What's the real story on this machine

[bikerbum]

Hi all,

I've been looking at the CarveWright/CompuCarve for some time so have been researching it on line. I've noticed a lot of posts talking about things like the machine not working right out of the box, extra and unidentified parts in the machine, poor customer service, etc. I also see an aweful lot of posts telling how great it is. I'd like an honest opinion on the tool. Does it really have all these troubles?

[LittleRedWoodshop]

I have 2 of them and love them both....

I would be happy to do it all over again, If you have questions you can feel free to give me a call.

[ChrisAlb]

Can't wait to get another one. http://forum.carvewright.com/images/icons/icon14.gif Used and maintained properly, never had a significant problem. Customer service has always been timely, polite and attentive.

Been woodworking for over 30 years. NEVER had this much FUN!!! LOL http://forum.carvewright.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[LittleRedWoodshop]

Mr. Chris, hope all is well with you and I wish I had five.

[supershingler]

hey chris

it is great to have you back on the forum

i hope all is well with your new venture and that you can make enough to go to sturgis next year lol maybe by then ill have made enough to by another harley(wishful thinking my wife says)

kendall

[Amonaug]

It's had it problems but overall with proper maintenance it's a nice easy to use machine that takes time to learn the in's and out's of proper operation like any machine of this type. Don;t expect to just plug it in, throw a piece of wood in it and get a masterpiece out of it.

I'd buy one directly from LHR or LittleRedWoodshop to make sure you get a machine with the latest updates. I believe many of the problems people report are from machine with the older style parts (controller, z-bundles, cut motor, etc.)

[Don Butler]

Any machine needs a knowledgable operator and good maintenance.
That becomes more important when the machine is complicated. Without apologies, the CarveWright is necessarily complicated since it marries computer technology to the automatic operation.
When the shipping container is opened the contents MUST be checked against the instruction sheet. If there are discrepancies (actual humans pack them) LHR will make immediate adjustments.
If the machine is started without due self education in the operation and maintenance or the use of the design program, problems will CERTAINLY arise.
Don't ask me how I know that.
I designed, built and operated very complicated machines during my working career. Nevertheless, I wouldn't dare try to use the machine without considerable research. I had my machine for weeks before trying the most simple test carve.
I encourage you to learn all you can about the machine and, yes, buy one. Just give it the respect it deserves.

d...

[DStimpson]

Okay, here's the deal.....
I love my machine, no doubt about it. I have made many gifts, birthday presents, litho's, etc. There is NOTHING as rewarding as seeing the recipients reaction when they receive gift that is "home-made" and personalized. It is priceless.......

Now, is the machine without problems? No, of course not!! It is a high-precision, computerized, device with MANY mechanical parts. It is used in a less than perfect environment; high vibration, dusty, and often times not temperature controlled. It requires frequent maintenance, cleaning, lubing, adjusting, etc. This is the nature of the beast.

I am not the most mechanically minded person, but I have read the invaluable information on the forum, and followed the advice as well as I can. Have I had problems? Yes.........I melted a flex-cable, replaced a QC, took the Z-truck head off to tighten some loose screws, replaced bits, etc.

But in EVERY case, between the forum advice, the excellent LHR support, and a little ingenuity, the carving continues.

I expect that I will continue to have occasional issues, things wear out, belts get loose or break, motors get old.... it happens with any device similarly constructed.

But I also expect the forum to get smarter, and LHR to continue to support those of us that have committed the time and invested the money in their company, and there is no reason to believe they won't.

[deemon328]

I think customer service is excellent. I've had to use it for several parts under warranty. They helped verify the problem, then I ordered the parts I needed.

If you're going to do carving on this machine, it's great. If you want precision vector cuts, look elsewhere. Sorry, but that's my opinion.

