Glowforge shipping date, beta releases, and bonus materials

[jrnelson]

@JeremyNielsen

Yeah I looked at it too but it’s only a 5 Watt laser (glowforge is 45 I think) and can’t cut much of anything. Just be aware of that!

It’s a completely different kind of laser, though. Diode lasers can have substantially higher intensity at a given wattage (fiber lasers, for example, can have 100 times the intensity of a CO2 laser at the same wattage). They’re used for different things.

Having said that, the Mr. Beam will absolutely not cut and engrave to the same extent as the GF, but if you’re mostly doing light engraving and paper or fabric work, it’ll probably work mostly as well.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to swap one for the other, even if I could get the Beam first, but I can understand why some might.

[espen_svebak]

@dan As an early international customer (Norway), can I still expect my Glowforge before December 2016. Also are the 150$ worth of your nice materials including or excluding shipping?

[JonS]

@cditty unfortunately any purchase after October 2015 is not considered a pre-order.

Waiting until March may actually be beneficial as you will have a lot of experienced users who pre-ordered to guide you once you receive your GF. At the very least you can learn from their growing pains.

Just my two cents.

[cfarrar]

So say I “reorder it” this December, do you think it will be 2400 still? @dan if you have any input that would be great

[Jules]

Whew! I might be the only person here who is actually relieved at the later delivery date. It was just not feasible to get that many “quality” products churned out in that short a time.

Right decision. (Definitely the more difficult one too.) Looks like i also made a good choice.

[dan_berry]

@cditty

What constitutes a pre-order? Is that for the kickstarter people? I actually purchased mine yesterday. I would much rather see my GF in Dec than Mar.

Pre-order in this situation are those who have ordered before the initial funding campaign ended near the end of October, 2015.

[keinesss]

I’m wondering the same thing. Will there be a extra shipping charge and duties charge for these bonus materials? If so would there be an option to just reduce the original cost of the forge?

[andistarnes]

Trying to look at the bright side, my Glowforge isn’t going to be paid off from the “allowance” I borrowed to buy it until July, so this gives me some time to save up for materials and learn some extra tools to create and modify designs with. Thank you for being so straightforward and for being dedicated to giving us the best product possible! The free materials and discount for 2017 really do help ease the pain.

[joe]

My unfounded, purely speculative, shot in the dark guess: maybe?

[dan]

Thank you all for your feedback. It means a lot to us that you came with us this far already.

@JeremyNielsen

And thank you for you the extras. It means a lot.

You put your dollars on the line for us - it’s the least we could do for you.

@PhotoMu

I understand delays…but such a major disappointment as I was counting down the days and was making plans on how I would be using the GF.

I know. And I feel terrible about it. I am sorry.

@jrnelson

most crowdfunded delays don’t do anything to make up for it (honestly, most can’t, but our favorite laser company did close that $9M round on top of our pre-orders ).

I spent some time on the phone with our investors before making that call because it’s not a small thing to send an extra $2 million of stuff out to you all, but it’s one of the fortunate things we can do as a result of having supportive, experienced investors. They know that putting dollars behind our words is the way we build a company and product that we can all be proud of.

@jrnelson

do you have any idea how that would play out across borders?

Not yet. Good question, we’ll have to investigate. But we will not charge you shipping for the materials we’re giving you.

@kim.ahlberg

I’m looking forward to seeing it in action at the Mini Maker Faire!

Maker Faires are one thing I really look forward to. It’s a treat to get to meet you all in person.

@MikeH

been postponed for 6+ months rather than just a month or two

It was certainly tempting to just add a month or two, but we forced ourselves to go back to the drawing board and say, “What’s the right schedule, right now, to deliver the best possible product?”

@jackson_r_dolan

You say that all the pre-orders will ship by December 2016. I’m really early in line - does that mean I should expect a shipment in the beginning of December? Possibly as early as November? Or could everything be sent out en masse by the end of December?

We may ship units sooner if everything comes up roses, but we’re leaving ourselves lots of room for testing and improvements.

@thetinyhuman

Are you going to offer wholesale prices and quantities for your Proofgrade materials?

We’re working on retail quantities and pricing right now, but it’s a great idea.

@milutz

I was expecting “early 2017” to be more realistic anyway so this doesn’t really shock me.

You’re not the only backer who seemed to have more intuition into our schedule than I did.

@fklare

Sorry for this post, but the german backers have a good alternative with the cheaper “Mr Beam II” now.

This is available in the US too. I ordered one for the office! You can read some discussion about it as compared to Glowforge in the forum here.

@tim1724

We’ve been hearing about power supply problems for a while, so I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.

