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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

VFS Inclino, Imperio, Origo News ??

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Adrian T. said:
Just received my repaired Impero/Inclino kit. First tests are very encouraging. Everything that didn't work before seems to work now, wired as well as wireless. :smile:

Only thing I'm still a bit irritated by is the standby noise of the motor. It sounds like it's running all the time, even when the gear is not moving. Is this normal?
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Adrian, we will take care of your problem if its out of the norm. You wont be stuck with something that is louder than someone elses motor.

Tony Lorentzen said:
As Curt writes. We're in the process of trying to figure out what's wrong with my unit. I've sent him a video that shows the problem and hopefully he'll be able to come up with solutions for the problems I'm having.
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Tony, I will have an answer to you soon. I am wading through 4 days worth of voicemails and emails.

Brigham Edgar said:
I'm too pissed off about this new posting of housing setbacks to right a big post, first i bloody heard of it. Please someone direct me to where i missed that i am gonna have to wait yet many more untold months until some legal problem in Asia is sorted? Or have i misunderstood?
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Just got word from our broker yesterday - the tooling is shipping out this week from Asia. This will ensure that we will have the capacity to make all the parts we need using US based suppliers that are within 15 miles of our shop instead of 1/2 way around the world. All second ops on the parts will be done by us. I ran a few billet housing parts on the CNC and they came out great so we are running several dozen and get them plated as soon as the plating guys open back up on the 4th.

Michael Panfeld said:
...

BIG POST...

CVB, tell me if I have misinterpreted your postings...
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Michael, I'm not going to get into specifics but I will say that I have A LOT of personal income invested in this venture and a sizable amount of the funds generated from the orders invested in parts. There were A LOT of expenses that we had to pay upfront. We have A LOT of parts. If we get a mass exodus its obvious that that would be a bad thing. We are managing things to the best of our ability and WILL SHIP EVERY ORDER. I will not cut and run as that not in my nature. We have dozens of amazing customers backing us up morally and its for those customers that give us encouragement on a daily basis that I want to make this company succeed.


Rowland Kirishima said:
The real unfortunate thing about this whole ordeal is that Curt keeps us giving us false hopes... I would have cancelled ages ago if I really knew that it would take this long... I mean, 6 months delay is acceptable but not 18 months (or longer). When I ordered, I had no idea that this product was just a concept. On their web page, it clearly stated that the product was ready to ship in 3 weeks. I'm not gonna get into details but they had all these excuses that lead me to believe that the product was almost ready... I mean, I asked for a refund this summer but changed my mind when they announced that the product is finally ready and that the backorder shipment will be finished by November. Then comes this housing problem... If this isn't called a SCAM, what is?

I want to believe in your product but man...you are really pushing it.
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Rowland I have been giving updates that are the best estimate I can give at the time. The product wasn't in development when I started taking orders. We have had a series of setbacks that I did not foresee and have made some serious errors in estimating the prowess of our manufacturing arm in Asia. I had working units back in May of last year and from bad harmonic drives that were too noisy to bad housings to several other issues I have been doing the best I can to roll with the punches and fix the issues one at a time. You are on the tail end of the orders and are likely one of the last orders to ship out. That probably means you are going to cancel but thats totally up to you. We are pushing as hard as possible to get these orders out in the order they came in.


ziad said:
CVB said:
Would be handy to put a list together to let people know when they will be receiving their sets, based on their serial number and time of order. Seems a bit strange that you have made a muddle of it all and released 70 units not in the correct order!

Would be nice if you could let me know when I would expect to receive mine, and if you don't know when you would be able to refund my money.

I understand if you chose to ignore this post, but an answer would be great, as you have not answered any of email for the past few months.

Z

P.S. Merry Christmas
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Ziad, I was under the impression that you asked for a refund. As soon as we get a refund request we put you on the list with the others and pay out in the order we receive the request. If you don't want the refund and would rather have us ship your order then we can have yours out as early as next week being that you ordered within the first week that we opened online orders. Shoot me an email and let me know which way you want to proceed.


We are trying to answer emails and voice mails as much as possible. If you need something then the best bet is to call... if you get voice mail then LEAVE A MESSAGE. We don't have 20 people on the phones and contrary to popular belief I cannot talk to 3 callers at once. Leave your contact info and we will get back to you via email or call you if necessary. I hope you guys realize that we want to make this work. We want to be a company that you will respect and are going to succeed. I am very optimistic about whats on the road ahead.
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Hummm....
Thank
 
Thanks CVB: I know you are not a cut & run guy. You are putting yourself through a meat grinder I am sure. That said, when you start warning people that shuttering your doors is a distinct possibility in 2010, my questions are a natural result.

I have to say to Brigham and to Rowland that the housing issue is not a new issue. CVB mentioned it to me in a phone call over 7 months ago. I believe he posted about it as well about the same time.
 
Michael Panfeld said:
I have to say to Brigham and to Rowland that the housing issue is not a new issue. CVB mentioned it to me in a phone call over 7 months ago. I believe he posted about it as well about the same time.
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To be honest i can't be bothered searching back through hundreds of posts some seven months ago for little bit of information about housing issues. A long time ago i knew there were issues but that was a long time ago and there has been no word of this anywhere lately, except for now of course. I have calmed down a bit...due to waiting well into my second year, and that it's just part and parcel of this ride. I still believe Curt will one day get my unit to me but i am still thinking it's many months away...how could you think anything else. But my biggest concern now is that if the unit is going to be able to perform on a professional shoot? And then secondly if Curt can hold out his business to be able to service these in the future. It's not like owning a FF3 that will go on forever and you may never need to service it. It's a very high tech piece of technology and if Curt isn't there it will be a paperweight if ANYTHING goes wrong. And this is probably the second worst situation to not even getting one in the first place!

