This! :+1:
It would seem that once the Group Buy orders have been fulfilled then yes Lumintop will sell the light to the general public.
There is also a good chance that once that happens M4D M4X on here will have discount codes for the light.
Those British customs officials have a nose as keen as a bloodhound. Either that or the official tried to buy his own GT only to find out he is too late and sent it back for spite. Either way that is crappy news
Gouvernments are champion in misleading, but these Chinese companies know they only sell so much products if they can ship at low prices to the rest of the world. They don't care about regulations, they just want to make money. The products can be very good. Just look at the GT. So there not out there to fool the customers, just the customs. :)
At least BLF-ers are not easy to mislead and posting about misleading customers on BLF directly affects business.
Governments/customs are a different category, they are easy to mislead because they have only limited knowledge of what goes through their hands.
I do not feel guilty about mislabelling the purchase price, the regulations are such that if you are fair as a seller/customer about the price, you pay not only VAT (which is perfectly ok with me) but on top of that you are punished with custom fees and carrier administration fees that are totally ridiculous in relation to the value of the package.
And I’m even ok with labelling the 35E as 2600mAh, I think. The restrictions on shipping batteries came into existence because of bad unsafe li-ion batteries that caused dangerous situations. This is sort of regulated by limiting the allowed energy per package, but that does not take into account the build quality of the batteries, and I believe that the 3500mAh 35E is safer to transport than a crap 2200mAh *fire battery.
grumpy grumpy grumpy……
BEAMSHOTS
Nice shots, I love how much more natural everything looks with the GT myself.
Thank you very much
Agreed. The tint is lovely. The wow could be greater if it was a colder tint but I’m really starting to like a warmer tint. I love my D4 Nichia 219c because of the colour rendition.
Yeah. I’m not surprised they make use of such little tricks. I am a bit surprised if someone who signed up for the GT did not know this was business as usual in China.
Yes.
After the payments were made, there are no more first or second batch stuff. It’s just one big group of 850 lights that need to be shipped. Neal grouped usa with no batteries and DHL starting from front of paid list to fill up a pallet. Then the second shipment was USA with batteries and DHL starting from front of paid list to fill up another pallet.
So the first 850 customers do get their lights before the last 650.
Also, the majority of people who paid early do get their lights before people that paid later, but it’s not exact. Neal tries to give early payers priority, but it still comes down to shipping costs and slow light production.
If the reflector company had delivered all 850 reflectors at once like they said, all the lights could have been shipped out within 2 or 3 weeks. Since they only deliver 150 to 200 reflectors per week, the shipping stretches out longer, like 7 weeks.
Personally I think that Lumintop should find a 2nd reflector company that can deliver an extra 100 to 150 a week so orders can go out quicker. We have 650 more orders in our last batch of buyers, plus lots of folks want to buy outside the group buy. So easily 1000 more orders.
It is not British customs that are the problem as far as I know.
I think Tuigli”s light didn”t make it onto the plane in Hong Kong (twice) therefore it would seem that the labelling on the package is the problem.
If it had reached the UK Tuigli would have heard off UK customs or the carrier TNT I think.
[quote=djozz]
Mostly I agree, this particular case has a very low risk. The regulations also do not take into account the actual stored energy but the theoretical maximum that could be stored. Factory charged unused 3500 mAh high capacity cells at a low state of charge are less hazardous than (even high quality and similarly packaged) fully charged 2600 mAh standard cells.
Just like any unused lithium battery powered device with 30% nominal charge in there is likely much less hazardous in a cargo hold than a device someone already used and misused for a year and the fully charged before traveling.
I take it that the Samsung 35E batteries are not protected.
Maybe I am wrong.
If so why were they recommended when 18650GAs have better specs at higher currents?
What will happen if both battery carriers are inserted the wrong way around?
[quote=Keisari]
I’m really not speaking to risk, unless we are talking about a risk of integrity.
I think you are correct here - Neal saying the lights were refused seems odd, at least on duty/value grounds.
In the past when I have been charged duty they just estimate it or base it on the declared value and charge you at the door when delivering,m never heard of things being sent back.
I have just seen a post on Facebook with a message from Lumintop, don't think it's been posted here yet. Seems you can now buy directly from them, whether they will ship immediately or after the GB orders are fulfilled is not stated.
Photo hosting is being a pain, but it's here
Tuigli’s and my light both didn’t make it into the plane and got sent back to LT twice already, so I think you are right about the labelling being the issue here.
Here is the facebook message referred to by stanmore
I asked for registered shipping with a max declared value of £15. I see that at least one person in Europe has received theirs and with the declared value higher than they asked for so had to pay taxes.
I would not want the value stated as $25 as this exceeds the £15 limit in the UK and would mean paying taxes and a handling charge for each package.
Paying a bit of a bit of tax does not bother me to be honest but its the handling charge which is the killer. At $25 the tax would only be about £3 per box but the handling charge could be £15 or more each.