People getting a little antsy i see ,shipping notices are the only thing that is gonna cure that.
i sure hope mine is going to be shipped soon, as i find it very difficult to wait and dont know the status since i have paid!
I was hoping to read any good news, with all these new posts, but it’s just page filling nonsense.
Please TM or TA or any other team member, please come up with some good news before the weekend.
@Neal, if you read this, have a nice honeymoon!
It needs repeating
………………not helping am I!! :innocent:
I sent a pm on AliExpress to EST GROUP Co., Ltd (that seller that someone linked to that had the 6v XHP70 Maxtoch Mcpcb) and asked if they had the 12V version on the 32mm or larger of that Mcpcb.
But sadly they didn’t have it.
Ok, wow, lot happened yesterday!
I will give a quick recap of what I know. First off besides a bit of a delay for the quality control tests, things are so far proceeding pretty much as planned. No major issues have cropped up or anything like that. Just minor things like the manuals were not done correctly and caused a delay and small things like that.
So no worries about your orders, they are all safe and on track. Just a bit later then planned.
Now for those asking why Neal has to be there to pack them. It is not so much that he him self is personally packing every single box as he is overseeing the process to make sure that nothing is missed or issues overlooked.
He is a flashoholic just like us and knows what we want and what we don’t. That is why this Project has gone much much more smoothly then the Q8, because he was there every step of the way to make sure there were not translation issues and that the intent of our requests were communicated properly. Also Lumintop has been fantastic to work with, rarely even questioning our requests.
Because of this we were able to get everything we wanted with the GT and with better quality and features then we were hoping. We owe Neal a lot with this project.
We have not been 100% informed about Neals and Lumintop’s relationship as it never really mattered.
What I have been able to piece together is that particularly for the first 555 lights lumintop is not making anything at all and is possibly loosing money. So to keep the price low Neal agreed to handle the very large job of handling all the orders, emails and PM’s from BLF so that lumintop could just get a list and ship them out.
So what Neal has been needed for up to this point was to make sure that the lights were 100% ready to ship, all quality control tests were done properly, show them how we wanted all the orders shipped, how to handle customs and all that kind of stuff. Lots and lots of small details.
Now that those are almost finished he is now needed to gather all the orders from BLF and make sure everything is correct and just give Lumintop a list of orders for them to ship out.
He plans to give them all the orders that have been paid up to today’ish and they will start shipping the lights out next week.
When he returns he will catch up on all orders paid while he was gone and send them on to lumintop.
The long and short of it is that this project would not have happened without Neal, he has made sure that the GT has been to our specs and better every step of the way.
He has made sure that the quality control and packing has been done to ensure no issues over the last few weeks. Now he is handling all the order consolidation so that lumintop can simply ship the lights out.
I saw some people mention the donations being used, I can assure they are not being skimmed or anything like that. He will get a share of them naturally when they are distributed later but Neal and Martin have been keeping good records and you can rest assured that the donations are not being abused. So no worries there.
If I didn’t address anything let me know, I was not able to read every post in detail.
Lets move past this now please, no reason for tempers to flair for no reason just before things start happening!
Now some eye candy to show you that things are progressing, this is from Neal yesterday at Lumintop:
The donations are not being touched at this point, once the orders settle down all the donations will be totaled and then distributed to the team, of which Neal will of course get a share at that time.
Lumintop is indeed paying their own employees. Their part is the manual labor, Neals is the technical / management / translation / middleman / overseer / quality control expert / and most importantly at this point order management.
Is this the long version of, don’t expect anything for Christmas?
You should get an email with the tracking number when it ships out, it should send it to your paypal email address but there is a small chance it could go to the email address you replied to Neals email with.
I will double check on this now.
LOL, it seems we do think alike. Each version of the GT is a very different light in the same body. None of them really replace the others, they are just different.
I am also looking forward to seeing the XD16. I am also guarded in my enthusiasm.
Thanks for taking the time to clear this up Texas_Ace!
If you speak/e-mail with Neal, thank him for all the effort he put into this 
The centering ring spaces the reflector higher above the LED, not the LED higher in the light. So putting it on the stock mcpcb would not help this.
You can’t print an mcpcb right now sadly, so the only option is to either mod your own or wait until one is released.
I had contact with customerservice of Lumintop and they confirm the shipment of the GT starts next week, and it might be starting on Monday. Have a nice weekend all!
Better to wait until things die down some to send thank yous to Neal, his inbox is already overflowing right now. After it slows down though, please do show him your gratitude to encourage him to take on future projects.
Kinda, not really, maybe.
Those that are using DHL still have a small shot at getting them before Christmas. Those not using DHL never really had a chance at getting them before Christmas in the first place.
Although knowing how things like this go, I would not plan on getting them until after new years to curb disappointment and be happy if it shows up earlier.
This project is still firmly in a state of “it is done, when it is done”. I am not going to rush these final steps to hopefully get things done a few days quicker at the risk of possible issues down the road. Better to take some extra time now and not have to deal with issues later.
Nvanlaar’s links for page 378.
The Millers Original Group Buy List ending on Nov 11 and #1213
Coyotehawk’s Continuation of the Group Buy List, starting Nov 11 and #1214 - Updated Dec 12
.
Neal’s Paid/Shipping List for first 555 - Updated Dec 8
Neal’s Paid/Shipping List for slots 556 to 1038 - Updated Dec 14.
.
M4D M4X: For all people who want to let us know the value that should be declared on the parcels:
please take the BLF GT customs declaration survey
.
Samsung 35E seem ideal, high mAh and good amps.
M4D M4X is doing a groupbuy, here: GROUPBUY: 8pcs Samsung 35E BUTTON TOP for the BLF GT
I’m glad to find out that Neal is not doing all the packing and shipping personally. That is just too much work for one man. Plus it means more lights can go out per day. :+1:
Thanks TA for this info and the photo of the GT’s. If you watch carefully you can see the GT’s are so big they took a gymhal to arrange this shipment :) :) :)
An extra few weeks, can’t even call it a delay. It’s a big project with so many dependencies. You guys are doing a great job!
TA, one thing a lot of folks have been asking for is to make sure their order is correct on Neal’s shipping list. The list he posted on the 8th is out of date. Do you think he will post an updated list in the next few days?