Still shipping delays?

Good morning! Like others I understand there is the pandemic, but the lack of communication around shipping etc is really poor.
Placed my order for a Pro on December 18th, received the email saying it was shipping soon with an estimated date of January 12th.
As we got closer the the date, I had to reach out myself a few times to finally get someone saying it was going to be delayed by two weeks. But after that, nothing.
I want to have faith here but they have close to $6000 of my money and I struggle to get a straight answer.
That plush doll really cost me a lot of money.

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That’s a bummer.

Did you want anything here, or were you just venting?

If you’re looking for something to take your mind off the wait, there’s a ton of reading you can do here on the forum. This is a list of useful FAQs I worked up:

Everything in here will be useful to know once the machine arrives.

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I was told two weeks as a delay via the email, but then the same email said the beginning of February. I was never alerted that they were on back order, the site doesn’t say the pros are on back order.
So sort of venting, sort of looking for a timeframe as I thought 5 weeks in advance of a birthday would be enough time.

Also we have watched the videos, browsed the forums, received our $150 order I placed for prooofgrade materials, but no idea when the actual machine will arrive.

I’m not sure if any of us can tell you that. Glowforge staff doesn’t read this part of the forum, I’m afraid your current emails with support are the best you’re gonna get.

For clarification: Glowforge staff does read the Problems and Support category of the forum. It looks like this thread was probably moved to P&S, which does not open a support ticket with Glowforge staff. However, people should either email support or post here. Not both, as duplicates just slow things down.

My apologies as I am new to the forum and did not see this section first.

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No apologies needed. It’s a weird quirk of the forum.

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No worries at all. I just hit the thread, was momentarily confused due to some discrepancies and, offered the clarification for posterity.

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While possibly true(on rare occasions there have been responses to threads moved), it’s probably more accurate to say, creating a new thread creates a support ticket in their system(zendesk?) that they respond too exactly as sending an email does.

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For me, it’s a rocky start to customer service for a $6000 machine. It’s not giving me the warm and fuzzy feeling for when there is an issue later down the line.

That’s what I was afraid of, their response time etc is not great. Thanks!

Trust me, lots of us can relate.

Here’s the silver lining: yes they’re slow and not great at communications, but they do the right thing in the end. Their service is excellent, just glacial.

What usually happens is that it takes forever and you get mad… but then they are super nice and take care of you and it’s hard to stay angry. Hopefully you get your machine soon, and you’ll forgive and forget.

I do hope so as well. I did receive a $100 gift certificate but there are not a ton of proof grade materials available so I will wait. I already bought some, LBT spray etc, I just need the machine.

Yeah the waiting game is tough.

Meantime, the forum is almost bottomless with cool project ideas… try the gallery link, or do a custom browse like this:

If you see something you like, you can hunt down that user’s posts via a custom search. Say you like @pubultrastar’s work (and who doesnt?):

https://community.glowforge.com/search?&q=@pubultrastar%20in:first%20%23glowforge-project-examples%20order:likes

Any and all time you dedicate to reading about techniques is well spent. Read the matrix, setup a spreadsheet in google docs to track your material settings, start bookmarking sources for vectors (freepik, vecteezy, svgsilh), check out box generator sites, look at material sources, etc. search the forum if you don’t know where to start with any of that, like “hardwood source” or “box generators”.

Investigate material storage solutions. Figure out how to vent your Glowforge. (My advice, get insulated duct from Home Depot and cut a dryer vent in the wall. Insulated duct is a must. Don’t know why? Search the forum for “insulated duct”)

You can definitely keep yourself busy and get more prepared.

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If you are not already an expert in a vector program I would check out Inkscape and Gimp. I bought my pro in August and got it on the first of February, and others here waited as long as three years. I had never seen Inkscape before September of that year but was decently versed in it by Feb.

Just in those two programs, there is a lot to learn before you can design for the machine.

I would guess that they also have major covid issues building new machines, as some parts come from China and Mexico, with all the problems in those places as well.

@ptrowski I am so sorry for our delayed response. Since this has to do with your personal account, we will follow up with you through email. I’m going to close this topic.