If I receive this garbage I’ll be disputing the charges with my credit card company.
There are two related and sometimes competing things manufacturers do along these lines:
- Value engineering - looking for opportunities to reduce production cost. These may or may not have a customer-visible impact on the product. It must be done very carefully if it will.
- Continuous quality improvement - looking for opportunities to make the product work better, like replacing the non-rustproof screws on the otherwise rustproof knife with rustproof ones.
In this case, Lumintop has made a value engineering change by replacing a part that was explicitly specified by make and model with something else with different performance characteristics. They did this without approval from their customer (Neal). I don’t know anything about Chinese law, but in the US, Neal could sue them.
I do think Neal should be contacting customers with pending orders directly to offer them the opportunity to cancel at a minimum. The option of a free 10511 optic and lens installed by Neal prior to shipping would be better. That would cost Neal money of course, and he should demand that Lumintop cover his costs.
nice
I was going to get a copper 3D …kinda bummed about buying a carlco and glass lens separately
Same here. Neal’s website still states that it has a glass lens with carclo optic. So guess what? If you get anything other than that, dispute charges.
Or you can consider it continuous improvement, lean even. If this was necessary to keep up with demands and have a good supplier of this essential part.
I understand that you should never piss off your customer, but it says nowhere in the lumintop specs that you should get a carclo optic.
That’s because they changed it in the last couple days. The colour of the clip in the product photos has also been altered.
Well that is indeed misleading.
Wait, did I just see that they removed the glass lens?!
Ok what? How is that a good design decision?
The optic will get scratched that way…
Lumintop does say “standard TIR optic” This all in one plastic thing they have created isn’t “standard”
To me, in a technology context, standard implies it’s an easily attained part that can be swapped out. A proprietary part created specifically for this flashlight isn’t “standard” at all.
well i have the copper 3D in my cart…not sure I will pull the trigger if it doesnt come carlco/glass
Yeah.
The change in optic can be understood, but completely removing the lens?
I should’ve just ordered the 1st XP-L HI lights, then modded it with SST-20s.
This is getting more disappointing by the minute.
Anyone found sources for 23mm AR lenses yet?
The clip looks like it’s a different color on Lumintop’s site too. I really like the (acid wash?) dark finish on mine and would definitely prefer to have that when I buy more.
Well… if I buy more. There’s an Emisar D4 v2 coming up, and Hank doesn’t cheap out like Lumintop seems to be, even when he reduces the price (the D4 was introduced at $40, which was later reduced to $35). I was concerned that early FW3As might have problems that later ones would not, but it’s looking like the opposite is true.
I have seen car manufacturers change entire global supplier agreements (these were legal contracts drafted and signed for several years) because the new parts were a few US cents cheaper. The supplier was forced to sign a new agreement. Even pennies will add up over thousands of products and SKUs.
The glass lens and Carclo optic are probably expensive, not always easy to source, and have a 100% take rate (every light sold has them/needs them, so not optional).
While most of us probably don’t want a new lens/optics combo, from an engineering point of view it is a good way to ensure an almost identical product outcome while saving a lot of money.
You could also use a cheaper aluminum source, cheaper parts for the driver, a cheaper clip or drop it entirely, re-design the inner tube and make it skinnier and a more permanent part of the assembly, replace the metal switch with a rubber boot, and do a lot more!
I thought the same thing. I’m kicking myself for not just ordering all that I wanted right up front.
Yep.
I look forward to India’s manufacturers starting to make flashlights. Maybe their culture will be a better fit for meeting specifications/expectations.
Or not.
Hmmmm …. http://www.evereadyindia.com/flashlight/led-flashlights.aspx has the old type switch I’ve been missing ….
I think they should’ve just made the XP-L HI version more expensive, like with the Emisar D4.
They should’ve made the SST-20 version 29,99$US, and the XP-L HI version 39,99$US.
Not only would they have more profit margin, but they could use the XP-L HI to slightly subsidize the SST-20 version with a good optic and a lens.
The thing is, this is not a product Lumintop designed themselves. If Lumintop wants to change the design of say… the Tool AA, that’s fine as long as they don’t describe the old one to customers and send the new one. At worst, reviewers and community influencers will say it’s no longer a good choice.
The FW3A is a community design where volunteers did a bunch of work because they wanted it to exist and gave the result to Lumintop. Lumintop saves development costs and gets to build a product for a known market. The community has certain expectations as a result, though they’re not enforceable in the same way a contract is. The most extreme option would be someone running a second group buy to take the design to another manufacturer. They probably do have a contract with Neal, and we don’t know what’s in it. We do know Neal was expecting 10511s and glass lenses, and that’s not what he got.
Community expectations include a glass lens, a Carclo 10511 optic, a clip of the specified design, and a metal button. If Lumintop wants to make another light derived from the FW3A design using different parts and sell that at a different price point, nobody here will complain, as long as they keep making FW3As with the original design.
I hope the CU version still brings the carclo and glass lens
This is a very good point. I’m trying my best to be patient. I have plans for the additional 3 that I ordered, but they’re based on the original parts being there.