[jcorder]

I purchased my machine in June and I have had to return it to CarveWright for an issue I had with it. I have had a few other issues, but none serious and all of them handled as easy as a phone call to tech support and they walked me through the troubleshooting and adjustments that I needed to and were able to make. I am not in any way mechanically inclined, so if I can make the adjustments they direct me to make anyone can! The quality and beauty of the products this machine is capable of putting out is worth a small amount of aggrivation I have had with it. I am hoping to grow this into a retirement business in the next 4 years before I retire from the fire service. It is baby steps with this machine because it has a bit of a learning curve. If you are not willing to read lots, make a few mistakes, ask questions, then do not purchase the machine. If you are willing to do those things, then do not hesitate to buy it. If you have problems, you will find no better people in the world than those that are on this forum. No matter what the problem, they are here to help immediately. Just post your problem and in a very few minutes, you will have answers and directions. Many of those that post here are pretty much techs in their own right and the techs from CarveWright post here as well. So I say take the plunge and step into a world of amazement on what this machine can produce and prepare yourself to for chatting with some of the finest people in the world.

Best of Luck in your decision

Jeff

[Jeff_Birt]

You know all of the 'bad press' really bothers me. There are a few reasons for this one is that I really believe in the product and the company behind it, the second is that there is never a way to verify what you read in all of these anonymous reviews. As an aside, I was looking for a small, inexpensive 'portable' espresso machine. I was reading through the reviews on Amazon on one unit and found quite a lengthy review that rated the unit very poorly. They funny part was that the reviewer didn't even own the machine. Has was making all his judgments based on 'pictures' of it!

I have found that if I'm looking for something coffee related I find higher quality information on coffee geek sites. The same goes with wood working products. I have been looking at disc/belt sanders and have been reading through reviews done by woodworking magazines/respected woodworking Internet sites. Why? Because the reviews and comments are generally much more helpful.

I just went looking for reviews on the carvewright from 'wood working' type sites. The first one I found was at:http://woodworking.about.com/b/2007/10/06/carvewright-wood-carving-machine-review.htm, if you read the review you can see that he listed both good and bad points but overall liked the machine and gave it a good rating. In the comments that follow the first page of the review there was one post that really summed it all up:



We did a little research on the reviews that can be found online on various websites, such as this one. The reviews were classified as follows: Positive, Negative and Mixed (reviews that were very much in favor of the machine but thought that some issues needed resolving, typically a three out of five star rating)

THE RESULTS
Artisthideout.com resulted in 4 Positive, 7 Negative and 4 mixed Reviews.
Amazon.com resulted in 8 Positive, 7 Negative and no Mixed Reveiws.
Toolmonger.com resulted in 7 Positive, and 4 Negative and 2 Mixed Reviews
Sears.com resulted in 50 Positive, 35 Negative and 7 Mixed Reviews.
Total we have 68 Positive Reviews, 53 Negative Reviews and 15 Mixed Reviews.

How do these weigh against the total number of Carvewrights sold?
Well picture this: This company has sold over 14,000 Compucarve/Carvewrights to date. That means the negative reviews represent less than 5 one thousandths percent of the total sold.

That is .005 percent.

Conclusion
The feedback on the internet is not representative of the ratio of user experience whatsoever simply because there are simply not enough reviews.


Unfortuanately, when folks get interested in something they all go to places like Amazon and read reviews ( me too ) and it is usually only the few folks who have 'apparently' have had a problem that bother to write a review. I guess the other 14,000 or more of use are busy having fun with our machines.

And quite frankly my friends I think some of the reviewers are just plain full of crap. Perhaps I should not say that, but when I read comments like, "The tech support people can barely speak English and are hard to deal with.", it upsets me. Evey one of the folks I have dealt with at CarveWright has been great. Alex and some of the other techs even give up some of their own free time to help folks out on this forum. And, I know for certain that the folks at CarveWright go to great lengths to do right by their customers. One of the reviews I read today, "complained" about the Victorian House project becuase it was carved in six diffrent pieces and then assembled for a (very, very cool I think) high relief effect. (I bet he would have a coranry with the new uber cool sleigh project.) Really, some people just need to get a grip.

So, I have a challange for everyone reading this. If you have owned a machine for more than a month/50 hours, in other words you have some time under your belt to know the machine and have gotten through all the newbie mistakes (we all have made them), pick the review site of your choice, be it Amazon or Sears, and write a review. I'm not asking for any suger coating here, just a real, honest, review of your experiance. Take your time, write it up ahead of time in Word or something (as the little text boxes on most sites stink), and give a well thought out review.

