The Grasshopper

Damn @lwien you making me feel bad for them, they need a get well and good luck fruit basket stat.

@lwien - The voice of reason. Ouch! Sometimes telling it like it is, isn't what everyone wants to hear, especially those that have already invested their $ in this product. I still hope they can make this portable come to production on a large scale other than the few that they are trying out. I would like to know how many actual units that they have currently made?

EDIT - I hope it hasn't turned into a clusterfuck.

I wonder too if a lifetime warranty might be a hard to keep cost wise for the company? They want to make $.

HillaryClinton said:

Damn @lwien you making me feel bad for them, they need a get well and good luck fruit basket stat.

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Yeah, I think they got in over their heads and it may be time to find a venture capital company who can provide the financial and management resources to make GH a viable company.

It's a great fucking design but as of now, that's all it is.

CarolKing said:

@lwien - The voice of reason. Ouch! Sometimes telling it like it is, isn't what everyone wants to hear, especially those that have already invested their $ in this product.

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I have no doubt that there will be some of those backers who will post up here claiming that I'm inappropriately bashing the company but I really don't think that that is what I am doing here. I know that those complaints have surfaced in the past.

what if, at the end of the day, they never deliver?

I hope they return the money to people who pre-ordered, in that case...

Its a fine line we walk, but they have given us so much hope in the updates to not be critical now.
And its just scary all this time it takes to make these parts just right, and in this update we are learning they are coming from many different manufacturers, each one with its minor faults.

Mrbinky said:

what if, at the end of the day, they never deliver?

I hope they return the money to people who pre-ordered, in that case...

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Just paranoid, but it feels like this is slowly leading to if one of these manufacturers has a major problem it will be a great excuse to say its cancelled and say all the money was spent trying to make it and were done because of some major issue that shut down production on some part.

Even if they weren't sunk by that, it would easily add MANY MONTHS if not a year to replace one of these.

And it can happen any time. Not just before launch. After too.

So we wait......

theCerberus said:

Its a fine line we walk, but they have given us so much hope in the updates to not be critical now.
And its just scary all this time it takes to make these parts just right, and in this update we are learning they are coming from many different manufacturers, each one with its minor faults.

Just paranoid, but it feels like this is slowly leading to if one of these manufacturers has a major problem it will be a great excuse to say its cancelled and say all the money was spent trying to make it and were done because of this major excuse.

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I wonder if PayPal would return our money if we eventually claimed non-delivery?

Super bummed about this last update. Things were going so smoothly too. Saw at the end they mentioned more units will be trickling out by the end of the month. Hopefully to the indie gogo backers this time not more mysterious pre campaign investors.

lwien said:

Coming up with a great design is one thing. Being able to produce it and market it on a large scale is quite another.

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I think this is the bigger thing at play here. They spent so much time and that to finally get the final product how they want it to start mass production to get the orders out but that move from producers getting a few handful of parts out at a time to ensure everything is right to making hundreds+ at a time is a big difference and obviously can cause some unexpected complications, which is what happened.most problems he mentioned included about mass-production, because the process simply changes a little when making a crap load more at a time.

Of course this is disappointing and they can still be fairly criticized for being a little too optimistic and less realistic in their updates.

We just gotta hope for the best, that all the parts in the end will be good to go and turn out an awesome pen that starts shipping ASAP (plus Im sure many people have emailed him asking for clarification about the shipping dates and that which I'm hoping to see posted soon lol)

Curses, foiled again!

This is one of my first posts, and the only real question I had. I've been reading this thread for a while, and I pre-ordered a Grasshopper just a few days ago because it seemed like everything was coming together well. I was wondering about the heater issues because I've become somewhat concerned about it @BuzzDanklin on his review of the Grasshopper states that he was told his Grasshopper had a 45w heater, but the specs for the Grasshopper on Grasshoppervape.com say they have 30w heaters. So doesn't that mean that the production units won't heat up nearly as fast as the examples we've seen so far?

I think the increase is due to a software tweak. The heater is apparently able to go beyond 45w if needed.

Wow, so much negativity in this thread!

I think this update is rather encouraging. Sure they are way off with their time estimates, but manufacturing anything in bulk is a bitch. Sorry guys, but unless you're ordering millions of dollars worth of items, a small order like Grasshopper's is NOT a priority for any mass production facility. Getting prototypes is even more of a bitch. Imagine sending multiple emails and calling your vendor rep, only to have them return your call 'next week'.

If I'm not mistaken, the heater is built using 3D printing, correct? If they visited their manufacturer in the "North East", I bet I know which company it was, and I'm not surprised there would be issues with the production of the heaters. I bet it's a complicated part to print, and the manufacturer need's practice printing them to ensure quality (these printers are finicky machines after all). Heck, I just got an email from the same company telling me that my 3D printed steel order will be "delayed" because they're "busy" .

What it sounds like to me, is that the heater manufacturer will be producing a slow trickle of 30 units or so per week, ramping up production over time. I don't see any problem with that? It means they're going to start building and shipping grasshoppers this month? And with such a low number of units, they shouldn't have trouble taking their time to build the first couple hundred pens and learning how to fit everything together.

Props to Grasshopper for being forthcoming with this information, it only happened the other day and they've already disclosed this info, good for them!

