[James Marshall]

Im just jumping into lasers and was looking into Full Sprectrum. I thought they were a Las Vegas company sporting US made machines. Is this not the case?

[QuestSuperElf]

Their website skillfully implies US Made but actually they are rebranded Chinese lasers.

[Exsecratio]

It has been widely reported that even though the machine is ordered from the US it arrives from China.

Implication is the word of the day, you seem to be given enough information to jump to the wrong conclusions without being stopped from doing so.

Very clever and a great business strategy.....until you get found out

best wishes

Dave

[Bec Weir]

My first Full Spectrum machine came directly from China.

It didn't work.

My second one came from Las Vegas, Nevada and " was personally checked by Henry Liu"
(The owner of FSE with a PhD).

It didn't work.

The couple of Retina Engrave cards and motor controll cards to replace non fuctioning cards were sent to me from Las Vegas.

They didn't work.

See a trend?

In my experience, when you get Full Spectrum stuff to work, the Retina Engrave program is great and is constantly being updated and improved (though a bit like Microsoft, you, the customer, are the beta tester for the company. Mostly they get it right).

Customer service from FSE is fantastic, that is until you have problems with their machines and, like I do, tell the Laser community of your problems on a forum that they do not 100% moderate and censor. Then you are a thief and a liar.

Hi Henry!:wave:

[Exsecratio]

(The owner of FSE with a PhD)

I love PhD's, I have one doesn't mean I know bugger all about lasers though as it's in an entirely different subject

best wishes

Dave

[Bigbird48]

OK here's the deal, when you send an email to Full Spectrum one of their support people will get back to you and try to help you, but guess what Henry Liu monitors his employees email, and as soon as you are having problems which are giving the support guys a problem Henry starts sending you emails to you the customer blaming you for the machine having problems. Then you star battling with him. That's how it went for me.
So after almost 4 months of not having a properly working machine and almost 2 month of no machine I threatened to take my case to the Better Business Bureau , The Consumer Protection Agency, and the news media.
I got an email back the next day from Henry saying to bring my machine in on Jan. 10th
I took the machine in and Henry was not there.
Joe and I believe Phil took care of me and I must say they were great. They took my machine said they would get right on it and about 4 hrs later called me told me it was a bad tube and it was ready to go.
Side note" they could not diagnose a bad tube by email because the tube did fire, you could see it flash when hitting test button but there was no power in the tube just a flash"
Joe, Jeff and Phil were very understanding to my situation and were really nice people to work with.
So I have my Laser up and working again hopefully I'll have no more problems. Now I can start bugging all of you here as how to make things LOL .
In conclusion I'd like to say that I like the laser it does a good job when working properly Hey I said that in the beginning If you have problems deal with the support guys and tell Henry to be quite and let his people take care of the problems. All Henry does is get the customers upset and no issues get resolved.

[QuestSuperElf]

Hi Dave,
Not sure if you ment to reply to me or the OP but actually I had thought of purchasing a Full Spectrum but decided to buy a G-Weike instead. One reason was the rude messages that I saw FS post here in response to customers. I had also tried asking FS questions by email very early on and I got some bad attitude response. The Epilog guy I also spoke with early on was Mr Super Customer Service and they sent me a nice brochure and sample and I surely would have purchased their fine machine if the price was a little lower. But finally after a lot of research here and elsewhere I chose a G-Weike LC 1390. I'm still learning to use it and I may post questions and I may have occasional problems but it certainly is a nice machine with a very competitive price.
-Nick

[Exsecratio]

Good choice Nick, Weike's customer support is fantastic (as well as the Weike girls being genuinely nice people)

best wishes

Dave

[Bec Weir]

I love PhD's, I have one doesn't mean I know bugger all about lasers though as it's in an entirely different subject
best wishes
Dave

I added it because it rhymed.

[Bec Weir]

Good choice going for the wiekie machine and giving FSE a miss.

[urbanorchids90]

I am in the Minnesota area, Looking for help on fixing 4 lasers. Of course Full spectrum is not a good company to get help from. I just want my machines working!

[EXLASer]

I am in the Minnesota area, Looking for help on fixing 4 lasers. Of course Full spectrum is not a good company to get help from. I just want my machines working!

Hi ,
what problems they are ? Anybody who knows will be glad to share ideas with you . We 'd like to have a look !

Best regards,
XYZ Machinery

[TLHarrell]

Full Spectrum's support for the hobby version lasers is like 30 days. It either works out of the box or it doesn't. I had some issues getting mine up and running, mostly because of my outdated computer. Their email support was fantastic. But keep in mind that the majority of repairs, you are going to have to get your hands dirty, or find somebody familiar with the stuff to help you out. When my tube died, I installed the new one myself. It's not that hard. It actually took longer to unwrap the new tube than it did to install it. When my power supply was on the fritz, I installed it myself. That was pretty easy. Try to keep your expectations realistic. They are not set up for the hobby level machines to be dropped off at their doorstep en masse for repairs, especially without paying for extended support. Having them change the tube for you well after the initial warranty period was beyond what they offer.

