Also, I got my printer May 9, Ordered JANUARY 29. My heart weeps for your 8 week wait.
Ordered March 18, had an email 13 May saying âwe expect to ship in the next few weeksâ; however, was told 20 April that it was expected to ship w/c 16 May. 8 week lead time quoted at time of order.
Itâs somewhat late in the day to announce a slip (and this one is somewhat nebulous). Before anyone else jumps onto the âI had to wait longer than youâ bandwagon - I sympathise; a quoted lead time is a quoted lead time.
@pemcmo - did you order from the US or EU store?
As I had mentioned earlier in this thread, FormLabs has their Form2 manufactured in Hungary. Then they wait until they have a shipping containerâs worth of machines built before the shipping container is shipped to North AmericaâŠso this explains for North America why there is an inconsistency in the wait time for a new Form2 machine. If you are lucky enough to have your machine built right before a shipping container is full, then your wait is shorter. If your new machine is one of the first ones to go into a shipping container, then the wait is longer (again, I believe that this would only apply to North America).
For sure, FormLabs is monitoring this forum and they know what we feel about this issue of wait time (and not very reliable updates). And when I had not gotten updates from FormLabs on my new Form2 I let them know that they at least should make contact with us during the wait so we know something versus knowing nothing. But they are consciously choosing not to reach out to new customers about what is going on concerning delivery of the new Form2 machines. I am not sure if this is due to their subcontracting the build of the machines to an outside vendor and it is difficult for FormLabs to get good updates from their vendor?
I also did not get my liquid resin delivered to me when I got my new Form2. I really donât understand why the resin lags behind the machine. But again, FormLabs knows our frustrations. And I would think that they would want to at least address this with their customer base. From a business point of view, this can affect their brand and sales on a bigger scale.
For me, I really donât get why FormLabs is not transparent, and why they are not communicative about all this. A little bit of open communication would go a really long way for them and their brand.
For me, I really love my Form2 and I am glad that I waited. But I definitely understand everyoneâs frustrationsâŠthey are quite valid.
Thatâs kind of odd the resin doesnât at least ship before the printer ships
It also seems strange to me. I cannot figure out what goes on in the FormLabs order management system for this to happen. I imagine that the liquid resin is shipping from a different location that the Form2 ships from. So why canât FormLabs ship out the resin as soon as it can? That way, the resin is not holding the user back from being able to use the Form2 that the user has been waiting a really long time for. The whole order fulfillment process needs a general overhaul/improvement in my opinion.
Yeah its really weird they would let their customers wait an extra week or two more because of resinâŠdoesnt make sense at all. I mean isnt a 3-4 month wait long enough?
I also would like to know,
Summary of my communication with customer support:
- Clear resin (and possibly others?) have gone through a reformulation. Those who ordered after a certain date (such as myself) will have a short delay in shipment.
- I can confirm that the resin and Form 2 ship from different locations. This likely explains why some of the complete packages are shipped incomplete if there is a delay in either. Why this is biased to the printer and not the resin remains a mystery to me.
- While production capacity increases with demand, suppliers are struggling to match the rate of increase. Wish I had more specifics on this, Iâm sure that shipping from Hungary adds to the complexity of the timing.
I have inquired as to other resins that have undergone reformulation, and the reasons for not shipping the other resin I ordered in a (more) timely fashion. I hope there is some justification for Formlabsâ order completion methods. In light of significant delays I would prefer parts of my order ship as they are completed, especially if those parts ship from different locations. A âship order togetherâ button would be handy.
I know there are people here that waited way longer that the promised lead time, And I am sorry for this, I inquired before purchasing and was assured by support that 8 weeks was accurate. My frustration is with Formlabs lack of response. If someone posts about any other subject someone from Formlabs will respond yet repeatedly people have asked for Formlabs to respond and there is nothing but silence from them.
