Delays on Form3 delivery

#63

We’re just shy of a month into the Form 3 delivery delay and still there has been no word at all to quantify that delay. I don’t know whether I’ll get a ship notification tomorrow or won’t get one until the next North American eclipse. No one at Form returns my e-mails requesting information. Honestly, I don’t think it’s asking too much to at least get an estimate as to when I’m going to get something for my four thousand dollars.

#64

I placed an order May 5th.
I received an email Sept 16th that my printer shipped.
The printer was delivered on Sept 20th.

nsayer, hope this helps you.

#65

If that’s linear, then I should expect mine in early to mid October which means the extra delay is about 6 weeks.

Whether it’s linear or not will remain to be seen, of course.

And I remain concerned not with the magnitude of the delay, but rather it’s complete lack of definition and transparency.

#66

Yeah seems they’ve been pretty quiet on the matter. Which is sad because most users would feel more at peace if they even got a twitter post saying “Hey, we’re sorry but X, Y, and Z is hold us up” followed by “No changes, we’re still struggling.” lol

#67

It’s more like: “no changes, still struggling and hey, the machine can’t do this and that and print your most used resin because we didn’t test it with our new tank before.” ;(

#68

Yes the key words in your statement, product development, NOT engineering and production. Formlabs releases have been bungled since day one. Frankly whoever is in charge of these releases shouldn’t have a job. It’s not just the Form 3, it’s every single product.

When you make statements like, “It could be that human beings can not reliably assemble a part that there is no automated solution for” it becomes quite evident that you have ZERO experience in production. We do FMEAs for products, we can weed out most of these potential issues and try to remove as much human error as possible before the product even goes into production. This is all statistically controlled and analyzed.

Your argument is moot, because if people don’t have product in hand we can’t even complain about the lack of features or operation.

#69

I have plenty of experience in production. I have set up production lines… in the US and in China.
I have trained production staff.
And clearly , I Understand production better than you do because you imagine that engineering and production can be perfected before the fact thru FMEA’s

Sorry- you give your argument away when you qualify your statement by saying “we can weed out most potential issues”-

that’s the entire point Most is Not all. And WHY initial production runs are always part of product development.
Let’s say your FEMA weeds out 99% of issue in a product that has 300 assembly steps. That leaves 3 issues you won’t solve.
THOSE are the 3 issues your early adopters will discover… because your self confidence in your abilities means you don’t KNOW you only caught 99%- by definition, you can’t solve a problem you didn’t foresee.

And how do you foresee problems in production? well, because you have experience producing things.
GM can tool for a new car and probably foresee 99.9% of potential issues and solve them before production commences… but that is only because a “new” car is still 99.9% identical to the prior car they made.
When it comes to engines, suspension, cabin, etc- the methodologies are well understood thru HUNDREDS of iterations over a century of practical experience.

But when you are building something entirely new- the chances that you can foresee all issues drops significantly.
Oh- you’ll have no trouble producing the bezel- its not that different than every other bezel…but genuinely new assemblies using entirely new parts and materials are another matter.

Now- try doping all this and Complicating your production by the fact that YOU aren’t producing anything. You have no factory. You are subcontracting the production to a factory owned by someone else- thousands of miles away and who doesn’t even speak your language.
Because that is how nearly ALL electronic products are manufactured today.

I have developed product in China- its a rockfight to get them to address the problems I CAN foresee.
I have provided Chinese companies with specifications on specialty equipment they need to use to reliably produce a product- only to visit the factory and discover they are doing it by hand,

This is why your optimism reflects an unrealistic expectation. It is why, despite your imagining that things Can be done better, that ALL companies producing groundbreaking technologies are fielding products with problems and why missing shipping projections on new products is ENDEMIC in the high technology and software worlds.

Its why Boeing and Northrup and Lockheed Martin can NEVER bring in a single product without cost overruns. because as the complexity of any product increases, the ability of human beings, no matter how clever, to foresee every potential problem decreases.

I didn’t buy the Form 1 because I KNEW it was going to be a learning experience for formlabs.
And I waited until the Form 2 was out a year and guess what? I still got a lemon because of an issue at their manufacturing plant that gave them a container full of faulty printers that they only discovered when users tried running them.