Their 4th generation hobby laser is built in China. It is better than the ones you would buy for $800 on EBay as a lot of the additions are specified by them to be included. Their new 5th generation hobby laser is entirely built in house at their Las Vegas location. They are actually quite backlogged with constructing and shipping lasers at this time. They are working on locating people to do support in various areas for them. I can understand some difficulty in communicating with them as they literally are swamped.

That said, I will be getting set up soon as the support representative for the south San Francisco Bay Area. I will be getting set up with a new 5th generation hobby laser for those interested in seeing one up close. I will be doing sales, support, troubleshooting and repairs and will be carrying repair parts, some spare tubes, etc. If anybody needs help, feel free to contact me with your questions and I'll do my best to help you out. Understand that I'll be doing this evenings and weekends, so if you email me I'll probably answer during those times.

-Thomas Harrell
White Light Laser
Morgan Hill, CA
whitelightlaserengraving at gmail

[epilotdk]

I agree that swapping a tube or a PSU is not hard but there are people who unfortunately haven't got a clue. Whether they are expecting too much when they buy a hobby grade Chinese laser or not I don't know but it is down to the seller to make sure people know exactly what they are getting for their money. It sounds to me like FS is not doing a good job at informing the customer in their eagerness to make a sale and thereby damaging their own business.

[TLHarrell]

Their website actually kind of sucks. I mentioned it to them, on the phone last week. Some of the photos of the new machine are corrupted, having a lot of white crap all over the place. Once I get my new 5th gen unit, I'll be taking replacement photos for them to use on their site. I'm hoping somebody there will be able to set aside a short time to update their site at that point. I'll certainly work on them a bit in that regard. The site is not super clear and could use some work. I will look into it and see if they'll take my comments and fix it up.

Despite the sometimes rather hostile comments about the company, apparently they're doing quite well. I think they have a good product, but they're understaffed a bit and not everyone there is good at all of the necessary tasks. Engineers don't make good webmasters. Engineers also don't make good salespeople, nor are very good at customer service. They are a small company with the bare minimum of staff and are having teething problems, that much is obvious.

[epilotdk]

Teething problems? How long have they been in business? Several years as far as I know. After that long I'd say it more more incompetence than teething problems - or they just don't care and are happy with sales as they are.

[TLHarrell]

I think if they're selling enough lasers to keep themselves well fed, then the room full of engineers are happy to hang out and play with lasers, code new revisions to the software, and come up with other things that engineers do. They could probably do quite well to hire some expensive management guy to hang out wearing a suit, drink Starbucks coffee and take care of customers. I don't know if they have the budget for that at this time. I think all they really have right now is engineers, assemblers and some girl to answer the phones.

[Exsecratio]

I think all they really have right now is engineers, assemblers and some girl to answer the phones

What about the machine shop? what about the stamping shop? (die stamps) what about the electronics shop? what about the R&D guys?

Surely if they "Build the 5th generation lasers in the US" then they will be manufacturing parts?

If not then they are simply assemblers much like many other companies.

Some of the photos of the new machine are corrupted, having a lot of white crap all over the place.

In pretty much any engineering shop (sorry, my bad) assembly shop if one thing shows a lack of attention to detail or quality control then it tends to follow the rest of the business operates with the same attitude.

Hell if anybody can't put what amounts to a Lego kit together from basic instructions and get it right I wouldn't be holding out a lot of hope for them.

apparently they're doing quite well.

I'm not surprised, if I could offer an item for sale then effectively wash my hands of any problems I'd be doing really well too. Sadly here in the UK we have something called the "Sale Of Goods Act" it tends to prevent shoddy business practices not to mention the fact I rather like my customers, they give me money to do something I enjoy

best wishes

Dave

[Bigbird48]

Teething problems? How long have they been in business? Several years as far as I know. After that long I'd say it more more incompetence than teething problems - or they just don't care and are happy with sales as they are.

I think a couple of the people that work there are great and care about the customer but Henry is not a customer orientated person all he cares about is the money and he'll blame everybody but himself for all their short comings. They have been there quite a while and they say they have sold thousands of machines, so its not teething problems. I think TL is getting into more then he's bargained for. He let Henry sweet tal;k him into something. Hope you don't get burned in the end.

[Bigbird48]

What about the machine shop? what about the stamping shop? (die stamps) what about the electronics shop? what about the R&D guys?

Surely if they "Build the 5th generation lasers in the US" then they will be manufacturing parts?

If not then they are simply assemblers much like many other companies.



In pretty much any engineering shop (sorry, my bad) assembly shop if one thing shows a lack of attention to detail or quality control then it tends to follow the rest of the business operates with the same attitude.

Hell if anybody can't put what amounts to a Lego kit together from basic instructions and get it right I wouldn't be holding out a lot of hope for them.



I'm not surprised, if I could offer an item for sale then effectively wash my hands of any problems I'd be doing really well too. Sadly here in the UK we have something called the "Sale Of Goods Act" it tends to prevent shoddy business practices not to mention the fact I rather like my customers, they give me money to do something I enjoy

best wishes

Dave

I think for the most part they just assemble stuff they get from other places, there is no machine shop or anything like that they don't make anything in house as far as I could see.