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View Full Version : Before you return your unit READ THIS -=<:-0=]|==<



FdxGuy
02-06-2007, 04:41 PM
I was lucky, I bought an open box Compucarve that was missing parts and didn’t power up!! Dead, Dead, Dead… There were a couple reasons for that, first, it’s almost impossible to get a new unit, second, I saved a few bucks. If you are fortunate enough to get a new unit from Sears, consider yourself lucky.

This is amazing cutting edge technology (no pun intended). This is not a wood working machine that’s been refined over the last couple hundred years. That is the reality, plain and simple. Your trusty old “reliable” table saw’s spinning blade was first invented in 1777 and the power (water powered, mind you) circle saw was invented by a woman in 1813. For some reason, I hardly think the early ones were trouble free. The first electric ones even less so… Now fast forward to the here and now, I paid over $2000 for my first laser printer. The Carvewright is far more interesting. Think about the power you have in that little box. It boggles the mind! Even the most creative and the most skilled folks in this forum have only begun to tap what it is capable of doing. My laser printer could produce piles of paper at a then blazing 6 pages per minute…. We can now turn our imagination into real things, in wood and plastic.

That being said, a company going through the pain of explosive growth, like they are, has a few decisions to make. You can tell a lot about a company and its leadership by how they make decisions under fire, it reflects their true character. Any company can make good decisions when things are going well or at least decisions that seem good. But when the chips are down and there is simply too much to do and too many demands on the leadership, it’s easy for a company that is just in it for a quick buck to make bad decisions that destroy them in the long run. That is not the case here.

I bought an open box unit, I’m a second owner. They could tell me to take a hike. Too bad, so sorry, we are not going to support that. They could even say, ”Sorry, we have too many other customers to take care of you right now.” But, they did not! They responded like a company with Honor and Integrity, they stood by their machine, and they are going to honor the warranty-- even though someone owned it before me.

This is the decision you would expect from a good company, the kind you WANT to do business with.

The kind that treats their customers with honor and respect. (As a side note, I also called to order carving bits. When I mentioned that my Compucarve came without them the very nice lady on the phone was aghast and ready to ship them to me for free. I had to tell her three times before I finally convinced her that I purchased the unit with the full knowledge that those bits were missing and wanted to pay for them!!!!)
They don’t have enough technical support folks for everyone who calls to get a person on the phone right now…. But they can and do call you back (even though the tech guy can be a pain sometimes;-). They have been honest and open about weaknesses in design and manufacture, and I’ve seen people throw that right back at them. As if we would prefer they deny any issues exist at all? This company is allowing us to be right there with them, taking part in the birth of a new age in wood working, it’s a privilege for us to be here, now. If it was a big multinational mega corp bringing this product into existence, you would have nothing like this. You would be able to get right through to support, and they would read you the standard answer right off the script. We are interacting with real people who share our passion. Who see and hear your input.

So, you might be having problems, maybe you want to give up and maybe you want to return the machine because you are going through some growing pains with the folks who made these machines. But give it some thought. When you saw that video or demo or the box didn’t you think for a second that is amazing stuff? Didn’t you realize why? Had you ever seen something like this before…. Of course you have. Have you seen it for $2000? No way. Seen it at Sears, accessible to the masses? No way. It’s new. It’s a shift in technology. It’s what some marketing folks would call disruptive innovation. It’s a convergence of digital technology and computerized control for a hobby industry that has never had tools like this before. You bought it because it was cool. Because you dreamed of having a machine like this since you watched Star Trek as a kid.
From my opinion, LHR, the Carvewright guys, are a top notch company. You might have a few problems today-- partly because it’s new and you need to learn how to use it, partly because it’s new and not perfectly refined. But this is exactly the forum for us to bring the suggestions to LHR. It’s a place to make a positive difference, a place where we can contribute our ideas and support each other in solving problems- suggesting changes. Here, we can all participate in developing and shaping a future you can only imagine now. Think of where this is going to lead, imagine the tools we will have 10 years from now. Throw in any old log and out will come beautiful carved art far beyond what is even possible today. Imagine someday you will have instant in-home fabrication. Download the specs and blueprints for an entire furniture piece and feed in the raw material and all the pieces are machined right before your very eyes….

