I understand. We haven’t given you any reason to think otherwise.
We’re working hard, but I don’t expect you to be satisfied until you have your Glowforge and you love it.
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As a customer and holder of one of the PRUs I don’t know what to tell you.
I can’t blame you for feeling this way, but on the other hand, I’ve seen it at work and think the wait is going to be worth it unless there is another big slip. I’m really hoping that if there is more slippage it will be weeks not another 6 month delay.
Why not stick around until there is some real news?
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[quote="zerflo, post:119, topic:7626] Then to assemble 100’s of GF’s in two months seems very tight to me.
[/quote]
because you don’t understand manufacturing. I’m not saying it to be rude, but their manufacturing partner is one of the best in the business. it’s not like they’re going to be hand tightening these with individual mech engs in seattle.
multiple people, repeatedly.
seems to take less than a week in the worst cases, usually accomplished within hours.
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Yeah, manufacturing is the least of my concerns, given who’s building them. Once GF gives the go-ahead, they should be able to quickly crank them out in the thousands.
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I get it and understand your point.
Thank you!!
I’ll try to contain my cancelling urges after I see them at maker faire this weekend.
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Let us know what you think of the maker faire! I can’t make it!
[quote=“zerflo, post:119, topic:7626”]
… I want this machine to challenge me…[/quote]
If I’m reading what you’re saying correctly, I’m the same way. My learning process progresses a lot more quickly if I can try-out simple/basic stuff before moving on to somewbat more advanced stuff. I figure this is the case for a lot of prople - without a machine, it’s not easy getting any further than step 2.
I got a partial refund (downgraded from a Pro to a Basic and removed the filter). I emailed 'em and they cut me a check and mailed it over. Took somewhere around a week and went very smoothly. Lots of people have talked about deciding to cancel, but when they do they lose access to the forum so there haven’t been many posts talking about having received a refund (as in past-tense).
Several months ago I asked for a partial refund and, shortly afterward, I received it.
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I downgraded my order from a Pro with filter to just the pro. The refund was received within the week.
My brother and I joke about being duped through kickstarter a lot. We both have some failed kickstarters to our name (as backers) and last year (or two years ago) the story about that guy who built a house and a pool etc from backer money fuelled our satirical kickstarter conversations. I’ve been harassing him about his barely-alive Tiko 3D printer for the last couple of months.
With @dan family vacation to Japan my brother found his ammunition towards me. Having just returned from Japan myself (again) I can relate to @dan and his enthousiasm.
Now I’m still all in to the Glowforge. And I’ll hold out until whenever and if ever this machine arrives at my doorstep. Even if I thought this is not going to happen anymore why cancel now? I’ve waited for so many months, a month or two extra won’t hurt me.
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You guys are over simplifying the issues they are going to have with manufacturing.
- Raw materials - Normally you do not have millions of dollars of inventory on hand - you order things in a lean way. I don’t know who the resin supplier for plastics is, but one of the largest in the industry, Sabic, has been having tons of issues when they switched their ERP system since late last year. Don’t under estimate lead times on getting things in.
- Warehouse space - I doubt Glowforge is paying flex to keep the raw materials for thousands of units. Imagine the storage footprint for thousands of chassis.
- While Flex has the capacity, @dan had indicated that they build a second head alignment fixture. They can be process constrained by not being able to test as many as they can put together, thus bottle necking the capacity.
I would agree that once they start actually shipping, within a few months the backlog of orders should be taken care of. I would also be more concerned with the software features getting into the unit, but I wouldn’t brush off manufacturing all together.
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From a numbers standpoint It doesn’t matter how good they are; there is still a maximum throughput. Each unit needs to be calibrated using at least one, probably more, pieces of equipment and it takes a fixed amount of time. Dan essentially said this in an old post. It’s unlikely they can increase the number of calibration stations, so unless they are stockpiling units there is a certain date beyond which at least some orders will slip. But no one outside of the manufacturer and glowforge know what that date is and it’s fairly pointless to speculate. Realistically, if they are shipping production units by the end of July, and they’re getting positive reviews, no one is really going to care if they miss their dates by a few weeks. But all that said, it’s the remaining software bugs/features and not the production capacity that matters with ten weeks to go.
