I’m in the Houston area. My machine is 7 weeks old now, with less than 3 hours of cutting time (mostly to test it).
AHh excellent!
glowforge SHOULD send you out a advanced replacement!
did you email support@glowforge.com ? to start the ball rolling?
Jonathan
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Yeah, not sure if I could, but I like challenges 
Once the warranty is expired, I’ll see what mods can be done. I miss a red pointer to see where the laser is at any time, for instance.
Thanks, @Deleted, I did.
All my rant is because the machine arrived broken, and they want to replace it with a used one. I asked for a new one repeatedly to no avail. Also, not eligible for a refund because I’m a week or soo beyond their “30 days window return policy”. So, the only option is to accept what they want or keep a $6,000 broken machine. I just feel so powerless and I don’t like to start a “relationship” that will last for years this way.
I know I know I know, everyone says that the refurbished are great, that it will be ok and so. Still, many times I have done more than that for my clients, and I have happy, loyal, returning clients. I just don’t feel they appreciate my business. Or worst, that they think I’m trying to take advantage to get a new machine.
Thanks for listening, it is therapeutic, yet another great value of the community! (hahaha)
Art,
my logic is this, a refurb has been tested / inspected and is of higher quality then a new one, you still have your warranty with both units. this isn’t some slap together repaired unit from joe’s electronics and smoke shop.
Jonathan
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Thanks man, I feel reassured by all the comments from the community!
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You are right, and I think the cost will not be even $200.
BTW, my post IS a rant 
(therapeutic)
I bet the cause is the laser beam not being parallel to the axis of the head (either on X or Y). First I thought it was the “window” because it looked damaged, but I removed it and same result, so, not refraction problem.
Window might have been damaged because of the mirror mis-alignment.
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I understand. In the end, I will HAVE to do whatever they want because I have no choice. Maybe a refurbished is a better option, maybe not. That’s not my point. My point is that I feel this company does not want to make me happy as a customer, my requirement wasn’t crazy.
I will not forget that when the time comes to buy new machines. Not that they care, but I choose not to forget. I choose not to give more money to a company that does not care about my requests.
In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the fabulous machine and learn from the terrific community. Too bad the “corporate” does not match either of both.
I don’t think Glowforge will ever change to crated freight shipment. Their goal is to be a B2C not B2B company, and to reach the widest customer base as possible – see their partnerships with Michaels and Joann which also sell Glowforge and Glowforge materials in their stores and on their websites, their heavy marketing and outreach on social media, etc.
Switching to freight shipping would greatly limit the customer base. You effectively have to live in a single family home, on a street that’s reachable by freight truck, and be able to take time off and have help to receive and unpack the crate. A box delivered by UPS or FedEx on the other hand, can reach just about any address, whether it’s an apartment, a condo, a townhome, etc. No scheduling needs to be done, and the carrier will re-attempt delivery multiple times or leave it for pickup at a depot.
They would not have been able to raise $70M+ of funding with the smaller addressable market for freight delivery. The cost of replacing those that get damaged in shipping is baked into the business and their pricing. So is the larger customer base, which allows them to have ongoing funding to keep improving the lasers and the software at a pretty rapid pace. We’ve gotten multiple new features and capabilities every month for ~5 years now, even if you never give them another dime after the initial purchase.
I bought my Glowforge in 2019 and it’s now faster (up to 4x when engraving), smarter (improved autofocus, cleaner corners when cutting and scoring, additional material presets, warnings when your design could pose a fire risk, etc), and more capable (new passthrough auto-alignment software, auto-generators for stamps and puzzles, etc) without me having bought a newer machine. It just wakes up with more capable firmware on its own all the time. The “competing” hobby laser importers have much smaller teams and typically no software development staff of their own, this is all pretty unique to Glowforge.
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I agree that they have figured it out in their business model, meaning that we, the owners, are paying for that inefficiency. BTW, a freight company doesn’t mean a big 16 wheeler. I get some fragile medical equipment from a freight company that uses vans.
As an example from another industry, I just got a Tonal (the fitness machine), within a similar price range (even cheaper) and similar target audience: home users everywhere. It has a large, fragile screen. They don’t use UPS nor FedEx. Tonal is a thriving company.
Another example is my laser 3D printer (for resin) Formlabs. Consumer oriented, very similar price range to GFPro. Noncareful shipment could de-align their lasers. I’m 99% sure it came from a specialized freight company, not from FedEx/UPS (I got it a few years ago, so, not 100% sure). Formlabs started from a crowdfunding campaign, and it is thriving.
Improving their shipment would not reduce their base. But, oh well, I agree they just won’t do it because they know they can charge the cost (in cash and in time), to us, the owners. Why bother?
Good point, that sounds very possible!
A way to know it would be to twist the angle of the window a little bit so it hits a different section, getting a second spot with a similar mark. I won’t do it though, based on what I have seen so far, most probably they will forfeit my warranty. Nazis! (LOL).
I also do not think freight is the answer. Correct it may not be a 16 wheeler but that generally comes at a cost, most freight companies hit the end user with $40~$50 fees for lift gates or smaller trucks to access areas they cannot get the big rigs into… They spent a lot of money on the packaging and testing of that to use FedEx/UPS.
Same costs are for other companies (Tonal, Formlabs, FSL, etc). They use freight. If the machine is small, no need of lift gates, unless you are talking about a lathe or milling machine or CNC. Freight is same as UPS/Fedex, just specialized. More costly, but I don’t think is higher than the cost of having regular damaged machines back and forward.
Again, whatever we discuss here is futile. They will not do that because they can.
Yes if they are seeing a massive amount of machines damaged then yes they would be smart to make the limitations to the end user and only use a freight service. I don’t know their percentage of damaged units but with the amount they send out it seems like it’s not significant.
You are right, we don’t have info on the total cost of damaged units other than what we see in the forum. Only they know for sure. Because I got mine damaged, and as per several posts I have seen, my biased assumption is that it is a common issue, even ppl with more than 3 replacements.
But yes, unless we have all the info we would know if money-wise makes sense to them. Even so, we the users pay the price if not in money, in time and frustration of broken in shipment machines. Probably they calculate that 1) are a few and 2) they are captive, they can’t go anywhere, so, why bother? (yes, I know, I can sell my glowforge, and I will try, once I get a replacement, if it works)
What we see in the forum is a tiny percentage of the total. For most who never have issues, we never hear from them again. I see more than a few who have had their machines for more than a year, but their first post is when they have their first issue.
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