I’m sticking it out, no matter what. Of course I expect to be frustrated. I expect I’m even going to want to cuss a bit. I might even give up in exasperation once or twice and decide to have a few beers instead of carving wood. But I am certain that I am part of something good, and it’s something I want to take part in so I can tell my great-grand children I remember back in the day when…..

Cheers!

Bill (Number Eight)

jspringertx
02-06-2007, 05:21 PM
Progress doesn't come easy and the development of the CarveWright device is no exception. The people at CW are totally dedicated to working with us and we just have to have some patience.

IM2HAPPI
02-06-2007, 06:01 PM
Well put Bill #8 I agree 100 %
Here's a Bud for you (_)) :lol:

pkunk
02-06-2007, 06:28 PM
Thanks Bill, nice to know we have some friends here. :D :D

Bill
02-06-2007, 06:59 PM
Hello Bill,
Excellent write up ! from all of us that have had heart aches, frustrations but still enjoy our machines. Like I said in a post a while back "Just to say thanks to CarveWrighT" LHR fixed my machine and I have had a few minor problems but my machine will never be returned...it's just to good a piece of equipment.


All the folks at LHR go out of there way and give everyone 110% I enjoy my machine and would recommend it.... It's nice to see someone give credit where credit is due.

Bill.

Old Salt
02-06-2007, 07:00 PM
RIGHT ON FDX I orderd my machine Feb 3 2006 so I have been using it for about a year now I still have lots to learn. I still dicover new uses every day haven't had this much fun since I was 9 and got my first Burss vibrating jig saw for
$14.95 , I could cut any design I wanted out of wood. Wow !! it was 1951 and 14.95 was a lot of money for me . a loaf of bread then was .14 cents saw blades where .10 cents THIS IS STAR WARS FOR ME ENJOY IT

Jeff_Birt
02-06-2007, 08:31 PM
Very good post FDX. Even though I am a bit bummed because my board sensor decided to die a sudden death tonight (I got one of the first Sears machines), I'm sure CW will get a new part sent out and get me going again.

The Bard
02-06-2007, 09:24 PM
:shock: :oops: 8)

insp_gadget
02-06-2007, 10:07 PM
:) I've read about other people who have worked with cnc metal working machines in their jobs. I am one of them. For the last 26 years I have programmed and ran most computer controlled machine tools. I am currently programming and running a cnc cmm.(Coodinate measuring machine) Their is something very fulfilling in running a program you put together and watching what the machine does. Remember the machine is going to do what you program it to do. The machine is actually brainless. The biggest to-do thingy with this machine is cleaning and finding better ways to clean. All these fancy xyz movements will come to a halt if machine is all clogged up. I was very amazed when I went to drill some holes for shelf brackets and instead of just throwing in a short 1/4" drill, the machine used 1/8" mill and circular interpolated it just like the large metal machines do. Steve

Wood Butcher
02-07-2007, 07:01 AM
Bill 8,

Enjoyed the post.
You can see the beginning of a group of “TRUE BELIEVERS” forming around this great product.
I, myself am addicted. Rather than complain about small issues we resolve them by patient research here and assistance from LHR.
We all benefit from the shared knowledge and our reward is a better machine and knowing that in a small way we were part of it.
At last count I think that Sears has sold over 4000 machines. Think of all the dreams that the Carvewright machine was able to turn into reality.
Check the gallery to see a few.
This is more than a woodworking machine. It is a vehicle to transform ideas into reality and bolster the self esteem of the creator.

