Jules said they are only built after you confirm and Dan said that was correct. Why else is there a six week lead time? If they were mass produced at the rate needed to meet the schedule they would be making 100 per day and therefore dispatch the next day or two, not in a six week window.
Yeah, not buying that. You have 10,000 people waiting for a unit and the factory doesn’t make them until a hand full of people confirm that they want one? Doesn’t make sense in any universe.
I personally believe Dan was saying “That is correct” to Jules’ other statement in the same paragraph… “If you are asking if you can have the unit that someone else rejected, at the price they paid, or take their place in line, sadly the answer to both is no.”
But everyone can choose to believe what they want.
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I find it very hard to believe but I can’t think of another explaination for the six week window. We see a small group of people get the email and then a few weeks later we see they get a dispatch email.
I am looking for another explaination.
Why don’t they build machines and then email? Then we would see next day dispatch.
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Believe it more likely that production and/or shipping QA issues, or some other logistics problems had caused start/stop production runs. Sometime before production was to restart they send out the email. Maybe weeks before a restart. They give themselves 6 weeks to be conservative.
I have zero evidence to back up my simpler theory (I can think of many more possibilities), but the build to order model when you only have two choices ended long before Henry Ford. Doesn’t matter to me if I’m wrong. Won’t be the last time.
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I can see why you might think that but you’re not correct. You may (probably) end up with a serviceable laser and having never seen or used a GF you could decide it was as good or even as you say, better. But you won’t find a single current Chinese laser owner who has used or received their Glowforge who would agree. Best of luck though because if you can there’s a proven market for a European option.
@m_raynsford (sharkswithlasers) builds lasers in the UK and would be a good guy to connect with. BTW, he had a Kickstarter (I think, but might have been another crowdfunding venue) to build a nice laser that didn’t get funded. But he wasn’t trying to build a better GF so maybe you’d be more successful. Give him a shout. I’ll keep an eye out for your venture because I know a few folks who can’t afford a GF who would love something similar. A couple of local libraries are creating small MakerSpaces in the library who would love a laser.
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What rpegg said, safety net. I recall a post where someone said there was a US consumer liability law that might be driving it (no idea if that is true or not.) A cynic would add so they can say it has shipped five weeks before it leaves the factory on a truck.
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I think the e-mail also stops the counter on your Proofgrade goodies too. By using the term “Shipping” 6 weeks early, they will save a ton on Proofgrade goodies.
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These are my opinions based on observations on my delivery and on the forum:
I believe that Glowforge is sending out the email when a unit goes to QC for final inspection. The 6 week window is a conservative estimate. It was 2 weeks for me from getting my email to getting my unit; my guess is it took a week to do the final QC, pack, and ship. Shipping took a week.
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this seems reasonable, but logistics and manufacturing aren’t my strong suit, so.
well, sometimes. the first pro took every last day but i’m hoping that’s an aberration.
If final QC takes a week they would need to have about 700 in QC at a time. Just think of the infrastructure needed to run that many machines. So that would be a huge bottle neck.
Final QC checks do not always mean electrical tests. My guess is there are in process QC checks that would make them redundant.
I believe flex is AS9100 certified, so there QMS policies should be fairly robust. Therefore, my guess is final QC will take 1-3 days, depending on the sample rates. Paperwork, packaging, and shipping will take another 2-3 days.
You may be right, IF the Glowforge delivers all the things they promised it would then it probably will be better than an import but currently I can do all the same things, all be it with a little more effort.
90% of the effort is still in the design work so the amount of difference the laser makes is minimal.
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If that is the case I think it will simply be impossible to make 100 per day that is needed to meet the schedule.
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There are some things you won’t be able to do. For example, the precision power low power levels are things that the experienced laser users seemed to think were impossible. I remember some saying that CO2 lasers wouldn’t fire at below 15% power. So engraving paper…probably not on the eBay laser.
IANACLO (I am not a current laser owner) so I am sure I will get corrected if I am wrong 
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Cutting sticky labels off their backings, that level of power control is perfectly possible with the cheapest of Chinese machines
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If you are assuming serial processing, you would be right.
So if you need to make 100 per day but each machine takes 5 days then you have 500 in work in progress. Does that seem practical?
I think I’ll clarify my statements. Once again, I’ll caveat this with this being my opinions/guesses.
I think Glowforge is doing lot processing. I think emails go out when a lot goes into final QC. My guess is there is an expected failure rate, let’s assume 10%. So, if the lot size is 100, 90 emails would go out. If more fail then expected, then yours might take longer to ship. If less fail, them more emails will go out. I think that final QC for each lot will take about 1-3 days, including sampling for electrical testing/functional testing/whatever. I think paperwork/packaging/shipping will take another 2-3 days. This does not necessarily mean a week of touch time though, or that only one lot is being processed at once.
That’s just my thoughts on how I think they are being processed. I could be wrong, they could be doing it different, I don’t know. They could be doing each one individually. There are ways of processing that relatively quickly, but I’d imagine the paperwork would increase.
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