Yes. We were “a week away” on that for far too many weeks.

@MakerSix

What are the chances of applying that $200 in reparations to the purchase price of my Glowforge

We’ll give it some thought, but the logistics of packaging materials in only some of the units and not others might make this impossible.

@cfarrar

does anyone have an idea of what the ACTUAL msrp will be

$4,000, $5,000, and $8,000. We don’t know what actual retailers will charge, but those will be our suggested prices to retailers.

@JonS

this post has wording that is slightly different than what the email states.

Two different versions of the email went out depending on whether you backed during the 30-day campaign or not (only the dates were different). This had to account for both.

@hominid

If the units will ship “by December” does that they will ship “in November”?

Sorry: you should plan for your unit to arrive in 2016 (end of december) if you ordered during the 30-day campaign, end of march 2017 if not.

… more reply catchup as soon as I can. I have to talk to the support team to help with a lot of new emails.

[jrnelson]

I suspect not; the $200 in materials / catalog does not cost them $200 to provide us, it’s how much the ultimate price of those materials / catalog items will be that counts toward that amount.

Whereas if they give us $200 off the laser price, that’s a full $200 that has to come out of their bank accounts.

[cditty]

Bummer. I actually expected it to be that way but one can dream. I hope that I will atleast get access to the software and store before I get the actual item.

And good point about letting you guys be my guinea pigs. I’ll just sit back and wipe the drool off my chin as I browse the forums.

[B_and_D_T]

@dan

You’ll lose your pre-order pricing. You paid 40% less than MSRP. Our prices have already gone up once and may do so again. We will be unable to reinstate your earlier pricing.

maybe is definitely the only answer that is accurate right now about a cancel and reorder scenario.

[morganstanfield]

Well, as much as the extra 6 months stings–and it does–I know the GF team is doing it so they can provide us with what they’ve promised. The bonus materials and discounts were thoughtful and show their commitment to the emotional wellbeing of the customer base, an oft-ignored part of the marketing equation.

Dan’s directness and willingness to fall on his own sword (instead of blaming anyone else) adds to my trust in him and this process. I’ll hope for more regular updates, and will live vicariously through @jkopel for now.

[soldiercoleman]

Thank you for this very detailed update and the extras! That should make for instant fun when the glowforge arrives!

[viearical]

@dan Thanks for the tough update. While I’m sure many are disappointed, making the call to ship a product with bugs/issues, vs ship when the product is ready is probably the right call (though with a group of hackers/tinkers like the lot of us, we probably would have survived ).

I wanted to ask a question in regards to the $200 worth of extras as way of apology. First thank you, it’s a nice gesture. However, instead of $200 worth of material and designs, would it be possible to put that $200 towards including a GlowForge Air Filter?

[numosbk]

I am not happy about the delay, but I really want a great machine and would rather wait for the no problem machine, than have an unfinished still in the work project.
Dan thank you for being honest.

[Mike13]

I give you guys a lot of credit for being brave enough to swallow this big pill and let us know early on. I could see lots of companies waiting until June and then each month saying “one more month”. The hard thing to do is to put out a 6 month delay.

It sucks, but it is what it is, and I’m sure we’ll all have better units because of it.

[rebecca]

One of the things that appealed to me regarding the Glowforge is user-friendliness. In watching the promotional video, it seemed like someone like me (unfamiliar with 2D and 3D software, no experience with other devices like CNC mills or lasers, and lots of enthusiasm for crafting things) can use it.

My top priority isn’t getting a Glowforge by June, it is getting a safe product that a person with my limited experience can operate both successfully and safely.

Thanks for offering $150 in materials and $50 towards designs in the catalog. Until I learn more about 2D and 3D software and laser-safe materials, I will be relying heavily on the design catalog and Proofgrade materials.

On a bit of a side note, I am hoping the catalog designs are accompanied by simple tutorial videos. I will use the tutorials. They will be invaluable to me.

[chadmart1076]

This has been one of the most open and awesome crowdfunding campaigns that I have ever been involved with. I for one am just fine with the delay given that we will receive that much better of a machine for it. Honestly, I didn’t truly expect the June date to last anyway, so this isn’t really a big disappointment to me. Would I love to have my machine now? Yep, but I completely understand the reasoning behind the delay.

I am very appreciative of the extras that you are going to provide. I’ve already started gathering some resources of my own, but the more material we have the more we can print!

Keep up the great work, and we really appreciate the openness with which you communicate with the community.

P.S. Please have one of those open houses sooner rather than later! I’m in the area and would jump at the chance to visit Glowforge HQ and test out a laser!