I'm sure the one or two verys disgruntled folks will lash out with some wild stories, but lets give potential buyers a true sampling of machine owners experiances and let them make a truley informed decision.

To date I have not provided a review as I don't want to appear that being a moderator somehow biases my opinion. Let me be clear. The modertors here get nothing in return for their troubles. We all volunteered to try and make the forum a better place for eveyone (primarly to boot off the spammers). I will however, be filing a review tonight.

[cnsranch]

Jeff -

How do you really feel? - I can't ever seem to pin you down :D

Seriously, I'm with Jeff 100%. I've been involved with the machine and the Forum since February (that sounds a little weird). I've responded to those who like to diss the machine and LHR more times than I care to list, and as a result, I've retired from the soapbox. Bottom line from my perspective, I have all the woodworking toys (yep, just picked up my 25" WDS on Sunday), been doing the wood thing since 1986 (if you don't count wood shop in Junior High back in 1969) and the CW is by far the coolest, most fun, addicting machine I've ever owned (whoops, tripped on that dammed soapbox).

[atauer]

Evey one of the folks I have dealt with at CarveWright has been great. Alex and some of the other techs even give up some of their own free time to help folks out on this forum. And, I know for certain that the folks at CarveWright go to great lengths to do right by their customers.

Jeff,

Thanks for the great feedback. You are quite right in your lengthy post. The ratio of reviews to machines sold is rather low. Many of the reviews are made by angry customers who expect the machine to build masterpieces right out of the box. However, what the people don't realize is that there is a learning curve and you will need to take time to RTFM and any other information that you can find. Most jump into major projects as soon as they purchase it, when they are unfamiliar with the machine and its operations.

I'll admit, I don't always read all the information that comes with something that I have purchased. For example: I purchased a laptop when I first started college. The school had a program set up where the cost of the computer was included in the tuition. So I purchased on. I received it a few weeks later, turned it on, and found I needed an administrative password/serial key to activate the software. So instead of reading the manual that came with it, I reformatted the hard drive and reinstalled the OS, only to have the same problem. One call later to Dell, and 75 dollars out of my pocket for support, I received the number I needed, which happened to be listed on page one of the manual that came with the laptop.

Anyways, if you are unwilling to read the information and are unwilling to take the time to learn everything, you will miss out on alot of great things. If I had the extra money and space, I would purchase a machine and you would see some great projects being posted by me as well. I do get to use the machine, but not as much as I would like. I myself have been subjected to the learning curve, and am still learning. :)

But thanks to the great assistance from the members here and the technicians here in our shop, I am learning new things everyday.

As Jeff stated, the moderators do not receive any compensation for what they do here on the forum. The same goes for us technicians that do assist here on the forum. We don't have to come on here and assist, but we do anyways because we enjoy assisting our customers. In fact, some of us are on here on our days off to assist. Heck, I was even on here when I had to evacuate due to Hurricane Ike.

So, the decision to buy a machine is completely up to you. But keep in mind, if you do purchase a machine and encounter issues, you have numerous people to assist here on the forum, as well as the great support team that we have here in our company.

[cnsranch]

Hey, Alex -

Aren't you supposed to be working? :D

[jcorder]

hey be nice to Alex, he is checking out a project problem I had ...LOL

You go Alex!

[atauer]

Hey, Alex -

Aren't you supposed to be working? :D

cnsranch,

I'm multi-tasking today! Answering phones, emails, forum, etc. all at the same time!

Hope I don't get confoozed......:)

[MetroGnome]

I've owned mine for about 2 weeks now. I started a pretty frustrated thread over in troubleshooting, as many may recall. I feel pretty qualified to answer the original poster on this thread.

If you are buying the machine now to make Christmas presents for this year, you are probably going to be frustrated.

If you see this machine as a way to get started in woodworking, you are probably going to be frustrated and are making the wrong first purchase.