Go ahead, cancel your order. Bump your spot in line so other more patient people can get their's faster!

Damn I'm glad I ordered the Stainless Steel version

vapemon said:

well according to their original lie, "some"(none) units were shipped. I also dont uderstand but the "within" the month I think means by the end of april

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baltik said:

Look $hitt happens and building a globally sourced, mass produced product is difficult. However these guys are complete BS artists at best and complete liars at worst.

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It is not acceptable to call them liars. You have no evidence whatsoever that they have said anything in bad faith. Even if you did, under our rules you would have to explain the deception and do it with respect. These statements are inflammatory and any more like them will earn the poster a warning point.

production delays are a common issue as it seems. many successfull crowdfunding campaigns fell beyond their completion goals because of problems and delays on the part of manufcaturers they depended on. i don't understand, why people are pretending, it only happened to the grasshopper. the cloud was in the making for ages, in case everyone forgot already. all the negativity and "told you so"s in this thread.

blankexpression said:

I think the increase is due to a software tweak. The heater is apparently able to go beyond 45w if needed.

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Only if we get the same heater he did. If they've been forced to degrade some of the specs of the production units versus the prototypes, it may not perform the same. And we obviously wouldn't have any right to complain, as they never promised 45 watts. Any more than they promised a leather sleeve with the stainless steel version. Or that it will fit in a 14mm joint with the mouthpiece on, for that matter.

In fact, all of the claims of performance and utility are all just hearsay and they cannot be held to it unless it was officially mentioned in their product description. And they probably can still claim the right to update their specs as needed at any time. Then it would be up to the purchaser to prove which specs were in effect at the time he ordered it.

Campaign backer probably has no recourse at all, as they knew the speculative nature of the offering.

normally, having a single supplier for a critical component is a no-no ... however, one thing in the GH team's favor: china is in a manufacturing contraction right now, so there may be some excess capacity available to secure backup supplier(s) ... once they know how to make a thousand, the next million will be easy. and that kind of operational technology must diffuse through the manufacturing sector like, well, like avian flu.

GH must be way past being embarrassed about missed deadlines.

pass the popcorn.

pakalolo said:

It is not acceptable to call them liars. You have no evidence whatsoever that they have said anything in bad faith. Even if you did, under our rules you would have to explain the deception and do it with respect. These statements are inflammatory and any more like them will earn the poster a warning point.

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I can actually - "The very first units went out last week,and a lot more are on their way."

I am an early bird backer with the holiday upgrade with a top 5 order.. I can unequivocally say that the units (plural) did not go out

A week ago everyone was optimistic with the review from @BuzzDanklin. The video was great too that he made with his friend. I'm sure quite a few folks decided to buy this vape just from the review and video.

I realize FC is a just fraction of this company's customers. I hope they just found out this info about the heater and whatever else that's slowing down production within the last few days. I assume they haven't known this info for a while. They have been to the companies in China the last couple weeks so probably they just found out - I hope.

I thought some units were packed up and ready to be sent out? Folks have been thinking that they should be getting their units any day.

CarolKing said:

A week ago everyone was optimistic with the review from @BuzzDanklin. The video was great too that he made with his friend. I'm sure quite a few folks decided to buy this vape just from the review and video.

I realize FC is a just fraction of this company's customers. I hope they just found out this info about the heater and whatever else that's slowing down production within the last few days. I assume they haven't known this info for a while. They have been to the companies in China the last couple weeks so probably they just found out - I hope.

I thought some units were packed up and ready to be send out?

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I'm sure a lot of the problems were a complete surprise.

Read the book "poorly made in China". It was hilariously depressing...

http://www.economist.com/node/13642306

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs...23/explaining-chinas-quality-control-problems

baltik said:

I can actually - "The very first units went out last week,and a lot more are on their way."

I am an early bird backer with the holiday upgrade with a top 5 order.. I can unequivocally say that the units (plural) did not go out

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No you can't. You don't know that they haven't shipped to others and you can't prove that they didn't. Also, please read what I posted. Even if you could prove it, you can't make inflammatory statements. This isn't up for debate.

If all else fails, I'll pull the trigger on this.


Hakuna matata.

But seriously, I had hope. ._. just gotta roll with it.

Sabe said:

If all else fails, I'll pull the trigger on this.

Hakuna matata.

But seriously, I had hope. ._. just gotta roll with it.

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That grasshopper has a huge

pakalolo said:

No you can't. You don't know that they haven't shipped to others and you can't prove that they didn't. Also, please read what I posted. Even if you could prove it, you can't make inflammatory statements. This isn't up for debate.

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Actually, the Grasshopper folks seem like good people. In my opinion, they were a bunch of engineers with some great ideas, who found out that executing them in the "real world" was a lot harder than it looked on paper. Especially if some of their suppliers were willing to promise the moon to get an order, and figure out the rest later.

I've been there, and it's no fun. Kudos that they have gotten this far, and are still (apparently) trying very hard to deliver on as much of their promises (and our expectations) as possible. I hope they succeed.

Calling them liars, or whatever, is unfair at this point. There might have been some (a lot of) wishful thinking, but I don't see any evidence of intentional deception. Well, at least, not on the part of the Grasshopper team: who knows what their suppliers were up to.