Slight problem with mine.
It has been returned ‘due to containing lithium batteries that were not declared by he shipper.’
I paid on the 2nd December, please re-send it to me, sounds like you need to declare the batteries…?
What do you mean?
Names and locations are right there on the left side of each post. Not everyone posts their country. I wish they would as it makes it easier to recommend things they ask about such as stores, etc… It also helps us figure out shipping related stuff.
I think hes referring to the Facebook profile pic of Neal someone put up.
although it wasn’t actually neal, still, some might see it as rude sharing someones personal profile.
Hey, a UK order got sent! First one I’ve heard about.
Sorry about it getting shipped back. I wonder if some other UK DHL shipments got turned back as well. Hmmm.
The fact that the batteries have stickers covering the connections and are also packaged inside the battery tube should allow them to be shipped easily around the world. Maybe the UK has stricter requirements?
Oh, your probably right. That was a fake Neal posted above, BTW.
Poor guy, probably getting swamped with Pms with questions about the GT LOL
WHAHAHAHAHA 
Edit: it has been 2 or 3 minutes and I’m still smiling, thanks for that DoNkEyConN !
Neal doesn’t hide on facebook. He has a flashlight group that he moderates and posts on frequently.
I didnt order with batteries so I’d have guessed I’d have got one by now. A friend also hasn’t received his and he didnt order cells either.
Maybe UK = Ukraine.
Or maybe by searching that guys username he is actually in the UK as I can find another forum user with the same name from the UK.
Ok, Like usual, if I missed something, point it out.
Wow, come on people, calm down. We are doing the best we can.
We have been VERY open about the going on’s with this GB from the very start. Nothing is being hidden or covered up.
The shipping issues boil down to 2 factors:
1: The reflector factory said that they would have their complete reflector order ready in early December. Lumintop took them at their word and opened the GB for payments hoping to get the lights shipped before Christmas.
2: The reflector factory had issues producing such large reflectors with good quality and was only able to deliver an average of ~150 reflectors a week so far. Leaving Lumintop holding 1000 flashlights without reflectors and unable to do anything about it.
Put simply there is nothing else for us to learn or tell anyone. The reflectors are not ready, the lights will not work without reflectors, they can not be shipped until the reflectors are ready.
End of story.
As long as lights keep shipping on a semi-consistent basis, that is all that matters and I will not hassle Lumintop or Neal about more then that. There is simply nothing they or anyone else can do about it.
Now, this complaining is also part of why lumintop reverted back to the V1 prototype reflector quality, people can’t make up their minds, do they want it now or do they want it done the best it can be?
Can’t have it both ways. Lumintop could have dropped the quality further and been caught up by now but they have stuck to making the quality we stated with the V1 reflectors.
Reading all of this, I would also say that getting lights out faster is way more important then slight improvements in reflector quality.
Lets stop the mob mentality.
Anyone that is not happy with the wait, is welcome to request a refund.
Don’t forget that Lumintop was thinking that selling 555 would be hard when this started and the Team expected maybe 600-700 when this start. This GB has grown to 3x the size lumintop expected and over twice my estimates.
This changed a lot of factors and made things much more complicated.
Send Neal a message about this, once the package arrives back at Lumintop they will sort it out.
It is much longer then any of us wanted but the blame falls on the reflector factory. They said they would have the complete order finished in early December which is the only reason I agreed to send out the PM’s at that point. We thought that the lights would be able to ship in time to arrive before Christmas.
They the reflector factory had issues and was not able to deliver any usable reflectors until late December and then only at a rate of around 150 a week.
There is nothing at all the Team could have done about this, we made the best decisions we could with the info we had and I do not regret any of them based on the info I had at the time.
There is nothing lumintop can do, they don’t have reflectors, there is no way for them to get them faster without degrading quality which they have refused to do.
So we are in a waiting game with the reflector factory and there is simply nothing else to be done or said. As long as lights keep shipping as the reflectors are delivered, that is all that can be done.
Thus far that is exactly what has happened. Just a matter of time till they catch up on the current orders.
I am happy to wait for the best quality possible. Im sure there are many others who feel the same way.
To be clear, the Team is nothing more then a middle man. We designed the light and told lumintop how to make it but at this point our job is basically done, we are just a relay system for information. We will stick around till this is complete and make sure that no issues pop up but we are simply representatives of the BLF community.
Any issues and warranty cases would go through the normal lumintop system.
This is just a place holder, they don’t even have enough reflectors to fill the current orders, so I would not expect it to be listed anywhere else till well after Chinese new year.
We always knew they would be sold like all other lumintop lights after this GB is over.
Not to worry, it won’t be cutting in on anyone’s order. This is like that facebook post that was put up before the sale started, just someone getting ahead of the train but nothing actually comes of it.
TA, I would not get too worked up about what a couple folks say. A lot of times I don’t even respond if it sounds like they are publicly venting. I’d prefer they vent privately, but what can you do? Lol
I don’t think those few represent the many.
It’s nice to know that Lumintop has all the parts and it’s an outside vender that is slowing things down.
Can you clarify if you are in the United Kingdom or in Ukraine?
Tuigali gives his location on his profile as Uk & not UK so I assume he is in Ukraine.
I am in the UK & I have never had any problems getting Li-Ions shipped to me.
I’m on here infrequently enough that I’m sure I’d miss a lot with such restrictions, but given what I’ve seen here, I sure couldn’t blame organizers if they did exactly that.
Or have people include a statement when they order that acknowledges that due to the nature of group buys of BLF developed lights, there is no guarantee of any delivery window and that questions regarding orders may not be answered in a timely manner.
To be honest, this was my first BLF GB and I was a little perturbed early on, too, until I stepped back and thought through all of the work that is being done behind the scenes to get this done. Once the first people started receiving their lights, that was assurance that the rest would eventually be coming.
Due to the nature of what I’ve seen here, my new personal rule is:
Don’t participate if I don’t have time to wait or money to risk. (not that the risk is high, but there’s always a risk).
I appreciate all that the team has done in helping to coordinate all this these thankless details.
Yeah, I know. I don’t generally bother with them either.
Just let it kind of go to my head when I woke up to 4 pages of complaining about things outside anyone’s control.
Plus it makes it hard to convince Lumintop that Quality should come before quantity when all that seems to be posted is people want it yesterday.
Can’t blame them, even the fairly minor improvements for the V2 reflector came at a significant cost in rejection rate and machine time. So it makes sense to go back to the V1 specs to speed production.
The delays the last week are very possibly from lumintop trying to improve the reflector quality back up to the V2 levels. Although I sent an email to find out more details and will report when I hear back.