If the thought of doing a oil and grease job on your own car makes your hands shake, you are going to be frustrated by this machine.

Tech support is actually pretty amazing considering the size of the company. Yes, you are going to sit on hold sometimes and on Saturday you may not get through at all. But if you keep trying you will probably discover that the person on the other end actually uses the machine. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Barry in Tech Support grew up in Michigan. I've talked to two techs so far and found both of them to be friendly and extremely helpful, despite the messages I left when I was having problems.

In my day job I write the firmware for various machines. We have tech support available 24/7/365. Of course the machines we sell are larger and the purchaser has to send someone to our mechanics school. When he returns its expected by us that his sole function will be maintenance of our machines. Our machines are much larger and only a little more complex that that the CarveWright.

The software is quite well written and easy to use. But its complex software frequently being used by computer novices. Drawing in 3D is not intuitive, if you disagree check out how recently in history perspective drawing appeared. The software is so flexible that there are multiple ways to do anything you want to do.

So let me sum up my feelings; its a complex machine operating in a harsh enviroment, it requires the user to be able to perform simple maintenance and repair tasks, it makes some pretty amazing carvings once you understand how, it does not eliminate your need to do basic woodworking.

Do I want my $2k back? No, I do wish I had thought to search for it on Amazon since I could have saved over $200. I'd have used that to buy either the scanning probe or the CenterLine text software. But I'm going to buy both anyway.

[fwharris]

Hi all,

I've been looking at the CarveWright/CompuCarve for some time so have been researching it on line. I've noticed a lot of posts talking about things like the machine not working right out of the box, extra and unidentified parts in the machine, poor customer service, etc. I also see an aweful lot of posts telling how great it is. I'd like an honest opinion on the tool. Does it really have all these troubles?

Glad I got my CC and would do it again. Nuf said!

[HelpBot3000]

Here Here! I watch and participate on this forum by choice. No one ever said I had to do this, I just enjoy helping out our customers, just like Alex. For some of our customers, this forum is the most convenient method of communication and I like to be there to assist them (even though you guys have a more than solid grip on that part, my hat goes off).

[Don Butler]

cnsranch,

I'm multi-tasking today! Answering phones, emails, forum, etc. all at the same time!

Hope I don't get confoozed......:)

Alex,
Since you're doin' all that, I'll toss another chestnut on the fire.

When I want to use the line segment tool, even if I pull the drop down menu and select it, the tool doesn't work. If I select any other tool, but not use it, I can then go back and get the line segment tool.
But -
Then it won't work again until I go through that routine again.
I asked Mike Tyler, and he doesn't think it's normal behavior, either.
I'm running 1.131 build 6169 on a Gateway with Core2 Quad processor and windows XP pro.
I'm not in a hurry, so just let me know when you can get to it.
Regards,
Don

[atauer]

Don,

I'll look into it. If and when I find out anything, I will start a new thread with the information I have found.

[Don Butler]

Thank y', thank y' thank y'!

d...

[LollyWood]

Jeff has hit it on the head. This machine is not for the faint at heart, nor is it for the MIT grad. But a bit of study, practice, patientence, and help from knowing folks have turned a hobby into a growing small bussiness.

I bought my Machine on Ebay a little over a year ago. Customer return, referb, no warrantee. So if I had a prob, I was going to fix it, or ship it to TX. Well trips to TX can get expensive, so I studied. EVERY THING! This forum was & is my biggest and best resource for keeping my gizmo humming along. I lubed, tightened, loosened, tweeked and cleaned solely w/ the advice of these wonderful folks. I've changed Board sensors, Y tracks, sandpaper belts, Z tracks, Door sensors, cut motors w/ nothing more then what I've learned here, and my machine has worked w/o major problem for 124 Hrs. I've learned the inside of my machine so well I can hear a clank that shouldn't be there. All this right here. So can you un-pack this thing and turn out projects like our more talented members? Well After a year of learning, I can't. But I'm hot on their heels.;)
Frustrated? Yep, every time.( still forget to snug this, or snap that, But I'm getting better.) Wondering if I waisted $$? Only till I see it was me that goofed not the machine or designer progee. Happy w/ the time and $$ invested? Every single time I see just how this gizmo can make a nice project into something really special.

