I am getting concerned about the number of people with broken wheels. Please can you add these wheels to the shop so we can order replacements before we need them? Let me know how I can order in the meantime. I cannot afford for my machine to not run for days while waiting should this happen to me.
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I’ll wager the issue of the wheels is far outside of the company’s tolerance, and will be remedied. My 2.5 year old machine has clear wheels on it and never an issue. I’m guessing the company resourced their supplier and that mistake has been made crystal clear to them.
I agree I would like to see a lot more of the parts available for order in the shop - carriage wheels, idler wheels. belts, lid cables, and head cables to name a few.
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i understand that parts break… i dont understand the bad customer service. I cant get anyone to email me or talk to me about replacing my broken wheel. If i ran my business this way i would be out of business already… this is BEYOND frustrating
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Likely true but doesn’t help all the people with the bad ones out there in the wild. I’m with the OP (& you) on thinking these should be in the store for pre-purchase before things fail and you’re down for a couple of weeks for diagnosis and replacement.
I’m adding my vote to yours that they add all user replaceable parts to the store so we can be proactive and ready before bad things happen.
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Does seem like they are overwhelmed with shipping the black cable and these wheels, could benefit from a drop shipper in a case like this to allow them to get parts sent out faster and open availability to the store.
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Yeah, a certain degree of failure had to be anticipated, infant mortality and otherwise.
I think of Tesla and how Elon anticipated what would be needed to support the product. Bam! supercharging network in place - initially.
For the magical foresight and innovation that went into product development for the glowforge, It’s pretty glaring that the support aspect of the company still lags after two years. This from probably the biggest cheerleader here.
Nothing against the support team, They do the best they can with what they have to work with.
I have seen improvements to the structure, but it is a poor reflection I think on the company overall. Too bad, because this thing changed my life, like the iPhone of lasers.
Of course I have no idea what the challenges are from the Hot Seat, only an end users perception. I wish everyone had my experience of a flawless workhorse. If that were the case, they wouldn’t need a robust support system.
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I would love to have the option to preorder parts as well. I just had my black lid cable have issues and now have to deal with unhappy customers and many headaches on my end. Plus paying $80 shipping on a $20 part just to get it here asap.
Glowforge has to give us an option to PREVENT these long wait times for common parts that need replacing rather than just reacting when the time inevitably comes to get a new part!
I have seen this discussed in posts years ago and obviously nothing has been done still. I guess profit is what they are looking to get not a loyal customer base. Very disappointing
I would love to see the wheels and other common supplies listed on the site. The E-commerce portion of the site is there, and they have the ability to source and ship. Seems like a small additional effort to add a few more items to the list.
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I think they would make more money if they sold replacement parts. A lot of people (myself included) would buy parts that we might never need. This would also head off a tech support ticket, and in many cases, their need to send out replacements. Most folks would just eat the cost rather than hassle with the company to get free replacements for smaller items.
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Exactly the point of my post - I would prefer to have a drawer with parts I don’t need at my expense. The flip side of this is having a Glowforge that suddenly doesn’t work - Also at my expense and my clients dissapointment!
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Yeah I definitely would not hesitate spending a pretty penny on several replacement parts as insurance for myself and my business.
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I’ve got a few of those. I’m worried I won’t find them when needed though 
But I figure if not using a spare part I bought makes it not needed, I’m okay with that - cheap insurance against failure. I like having spares just in case though.
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My favorite corollary to Murphy’s Law: you’ll never need any tool that you already own.**
** Unless you can’t find it!
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And the corollary to the corollary is: When you replace a tool you need that you already own but can’t find, the first one will appear as soon as you’re finished with the project & can’t return the new one to the store.
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It usually happens when I am putting the new tool away in my toolbox. The old one is always occupying the exact space where I want to put the new one. Why wasn’t that there 3 hours ago?
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Yep, Have had a spare lens and black cable for a long time
I have a bad habit of putting very important things in a special place so that it won’t get thrown out. And then I can’t remember where the special place was. So maybe I threw it out accidentally. Did that this morning with $100 of veneer. After a couple hours I found it in a place that no reasonable person would ever look.
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This!!! I’m not allowed to be in charge of things like paper tickets anymore.
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Thanks for your feedback, everyone! We haven’t announced any additions to the spare parts shop yet, but I’ve let our team know that there was considerable interest from the forum in doing so.
@SummersMade, I’ve sent you an email in response to your questions, so I’m going to close this topic.
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