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i’m entirely aware, but we’re talking production capacity of at minimum hundreds a month, and more likely thousands. even if the initial spin-up is delayed, it’ll very quickly catch up.
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Since there is still the potential for unexpected issues, and even unexpected efficiency to appear, even a date in their projections for when slippage would start would be a soft date. The battle on the manufacturing side is constant. From the updates that @dan has provided to us, it appears that while they are seeing new challenges on a regular basis, they have been up to the task of addressing those and keeping reasonably on course to the date.
They have an amazing manufacturer, and things sound ready for the go-ahead once they are certain the little quirks with mass production runs and the final units are resolved. It also sounds like they are making nearly daily strides towards that goal. I wouldn’t expect report of either slippage or another delay unless or until it was absolutely certain with some solid idea the amount of delay. Numbers in volume also tend to be speculation at this point, because manufacturing has not be run at capacity, yet. It has been small product runs specifically for testing and PRU. When they get the go, the manufacturer will be able to put out a lot more than they have to now, faster than they have to now.
Now that is the truth to end all truths. If manufacturing is live and even just the first day of production units shipped by 7/31/17, nobody here is going to care (beyond some entirely reasonable and understandable impatience) about the slippage.
That is where the two-prong approach, and the PRU, are invaluable to the company. They are working on 2 fronts, the manufacturing and the software. At this point, they have committed to shipping fully functional units with software that, aside from some select features, performs as advertised, and continuing to add functions as they go. I think this is the right way to do it at this point, too. I ordered the Pro, and I will be happier to get my production unit and be able to start working with it, than waiting for the software to be 100% of everything promised, even if it means that Multi-Point Autofocus, or even some pass-through features, are delayed a few weeks or a month.
Rationally speaking, only PRU users will be ready for most of the most advanced features that close to the shipping date. Even as friendly as the interface is, the rest of us will have some serious catch-up to do, learning material behaviors and settings.
All that said, they have 10.5 week to totally wow us. That is both a lot of time and just a blip. (That’s also 2 more monthly updates for @dan, who I generally feel is communicating about the right amount with one big monthly update and a daily presence in the forums WHILE running what appears to be an amazing company.) We will learn much more by 7/31/2017, and while slippage or delay is possible, it isn’t close to certain, yet. (also, dan has been direct and reasonable in affirming that people have just cause from past experience to doubt the current projections. He is aware that the one thing that will heal all wounds there is shipping the production units, and he is no happier about the delays than we are.)
Either way, production units by the end of July or another delay or slippage, I am in for the long haul. I’m totally on board with 
, especially after seeing the ideas in the forums and the output of the PRUs. As I’ve stated many times before, I expect to be doing a lot of non-
materials in addition to projects. I look around my place and consider all sorts of laser projects, from leftover moving boxes, to scraps of stone, to considering the laser potential of about 1/10 the inventory at Hobby Lobby. I have even be considering a Youtube Channel homage to those old ‘Will it Blend’ videos, “Will it Lase?”, and I have plenty of things that have no other purpose than or trash at this point. I’m just eager, and a bit impatient, to get my production unit.
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I think that we are all waiting (those of us who frequent this forum … frequently 
) for the post that announces the first shipment of a production unit! But, it is highly likely that the holder of that GOLDEN TICKET will be one of the vast majority of Glowforge customers who do not hang out here (a certain pessimism on my part),
However, in the mean time I patiently check this forum an inordinate number of times daily waiting for the BEGINNING of production and delivery to commence.
Play that funky music 
!!!
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Perhaps its time to stop making those excuses. If making excuses is all that is keeping you holding on, maybe you would be happier just exploring something else that will allow you to get started tomorrow. Doom-saying speculation serves no one but the doom-sayer…
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Trust me, this is not the case. The first day will be all people who spend lots of time here.
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thx for your valuable input.
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Perfectly normal to get increased levels of anxiety as the time of arrival approaches.
Try to look at it as a good sign…it means that your subconscious recognizes that it’s actually going to happen soon.
It’s pretty easy to convert the that anxiety into anticipation and excitement. Maybe get started learning some design software, or designing a few files to have ready if you already know how. Helps to keep from climbing up the walls, and getting a month or two head start on part of the process is a fine idea.