I'm sticking with VF through this now, i made the decision to wait it out and not bail out...it was a very close call. Every one of us that does this will help the cause but i understand any who pull out. But for this Curt...i expect at least one cold beer from you when i pass through to NAB and also having been using my VF FF for at least a couple of months!
 
CVB said:
I hope you guys realize that we want to make this work. We want to be a company that you will respect and are going to succeed. I am very optimistic about whats on the road ahead.
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We realize it already! Just finish up those preorders so we can order ours! :biggrin5:
 
Curt, can you please advise/contact me re my order you say you have been catching up on emails for the last 4 days. I believe in your product I even had one for a short amount of time before i returned it for repair in MAY that is 7 months ago. Caroline was in contact with me but I have not heard from anyone since SEPTEMBER when I was told i would have it in a week.
To be honest my patience is wearing very thin especially when I get no response via email and no one in December seemed to pick up a phone at VFS nor return my voicemail. I have tried to be supportive but it is starting to become very frustrating.
PLEASE RESPOND

Tony Gardiner
order #2008032431
 
Michael Panfeld said:
Thanks CVB: I know you are not a cut & run guy. You are putting yourself through a meat grinder I am sure. That said, when you start warning people that shuttering your doors is a distinct possibility in 2010, my questions are a natural result.
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Context of Curt's response was people being upset that he was talking about new products to new customers on the Canon 5D forum.

Essence of his point was that failure to continue developing new products at this stage would be problematic for long term viability.

As he is not looking at making much revenue from the current Inclino/Impero orders he needs to be thinking additional revenue sources, especially if he already has much of the product already developed (ie. the Impero being adapted to focus 5d cameras). If he can sell a bunch of essentially already designed and currently shipping Impero knobs to a whole new customer base then that's a good thing for us down the road when we're lining up for additional motors and the MOCO heads.

In other words, the point wasn't that he's worried about shutting his doors in 2010; its that he will continue to develop products (and as he's already demonstrated, take the time it takes to overcome obstacles and deliver a pro product) because Viewfactor will be a viable business for a long time.

Communication has been poor, but I've been real impressed by character. Same thing that helped me stick it out for the year I had to wait for RED.

p
 
paul engstrom said:
Context of Curt's response was people being upset that he was talking about new products to new customers on the Canon 5D forum.

Essence of his point was that failure to continue developing new products at this stage would be problematic for long term viability.

As he is not looking at making much revenue from the current Inclino/Impero orders he needs to be thinking additional revenue sources, especially if he already has much of the product already developed (ie. the Impero being adapted to focus 5d cameras). If he can sell a bunch of essentially already designed and currently shipping Impero knobs to a whole new customer base then that's a good thing for us down the road when we're lining up for additional motors and the MOCO heads.

In other words, the point wasn't that he's worried about shutting his doors in 2010; its that he will continue to develop products (and as he's already demonstrated, take the time it takes to overcome obstacles and deliver a pro product) because Viewfactor will be a viable business for a long time.

Communication has been poor, but I've been real impressed by character. Same thing that helped me stick it out for the year I had to wait for RED.

p
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When you call viewfactor curtiss will personally pick up the phone in 90% of all times. So communication is very possible :-)
 
axel ebermann said:
When you call viewfactor curtiss will personally pick up the phone in 90% of all times. So communication is very possible :-)
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This is rather true.

Emmanuel
 
I stand corrected on communication--I should have written "forum communication"

thanks guys,
p
 
Hey I'm like number #40, order on the first day and have been waiting for almost 2 years if not longer... shouldn't I have my unit by now?
 
Curran Giddens said:
Hmm... I guess you meant the next next couple weeks.
:blink:
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Curran...you didn't actually believe that would happen did you? Don't worry, i know you didn't.

I vote for "in the next couple of weeks" as the new most hated phrase, taking the mantle from "game changer"!
:beatdeadhorse5:
 
Brigham Edgar said:
Curran...you didn't actually believe that would happen did you? Don't worry, i know you didn't.
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No, no i didn't. Mainly because I never threatened to cancel.

But if I were in the exact same position I'm sure that if I had any units to ship they would first go to the people saying, "ship it by xx or else..."

Also, my order is for 3 motors.
 
I ordered mine on the first day, within the first few hours and was #40.
I've been getting emails from Curt saying my unit will ship out in the next week, for the past 1.5 years... needless to say this is getting boring and annoying to know they sent out orders not based on the queue.... crazy way to do business :-(
 
Either I'm very unlucky or this is a very fragile system. I've had 3 systems sent to me and all of them have had some major issue. First system didn't have the extended antenna and a very weak and noisy motor. Next system had the extended antenna and a revised motor design, but the encoder of the Impero had a slight drift that made it unusable and the motors were still too weak. Latest system I got didn't work in wireless mode, had seating-problems with the focus rings and the three motors were still having problems with stiff lenses that no other systems are having problems with. I feel bad for Curt that he has to pay to ship me stuff time and time again, but he genuinely wants to fix this which I'm grateful for. I also knew at the beginning that I'd essentially be a beta-tester so who am I to bitch ;-)

Nevertheless - I've long decided to not go for the refund-gun anymore. It's not fair to Curt to keep threatening him with a refund. That's why I've decided to use the system for a slightly different purpose while Curt gets his product-act together and cleans up the glitches (which I'm sure he will). I'm making a motion control rig with the motors and a Glidetrack-like setup. I'm developing an app to control thing too and I'll post more when there's something to post :-)
 
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