FdxGuy
02-09-2007, 08:22 PM
Bill 8,

Enjoyed the post.
You can see the beginning of a group of “TRUE BELIEVERS” forming around this great product.
I, myself am addicted. Rather than complain about small issues we resolve them by patient research here and assistance from LHR.
We all benefit from the shared knowledge and our reward is a better machine and knowing that in a small way we were part of it.
At last count I think that Sears has sold over 4000 machines. Think of all the dreams that the Carvewright machine was able to turn into reality.
Check the gallery to see a few.
This is more than a woodworking machine. It is a vehicle to transform ideas into reality and bolster the self esteem of the creator.



Thank you all for the warm welcomes! I hope you all forgive my stupid wood working questions. I am good with computers of all types and I hope to be useful in that area. But I'm going to lean on all of you for expertise in wood related things. I am looking forward to creating lots of firewood before i get this right!

Thanks!

The Bard
02-09-2007, 11:44 PM
heck, I admit fully on the phone I don't know Jack about woodworking... but I know about our machine hehe.

We get calls about techniques and software possibilities and I point them here :wink:

HerbO
02-10-2007, 10:10 AM
Purchased machine at sears and the first two projects seemed a little rough compared to the Gallery here. Chalked it up to using pine. Third project it was chewing the the 1\8 inch high letter off the board. Noticed the bit had some side to side play. Called CW and Chris said they would like me to ship it to them. He emailed a shipping label and Fed-Ex picked it up the very next day. That was a couple of weeks ago..received an email Thursday that it is on its way back. I think the CW support is fantastic.
I do tech support for a local ISP and 95% of my calls are Windows problems. Even if you can get (MS)support most times they want you to pay for the call then you usaully they tell you to do a recovery. I never heard of Microsoft tell someone to ship the computer back and we will fix it and pay for the shipping to boot. I believe MS could afford it more than CW...with last print I seen that Bill was worth 53 billion.
Happy Carving
:D Herb

FdxGuy
02-10-2007, 12:26 PM
I do tech support for a local ISP and 95% of my calls are Windows problems. Even if you can get (MS)support most times they want you to pay for the call then you usaully they tell you to do a recovery. I never heard of Microsoft tell someone to ship the computer back and we will fix it and pay for the shipping to boot. I believe MS could afford it more than CW...with last print I seen that Bill was worth 53 billion.
Happy Carving
:D Herb

I have noticed that much of the frustration I have seen people have with these machines is related to their computer. Sure, the machine has a few problems, but the folks who can't seem to get it to do anything right even for 1 carving also seem to have no idea how to use a computer. So the whole system becomes junk.

Of course, that is a risk related to creating a machine targeted to a market of woodworkers that is not exactly known for having a high percentage of geeks in it's midst. Those in this forum being the exception.

Cheers!

pkunk
02-10-2007, 01:11 PM
I do tech support for a local ISP and 95% of my calls are Windows problems. Even if you can get (MS)support most times they want you to pay for the call then you usaully they tell you to do a recovery. I never heard of Microsoft tell someone to ship the computer back and we will fix it and pay for the shipping to boot. I believe MS could afford it more than CW...with last print I seen that Bill was worth 53 billion.
Happy Carving
:D Herb

I have noticed that much of the frustration I have seen people have with these machines is related to their computer. Sure, the machine has a few problems, but the folks who can't seem to get it to do anything right even for 1 carving also seem to have no idea how to use a computer. So the whole system becomes junk.

Of course, that is a risk related to creating a machine targeted to a market of woodworkers that is not exactly known for having a high percentage of geeks in it's midst. Those in this forum being the exception.

Cheers!
There's a big ring of truth in the computer thing. A year ago I got the first software for Windoz before the CW machine or the Mac version came out. I borrowed (an ancient) laptop for my Fire Dept. than had the minimum requirement and the software was a slug. The first Mac version on my old iMac (800mh G4-768 ram) was better but it would go into think mode for ever and occasionally crash. Now with more updates, a new intel iMac and a little more experience, I have no software problems and only occasional machine problems.(mechanical) :D