I was wondering if anybody knows when the 6-8 week ship schedule was posted on the x controller page? When I ordered my machine back in May I was given a backorder / ship date of June 1st which has come and gone, and I have just noticed now it says 6-8 weeks so I was just curious as to how long that has been up there. Do I have 3 more weeks to wait? 5? 7?
Inventables have decided to get the product certified further by UL which extended the times by 4-6 weeks. Should now be shipping mid to late July.
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Interesting, does that UL certification extend back to the ones already shipped?
Thank you for the information.
Any new news on when the x-controller will start shipping?
Soon I hope, i’ve been waiting since first of May for mine. ordered it together with my machine in place of the stock electronics so the last 3 months i’ve had a machine sitting I cant do anything with. Am trying to remain patient, but slowly becoming annoyed with how long it is taking with the ship date keep being pushed out.
JUL 20, 2016 | 09:05AM CDT
Jeffrey Ma replied:
Hello Curtis,
Unfortunately, it seems like there might be a longer wait than initially expected. We’ve recently received a batch of X-Controllers from our supplier and were preparing to have them shipped but upon further inspection, many of the units were faulty. Since we do not want to send our customers faulty X-Controllers, we’ve delayed the X-Controllers to work with the supplier and do some further testing. I apologize for the long wait and I thank you for your patience.
Let me know if you need anything in the meantime.
Regards,
Jeffrey
This is an email response I got 4 days ago.
I am waiting on one too , to get my machine up & going…thinking about cancelling & just going the regular way even though I’ve already bought the extra cable & wired it for the x-controller…will need to think more on it…
I am in the same boat … oh well, will live vicariously through the forum while i wait …
I got a similar email to the one @CurtisCummings posted. The individual told me that they were still hoping for a late August ship date but realistically it may end up being mid to late September depending on resolution to the non-conformances in the batch of controllers they had to return.
I just emailed asking for an update and also asked why we’re having to ask and not being told of a multi-month delay.
I just placed my order for the Xcontroller, fully aware that I would have to wait for it. Just confused as to why if I’m waiting for the device that won’t be shipped for weeks maybe a couple months did Inventables charge my account already? I can earn interest just as well as they can during that time ;).
I understand the delay due to problems with the hardware coming from your supplier and that it’s currently out of your hands, that’s entirely understandable, but is there a possibility your team could put a note on the X-Controller product page to provide updates regarding the delay, progress on resolution of the problems, and projected ship dates? I think that would go a long way in making the wait easier on anyone who purchased the controller already 
As always thank you for your help!
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Hi @AndreJoubert I am sorry for the delay in responding on this.
When we tested the first batch that came in in our QA lab we had 100% failure rate. Obviously this was unacceptable and we couldn’t ship them. We gave this feedback to the supplier and they are working on root cause analysis and corrective action. In addition we executed a recovery plan with our current supplier and with an alternative supplier. We are in the middle of executing that plan right now.
We will give anyone that ordered 100% refund if they wish and anyone that keeps their order $100 gift card.
I am really sorry for the delay this is not what I was expecting. Ultimately it’s my fault for setting poor expectations on when we could ship. I was a bit too optimistic because the pilot batch and prototype batches functioned great.
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@Zach_Kaplan As one of those who is waiting on the X-Controller, I do applaud you. You could have easily just passed them along to us from the supplier and not cared one bit about the end users. But as you have demonstrated time and time again (and the rest of the Inventables crew), you do take great steps to ensure that we are receiving the top-notch service that makes this company one that we all want to continue seeing succeed.
Appreciate you taking the time to respond to us in a timely manner. Keep up the good work!
Ron
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@Zach_Kaplan I concur with everything Ron said above. Thank you for your response and for keeping an eye on this issue.
The engineering firm I work at deals with these kinds of supplier issues all the time so don’t feel like any blame should fall on you, some suppliers simply don’t understand the meaning of quality and only care to make a quick buck.
I will certainly be maintaining my order and I think I speak for most, if not all, of us who have the controller on order that your response alone goes a long way in ensuring we aren’t forgotten and for that I thank you. The support from yourself and the rest of the Inventables team continues to exceed all expectations so despite hiccups such as this along the way I think you can rest assured you have customers for life in just about all of us.
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@Zach_Kaplan I just wanted to say thank you to you and your team for the recent email regarding the update on expected ship dates for the X-Controller! I’ll need to start assembling faster now so I can get my baby carving ready for when it arrives 
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As someone who has been waiting to order an X controller but have not yet purchased it, reading this started to make me a bit disappointed in the results of the product and how many people I was seeing with machines and no way to use them…then I read that inventables is giving a $100 credit to people who do not cancel their orders who have been waiting on recieving it.!!!
That reminded me just why I chose a product from inventables!!! Customer service is amazing! And I truly believe they care when u have a problem!!!
I’ve been waiting on a product from another company, and all they do is make excuses and clearly lie about dates etc. I don’t think this will ever happen here!!!
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To be honest I was disappointed at first when I heard about the delay after ordering my controller around the end of May but in reality the simple fact that whenever you ask the Inventables team for an update they respond promptly and give you useful insight rather than saying “be patient” makes a huge difference.
For anyone reading this topic and thinking this delay reflects poorly on Inventables that simply is not the case. Given that their batch orders through their supplier are most likely low volume and not on a consistent schedule (aka waiting for enough orders to build up before they submit to the supplier) the supplier undoubtedly gives them a lower priority.
In this case the supplier is fully responsible for the delay due to their quality issues and the fact that Inventables recognized that and sent back the product and began even working with a second supplier shows they care about the quality of the product they deliver. Unless your company owns its own printed wiring assembly fabrication facility these issues are bound to happen and unfortunately for smaller companies they will suffer those issues more often than the same client from the same supplier who is pushing orders of thousands of boards on a regular schedule. The little guy simply gets picked on.
Just remember that these same issues affect large companies like Dell, Apple, Samsung etc. but what sets Inventables apart in this case is the way they handled the issue. They didn’t push poor quality out the door simply to make a sale, instead they recognized the problem and took action to resolve it and keep communication open with their customers.
Believe me, I’m not looking to sing praise here or win brownie points with anyone, I simply don’t want people who aren’t familiar with the world of prototyping and manufacturing to develop the wrong idea and blame Zach and his team for this issue.
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Hey Everyone,
I am really sorry about the delay. It was a hard choice but I didn’t think it was right to ship them or rework them and ship them. Everyone is depending on us so we decided not to ship when we saw the high number of failures. We have 2 different companies working on production batches right now. All the other components passed so when we get this final part we’ll be able to resume shipping.
I take full responsibility for this and will offer anyone that ordered a full refund at any time even if you get it and don’t like it.
Regards,
Zach
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