Having been part of one of the biggest failed kickstarters in Europe, I get concerned when the company wont address issues like this. The Zano drone was supposed to be a game changer, instead it never shipped and in the end everyone went silent at the company. I am not saying this is the case here, but you get a lot less negative comments when you are honest and transparent about your issues. I look forward to getting my Form 2, I hope the resin isnât to far behind printer that I hope makes the 8 week lead time.
Thereâs no intention to mislead or stay silent on the topic. I simply missed this thread - sorry! - and anyone whoâs contacted us about their order has been given the most up-to-date information we have. Weâre working diligently to catch up and keep up with our estimated lead times. Weâve missed some recent shipping dates. Weâre also refining our estimates and making sure that our future estimated lead times are accurate. We expect to be caught up on a resin backlog within a week, and this should eliminate the recent delays that have affected some orders. In the meantime, weâre also increasing our efforts to directly contact customers with affected orders. Please bear with us, and of course, feel free to contact us if you have a question about an order.
Stephen thank you for your response. After reading all the posts about missed delivery dates, I am glad to hear that Formlabs is working to get more accurate estimates to its customers, I will also confirm that both times I asked support about my order I have received prompt and detailed responses,
My order is supposed to ship by the 30th. Last I heard it was on time for that I hope that is true. I didnât ask about the resin but it sounds like that shouldnât be an issue either, Thanks again for responding.
Just to pile on: I ordered a Form 2 on March 4 with an 8 or 12 week lead time (I canât remember)
March 4, Ordered with: 2x Resin Tanks, 2x Build Platforms, 1x Castable, 1x Tough, 1x Pro-Service Plan
April 29, Called at the 8 week point and was told it would be a few weeks.
May 2, Received an email stating my order would be fulfilled in âthe next few weeksâ.
May 19, Today, still no printer, but one more week until the 12 week point.
I can put up with the delayed delivery. My plans start when this printer arrives and I have resin.
What will not be tolerable is if my Pro-Service Plan requires 12 week delay in a hot swap, once I am up and running. Hopefully Iâll never get to test that.
Fingers crossed that Formlabs overcomes their supply chain issues.
Iâve had to use pro service, it was fast. The slowest part is any troubleshooting might take a few days. With the form 2 and sealed optics there may be less steps though.
I wanted to chime in and say that we have done a poor job of estimating shipment timing and notifying our customers about it. We have been overwhelmed by demand for the Form 2, and this is indeed a very advanced machine with many difficult to manufacture components that weâve had supply issues with. But none of that is an acceptable excuse.
This is not the standard that we hope to keep, and we are actively working on improving the situation. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.
-Max
CEO, Formlabs
4 Likes
Nothing I respect more than a person or company that can admit its faults, apologize and stay committed to improvement.
I have even more respect for FormLabs now
2 Likes
While I agree that a company taking ownership and admitting its faults means a lot but we still have yet to see if they are actually make improvements, we have seen a steady decline in lead times on the website, but I have yet to see a single post that they have met a promised lead time. I am a week from my promised lead time and I have yet to get the Your printer will ship soon email so I will be checking in with support to see if I am still on track. I would love to be here two weeks from now saying everything was received within the promised lead times.
Formlabs seems to be a great company, I just hope they can deliver on what was promised.
For anyone waiting on resin, I was waiting for about 30 days on a bottle of the new black resin formula before I got some last week. Theyâre definitely catching up, so donât get discouraged!
Follow on on mine - ordered 18 March, arrived today; first test print (Hello World by any other name) no problems.
I emailed support and they assured me that the printer will ship next week (8 weeks exactly) and they are now caught up on resin as of last Friday. I have to say support is very responsive.
1 Like
So today I went to let my dog out and there was a Form 2 printer on my porch, I got everything but the Resin today, When I emailed support about the resin they said FedEx has it and it should be here by weeks end. I got the your printer is shipping soon email about an hour after it arrived. Setup so far was a breeze, Leveling was simple with the provided tools. Now I just need the resin to see what this thing can do.
Thank you Formlabs for exceeding the lead time! and your very fast responses to support inquires.
2 Likes