Tube Replacement - Game Changer for Overseas buyers?

I absolutely agree with you! As a machine engineer it must be possible for me to change the tube by myself, anything else is not acceptable!
For me, I would be absolutely fine, if it is not easy and takes it’s Time to alinge it, but it must be possible!

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Depending on further details of this I may have to cancel.

Please understand… this is heart breaking. I’ve made so many plans, business and otherwise based on this machine. I have waited patiently through delays, sticking with it because I believed in the machine, the company and most of all I believed in @dan. If I have to cancel now, well, I feel like I have wasted a lot of time, effort, money and emotion.

Please understand @dan how badly this is being received by your customers. I really feel that you owe us more details.

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@bdm, I am US based, and its insane that we need to ship the unit back to get the tube replaced. Outside of the costs of shipping back and forth (which I am sure GF will not assume), there is either the space necessary to keep the original packaging to safely ship it back (which is not small), or the costs of re-packaging the item too.

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This is make or break for me. Living in Malta, I need to know whether I can get a tube in the future that I (or a nearby technician) can fit, before shipping otherwise I will have to seriously consider cancelling!

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If I read it correctly @dan 's update indicated that the total cost (shipping plus tube would still be sub $500–US only I’m sure. What I think is going on is here at the end the lawers are taking over and trying to reduce liability. I think we can asssume this is not an engineering g problem because it was part of the original design parameters and Dan was still talking to us about some of the neat tech they had developed to make it easy and precise. If this is true then I hope saner heads take back over soon. This is just an industry standard, tubes are a consumable. I sure wouldn’t buy a copier if I was told I had to ship it back or even let a tech replace the toner. Even for me this is a real potential deal breaker. My intended use was a home based business, and loosing a few weeks every time the tube needs to be replaced is unacceptable. Just going to sit and listen for a while.

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At some point they must have thought through the design based on this comment, but it must have just not come together as expected.

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Like I said above, I really think this is just an assumed liability issue.

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Absolutely, but if it’s truly a technical issue and not a lawyer one, it’s something that would have been known much sooner than a couple months before their again-confirmed shipping date.

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Very true, and I will be far more disappointed if it really is technical. They look for all the world to me right now like a new company freaking out over all the imaginary lawsuits the lawyers are envisioning. A lot of fledgling companies do that. Sure they will have liability and yes there will still be law suits even if they cover every angle. just look at how paranoid they’ve become about anyone saying anything on their public forum that might relate to safety. It’s my guess there’s a lawyer hiding in the background on this one. What they need to do is look at the industry and see that this is completely unacceptable.

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I think it would be a huge mistake to assume that $500 is the total cost to you, the consumer to replace a tube.

Since @dan is as usual vague about anything of substance, until he clarifies you can keep the ambiguity.

Trust me, this is an engineering problem. The serviceability of the tube is something that if it were taken into account when the design was conceived, there should be no issue with replacing a tube. Please tell me which other laser company out there in the world today expects you to ship the entire machine back for this type of consumable part?

To me saying that its “a liability thing” is a way of hiding without needing to address the actual reasons why the tube is not an user replaceable part.

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I agree and was simply responding to the question about them not taking the time to think out the design, because I knew I had read that it had been worked on. For some reason I also thought I had seen mention of tube replacement designs more recently, but this was all I could find.

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What a sad day for the international GF community! I have been so ridiculously excited over the last almost-two years where daily forum checks are part of my morning routine. To anyone outside this particular group this sounds pathetic but I do feel the loss of a dream that disappear in a comment that reads like an afterthought. Biannual maintenance costs of 2500$ (incl.freight) is just impossible to justify :’(

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Actually @dan has already said the decision was made because they felt they couldn’t make the process both easy and safe. He’s also said (I’ll try to find the quote) that it only takes them a “Minutes” in shop and does not require any special tools. So I think liability is exactly what this is all about.

And, for the record, I agree that I don’ think $500 will end up being the total cost under this method, but that is what he actually said.

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This what you were looking for?

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I don’t think he did say that. He said the tube replacement would be $500 or less, not the total cost. Total cost includes shipping costs (as well as lost revenue).

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I hate this, but I can also understand it (but I also wish there were a second source for GF tubes so the adventurous could still do it). Remember that support question from a pre-release user about why the proofgrade settings wouldn’t work with box-store plywood. At least some of the user base is going to be a) not technical enough to do swap safely and effectively and b) not aware of this fact.

I am hoping that a lot of things will happen in 2 years, so that (for example) there might be parallel tracks for either getting the replacement done at the factory or getting a tube shipped out.

I’m in the US, but this is still a blow to me. I won’t cancel, but between keeping the box safe and dry and the risk of damage in shipping it two times for each tube replacement, it is depressing as heck.

My speculations on the why. In all the projects I’ve worked on we do proof of concept on the unknowns, like a user replaceable gantry mounted laser tube, before advancing to full blown development. That proof of concept is taken to the, we’re pretty sure this can be accomplished stage. During development there are good days and bad days. For a while it looks like one of the proof of concepts was a fail, but then you figure something out. Sometimes it isn’t figured out until very close to release. Again, most of the things you did proof of concept on have no real problems, it’s just that one thing. That they couldn’t meet all of their requirements, on this item, this late in the game, I can believe. The tube is probably mostly replaceable, but it doesn’t meet 100% of the requirements necessary. I doubt it is anything nefarious.

If this is a deal breaker for you, you can always wait until their solution is a bit clearer before requesting a refund. Like a commitment to open a certified repair center in your geography or pay/subsidize shipping to the $500 equivalent if they do not open one within 2 years. I don’t know what I would do if I lived outside the US.

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And of course you believe everything @dan says? Where he has been on point on all his interactions with the users in the forum? Lets point to November where 2 weeks before announcing another massive delay he indicates that things are going so great that there is no reason to think there would be a delay, and he knew already that was not the case.

On the costs, there is no evidence that he says the shipping is included in the $500. I believe that $500 would be the cost of the replacement kit for the tube, not the actual shipping the whole unit to/from the service depot, including the insurance on the shipment, and the actual time to get the work done.

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I think your approach is sound. Unfortunately @dan has de-prioritized the tube issue in his announcement.

The conspiracy theorist in me is looking at what was said, and interpreting as we want to ship all the orders, take the money out of escrow, and then deal with the fall-out of absurd replacement policies and costs.

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True. But I guess I choose to believe some. Personal choice :slight_smile:

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