Delays on Form3 delivery

I placed an order for 2 Form 3 on May 10. Less than a month ago I contacted Support to get an estimated delivery date and they gave me an estimated shipping date for August 2. I wrote again this week to see what was going on with my order and now the delivery date has been pushed back to October. I just checked in the online store and it says that printers ordered now would ship in November. I don’t really understand what’s going on. Can someone provide some information on what’s happening?

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I ordered mine on April 4th and was told it was now delayed until September.

Just got my delay notice. Ordered April 10th. First delay was to August 5th. The new delay is Sept 6th. I was pleasantly surprised to get a coupon code for a free liter of resin to make up for the delays. Thanks, Formlabs!

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We also got a coupon for free resin. We appreciate the gesture, but in our case that doesn’t help much. We actually need to start printing. We have projects that were counting on having the printers up and running this month that will be put on hold now.

I’m concerned, too. I bought one in early June, never received any expected delivery date. I contacted sales a few days ago and was told:

"Unfortunately I don’t have an update on the shipping status yet. That being said, if anything changes about your order’s original shipdate, you will get an email with an update.
You’ll also get an email once the order actually ships!

“I believe you’re also able to track order statuses through your dashboard (I think this is a newer feature.)”

Except that I never received an original estimated shipping date and the shipping status does not appear on the dashboard.

Seeing this thread with customers being told September and October now causes me significant concern.

Like many of you, I need to get printing, too. Perhaps it is time to cancel the order and buy something else.

Always delays with FL.

Just like Tesla and Lockitron. :roll_eyes:

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Last time I got a message for delay up to 25-th of AUG
now it is up to 13-th of September
The order was placed on 17-th of April

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@da40flyer @piGuy @marto74 could you let us know when you receive your printers? I think this could be a good way of tracking how the queue is moving.

My work could no longer be delayed, so I cancelled my Form3 order.

It appears as though everyone is in the same boat. I can understand delays in shipping new models but that way it’s being handled is inexcusable. I’m ok with the delays as I don’t want to deal with a bunch of warranty calls but they gotta just be up front about it.

I’ve worked in product development for a few decades and totally understand product delays, even when they’ve been pre-sold. It happens; this isn’t a consumer product. But I will say a little more transparency on a) why the shifting delay and b) what are realistic numbers would go a long way to making me a happier waiter. In the meantime I’ve bought a photon to do some prototyping work; it is a surprisingly good little printer.

I’d rather have a fully working printer a few weeks late, than be an unpaid beta tester like I was for a year with my FL2…

I agree, if it was only a few weeks delayed, that would have been fine… but when I placed my order, I was told July delivery, then it was moved to August delivery, then it was moved to September delivery, who knows how many more delays are to come…

Yeah. I love their product but these launches seem a bit off. I’ve said it on another post but look at other launches from companies like DJI. They build up a stock of the product before they even officially unveil it. They put the product in the hands of industry experts and social media personalities to build up reviews DAYS before announcement. Then the day they announce a product, be it their new FPV system or handheld gimbal, you can immediately place an order and receive the product within days. You can go onto YouTube and instantly see reviews and demonstrations with instructions directly from the company. There’s a lot Formlabs can learn about a launch from DJI. I am still having trouble finding printer reviews or print quality photos of this machine which is concerning to prospective buyers.

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That sounds like the right strategy. Hyping your product and selling it directly when people see it for the first time. The announced lead times and history they have helt me back in buying more than 1 printer. I have no idea when it will be delivered, if it takes several more months(we ordered relatively late so I guess December or februari… lol), there is plenty of time to re-evaluate the purchase and for competition to come in and sell their product to me.

FL was able to confirm a delivery date of October 18th for an order placed the first week of June. Unfortunately, I can’t wait that long and regretfully canceled the order. As a consolation, I have a Form 2 on hand and FL did send a liter of resin, for which I am very grateful.

We are holding off buying a Form3 until a little more is said by end users about how well (or not) they work, that’s even assuming you can get one in a timely fashion by then…

Interesting post below by Formlabs, its strange to see that the thread was locked after it was posted - FEAR perhaps that people might comment about what was written…

To quote the post:

"Form 3 Customers,

The Formlabs team is excited to now be ramping production and shipping our game-changing new printer, the Form 3. We have been excited to see the amazing user feedback from our first Form 3 customers. I particularly like how users are reacting to Form 3 prints in Clear resin (one remarking 22 in shock at the print clarity). I can’t wait to see more as we get this game-changing printer into thousands of users’ hands.

That said, we still have work to do. While we started shipping our first units over a month ago, we have not ramped production as fast as we originally planned. This will affect the delivery dates of many of our first customers. We know this is frustrating news and will impact you in different ways, so I’d like to personally provide details.

While we have every intention to meet our delivery date promises, our number one commitment as a company is to ship the highest quality 3D printers. We will continuously ramp our production process, but only at a rate that allows us to maintain strong quality control, even if that results in a delay. This means that we have shifted our ramp timeline, and you will receive an email with an updated shipping time as appropriate. Given the nature of a ramp, earlier orders placed in April and May are most affected by the delay.

We have already shipped hundreds of Form 3 printers, and we are confident we will soon reach a weekly production volume to eliminate lead times. Our engineering and manufacturing teams are working nights and weekends to produce higher volumes every week. We are communicating directly with customers about delays via email on a rolling basis so that we can give you the most updated timeline. As we have previously noted in the Formlabs Forum 5, we are shipping on a first come first served basis, although we have prioritized certain early customers who are participating in feedback programs, especially if they are closer to our teams in Somerville.

I know any delay is frustrating and disappointing to our customers, especially when you have deadlines of your own. We sincerely appreciate your patience. The Form 3 will be worth the wait.

Luke Winston
Chief Business Officer
Formlabs"

Will they now lock this thread to stop anyone’s comments?

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oh fer crying out loud- I really expected a lot more comprehension out of a group of folks who use 3D printers to supposedly produce products.

Anyone here order a Tesla 3?
Pre-ordered a new videogame iteration?

If you think ANYONE, no matter how competent can accurately estimate how quickly a complex and new product can be manufactured then you must also believe in fairies.

You are making a Brand New thing. Using assembly techniques that are new and have to be performed by robots and people who have never had to do it before.
It uses parts and materials that are novel, from suppliers that may be no better at estimating their ability to ramp up production than you are.

Shit happens.

You ship a few and get reports back of problems- problems you were unaware of, or that surfaced due to the realities of mass transport that you THOUGHT you had nailed down, but that shook loose.

So you go to your production line and make changes, and that slows things down.
It might mean changing a part- and now you gotta take apart all the machines you thought you had ready to ship and swap out the new parts.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Early Adopter.

You guys wanna play on the cutting edge? Have some bandaids on hand,
But fer the love of christ STOP with the conspiracy peddling and stop acting like you didn’t know the job was dangerous when you took it.

So Pick your poison… you want a machine tomorrow? that won’t work right?

Or a machine in a month that mostly does?

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I would expect a product that has been beta tested and at least 95% of the issues sorted before its released to the market.

Yes, delays do happen. But the most important thing is an open update

I was surprised to see a post by a senior Formlabs employee on the current position, that post was locked down to anyone expressing an opinion about it.

Formlabs can learn a lot from customer feedback, learning from that feedback is what gives customer retention.

Its not a startup company, and its now a company valued last year at over $1bn.

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