I took up wood working as a way to stop drinking some 15 years ago. A hobby. Never took a class, don't have a 3,000 sq ft. shop. Just a hammer, some wood, a few screws, some clamps, and a willingness to learn. I do ok making nick-nacks, keep sakes, and every now and then a "WOWer." But since my CC, my hobby is truning into a self perpetuating small bussiness. I'm busy and loving it. So much so, #2 is on the way. (double the fun eh Al? ;)) This one was bought like the other, from ebay, no warrantee support, just me. But this time, I'm more confident in what it can do, and what I can do to keep it humming along. Tinker-tinker, clean-clean, oops-do over.:confused: And I'm still learning.

So is it worth it? Is there a STEEP learning curve? Are there folks here to lend a helping hand? Yes...YES...HELL YES!!!

Jeff, I will write a review as a member who doesn't have a warrantee and still loves this thing.
Just my 2Cs....Back to the shadows

[jcorder]

So what Lollywood is saying, if us firefighters can figure this machine out, most anyone can! It ain't fireman proof, but it is sorta close to bein! LOL

[mtylerfl]

Don,

I'll look into it. If and when I find out anything, I will start a new thread with the information I have found.

Regarding Don's Line Tool issue...Here is a copy of the PM I sent Don a little while ago. When he disabled the "reset tool after use" option, Don says it is working fine for him now.

Many thanks to Omar and the entire Tech Support Team for providing me with this info today to pass along!

(An Administrator might want to move this post and all related posts into the Techniques Section -we kind of hijacked the original topic of this thread)


Hello Don,

Found out a couple other little tidbits that I did not know about until today.

There is a shortcut key for the line tool. It is the L key. Draw a line segment as normal. Want to draw another without having to re-select the tool? Press the L key (does not have to be uppercase - I just did that to make sure it looked like an "L" not a "l").

The L key selects the line segment tool automatically so you don't have to mouse to the menu to re-select it.

Also, there is a rather obscure function that I had missed. The best possible option for prolonged use of this and other features is to disable the “Reset tool after use” option on the General Tab of the Preferences Dialog.

[jcorder]

I would ask the techs at LHR to provide us a cheat sheet for all the shortcuts, but I don't think I have a wall big enough to put them on! We complain about the software a lot, but it really is a pretty amazing part of the entire tool!

[supershingler]

thanks micheal

mine was doing the same thing as dons was

i have not had a chance to try yet but will let you know

thanks again

kendall

[Hexe SA]

I got my machine 1.5 years ago and absolutely no clue about wood working. I saw the video on line and that it was software driven (I could understand that part), the results were what my atempts should have looked like. I bought it, read the whole manual and what was out here on the web site and started carving. Made quite a few operator errors, 1 trip to LHR for the new Z-pack, lots of fancy firewood, bought about every accessory for it and still love it. It was my first powertool, woodworking tool and I added a few things since than. If I didn't have a daytime job, I would spend all my time designing, carving, finishing. I still don't know how to use the vector stuff and no idea what spine is but I have not regret buying one.
LHR has been during and after the warrenty just awesome in support, the best part getting to talk to a real person that knows exactly when you tell them what you are talking about when you explain funny noises, error code you never seen, screws that fall out, and don't get angry when they figured out you been carving with a broken Quick Chuck because you didn't think that little piece of metal you found was important. They also don't laugh at you when the only problem with the close cover issue was the connector being plugged in upside down.
Same goes for this forum and the help I got here on sometimes silly questions. A slight ribbing maybe for not being able to spell right to find things I was searching for plus alot of great free pattern.
Eva

[bikerbum]

So after reading all of your responses and some more research I decided to take the plunge. No worries on the software, that's my day job or the need for mechanical ability that's my after school hobby. I don't consider myself a woodworker though so I imagine I have some practice ahead of me and as one of put it a lot of expensive firewood.

Anyway, thanks for the insight and feedback. I'll let you all knwo how it goes.

paul