leak all over that side - but only a couple of years later when I removed the left top panel to take out the failed exhaust fan.
Thats easier said than done if you donāt have help to do soā¦
Im worried now and dealing with BS already and I dont even have the machine yet
When I got my first machine I had no issuesā¦ I did not develop issues until recently and I had my first machine over three years.
awesome, so did not mean for this thread to have the above happen. I just stressed out and seeing so many Happy people but yet so many upset over issues it has be concerned. Thank You for your help
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Update: Second machine came with the glass shattered in pieces. Waiting on third machineā¦ UPS wonāt call back although urgent calls have been placedā¦ If this machine does not work I wonāt be doing another and asking for a refund this is too much and too stressfulā¦
I would really try to figure out a way to pick it up FROM the DEPOT.
historically the ālast mileā is where the damage occurs.
Good Luck, and Iām sorry this has been your experience.
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I hear you but I donāt have anyone to help like that. My son is not here, I am single, which means most people are working and canāt get off to go there in time. Itās not possible. I donāt called ups three times in the past two days getting a live person on the phone or someone from the hub to call back is also close to impossible. I complained on twitter please all that person did was give some canned formed response ā¦ Im so over this dumb ish idk what to doā¦
It I had help I would but I donāt so I can not
I posted my experience picking up at a UPS hub above, box was already beaten to heck and machine was standing on its left side. The only reason I had it held was because I was traveling when it was due to be delivered.
This is the wrong time of year to be trying to get anyone from a UPS hub on the phone, They are swamped.
Neither of those has anything to do with Glowforge, but they have their share of blame with the decline in machine quality.