(The handful of people that did that in the digital cutter world wound up as the group moderators after the launch, and became extremely proficient with their machines very quickly.)
As completely new users to lasers, we will need to learn three things:
- How to design for it.
- How to use the actual machine. (That’s the easiest part, thanks to Glowforge.)
- How to adapt our designs for the different properties of the materials that we choose to use.
We have the option of blowing off the first, by buying all of our designs through the catalog, or from other people who design for a living. Or just making changes to other designs by adding engraving or personalization.
If you do that though, you’re limited to what other people’s vision is, and it takes time to design things. There might not be as many options available at first as you would like, although the pool will grow over time.
So I recommend using the waiting time, instead of just being anxious, to start learning to use the design software of your choice. There is a free option and a paid option for each of the major categories, and if you go look at the Table of Contents for the Glowforge Tips and Tricks Category here on the forum, you can find an easy link to the lists that can get you started learning. Youtube is another excellent resource if you like to watch your training in video form.
Number two is handled. The Glowforge interface is extremely easy and intuitive. As long as the design is good, the cutting/engraving part is a snap. (I really love this thing, it’s the easiest, most trouble-free machine I’ve ever picked up. And this one is still under development. You have no idea how lucky we are to be getting in on it up front.)
That’s not to say that there have not been blips in paradise. Of course there were. I reported them to Glowforge so they could fix them, and they did. And they never mentioned fixing them to us PR users when they were resolved. (It just happened, and the problem no longer occurred, and they moved on to the other items they have to wrap up.)
If something is going to be a real problem, I know that if I tell them about it, they will fix it. Everything else is window dressing. The bells and whistles that everyone thinks they have to have to make the machine “just perfect” can be added later. The basic functionality of the machine is absolutely superb.
Couple of tweaks, which they are working on now, and it will be freaking unbelievable.
So since they’ve got a pretty good handle on the machine now, and it’s functioning beyond even my expectations, (and just for the record, despite the whole squeee thing which was just for fun, I set the bar mighty damned high), it looks to me like they are rapidly approaching a point where they will say “Good Enough! We can adjust this or that little thing later, let’s start sending them out.”
Is that going to happen when they guessed it would six months ago in July/August?..No idea. Something can still go wrong. Or part of the “promised” functionality might not be available exactly on that date.
They will make a decision at that point whether to ship out the units with partially incomplete functionality at that time, so that people can start using them, with the understanding that part of the functionality will not be available for a while.
Because we haven’t seen any results on it yet for instance, I’m not sure the Pro units will be completely ready, with the pass through slot and alignment fully functional at the time of shipping, but it probably won’t be much past the “deadline”. (In other words, probably not another six months, so everyone can breathe a little easier.)
Number three in the list above is also going to be handled for us through the use of the Proofgrade materials. That’s one of the reasons the Glowforge team pushes it so hard…it actually takes part of the things that you need to know, and handles it for you. Eventually, after you learn a little bit more about the materials, you can move on to using other materials. I have, and it doesn’t take long. I still prefer the Proofgrade for consistency and finish, but that’s a decision you can make for yourselves once you get comfortable with it.
In the meantime, especially if you are wanting to use the machine for a business venture of some kind, please make some use of the “dead time” while you wait, to learn about as much of the design creation process as you can, or to start designing some files if you’re already proficient with your design software.
(If you had thoughts of selling your own designs in the catalog, now would be a good time to start putting them together. If you wait for the machine to arrive, you’re going to be behind everyone who doesn’t.)
Okay, I’m done… probably should have quit about six paragraphs ago, but it’s hard to get across what is so easy to see, and so impossible to describe, without typing up a freaking novel. 
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Exactly what i’ve been doing with the Tray Puzzles. It has really helped a lot.
The ones i have posted so far are my ‘learning phase’. With the polished, possibly more sophisticated puzzles, i fully intend trying to publish them in the catalogue.
I’m taking a short break from puzzles now and will be moving on to the ‘jewellery’ phase of my personal check list.
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Yep, and you’ll sell a ton of puzzles. 
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That would be nice. 
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