I wanted an Audi TT because in 2004 it was the only car with a dual clutch autoshift transmission. But I figured I had better wait until 2005 to let them find out what they didn’t figure out in their in house testing.
2005 Audis with the DSG transmission suffer half as many transmission issues as the 2004 model.-

Real world Use informs changes in design and manufacturing. That is why intelligent engineers and designers consider it a part of product development,

#70

Wow, next you’ll also tell us that you’re an engineer too. Any other professions you want to create? Telling a bunch of chinese people what to do doesn’t mean you understand process engineering, statistical analysis or have done things correctly. I can tell my landscaper to mow the lawn but it doesn’t mean I understand lawn science. You’re a walking Holiday Inn commercial!

It’s 99.99966%, not 99.9%.

This is not ground breaking technology nor is it rocket science. You’re acting like formlabs is trying to attempt a moon landing here. And, even if true, it’s still moot because it had nothing to do with over promising and under delivering on every single product release.

No one is arguing against real world testing. You’re literally attempting to defeat an argument that no one made. Quite frankly you haven’t actually made any argument at all, except to ramble on for way too long.

#71

The fact that they are just now saying 3 of their very popular resins are not compatible with their tank design makes me think they didn’t do much development testing at all. A basic test would be to submerge your tank material in all of your resins and see what happens. That can be done very early on in the dev cycle and should have caught this issue. :man_shrugging:

#72

Ponte en sus zapatos, si quieres vender algo aunque no funcione al 100%, no lo diras y lo mas probable es que pongas un cebo para que tus clientes aun sabiendo que su anterior maquina daba problemas(f2) te compren la 3 sin razonar mucho, solo confiando en sus palabras y el (descuento claro).
Al final son empresarios y el dinero les gusta como a todos.
Y en este mundo que avanza tan rapido, y en la impresion 3d cada vez hay mas competencia, el que vende primero vende dos veces…

#73

I’m sure they knew, but, as usual, they probably thought they could solve the problem in time. I’ve never seen product launches bungled this badly by any company. And not just one, but every single launch.

#74

I just wanted to mention that our printers have now arrived. One week earlier than the date they gave me when they communicated the delays. So production seems to be catching up.

#76

For anyone wondering, the incompatible resins are Rigid, Elastic and Grey Pro. It sounds like they are trying to adapt them (formulation changes?) but there’s no ETA.

Ceramic is incompatible, with (from what I can tell) no plans to change that.

https://support.formlabs.com/s/article/What-Formlabs-resins-work-with-the-new-Form-3?language=en_US

#77

I’ve been told that the incompatible resins are too caustic for the tank and will eat through it and fairly soon too.
It’s being worked on but the time table is not known. I’ve decided to not use my Form3 until it’s dialed in better.
For now, I can live with the grey standard but the other issues regarding quality and time to print are giving me headaches I can avoid all together. In the mean time, my Form2 is my workhorse…just not the one I have right now. It’s a warranty replacement but it arrived as a lemon. Oh joy.

#78

To chime in on ship times… I ordered my Form 3 on June 28, at which point it had a ship target of mid-September. By August that date had slipped to October 18, and now it’s November 15. Works out to 4.5 months, assuming that last forecast pans out. :-(.

#79

My Form 3 arrived today. I ordered it May 21st.

Oddly, my order in the dashboard still shows “Processing.” Maybe I’ll get a 2nd one. :smiley:

#81

Ordered mine mid-June, just received my printer last week with one push back ship date. I did not receive a shipping notice or anything, just showed up at my door one day.

#82

They must be doing order fulfillment by the same folks that Glowforge (laser) uses. Owners there often only know product has shipped when it shows up at their door.

#83

so i just received a package from fromlabs thinking it was the printer but was just the finish kit, a cartridge, build platform, and resin tank, and a resin tank. But not the actual printer itself(the order also hasent been processed on the site yet so im not sure). has anyone had this? is it fine/normal? should i contact support?

#84

I got an “advance” package like this. The printer came a few days later.