I know there has been some issues with these guys over the past few months regarding their level of communication. However, my order was placed 4 February 2018 and expected to receive no type of order confirmation. Sucked it up and kept moving. I have contacted them three times. Once by phone, second by their online support and third by phone.
The third time was today. Marking the start of week 6 of my order. I wanted to get an update on shipping, no answer. Called back about 10 min later (was on lunch so I figured I give it a second shot) no answer. Figured o well, try back later one.
No more than 30 min goes by and I receive and email from ArtFully Acrylic. 1) Apologizing they missed my call 2)Assumed I was calling about my order status and included that information and 3)Letting me know my lid would be shipped out in the next few days.
Just wanted to drop my two cents in and let people know these guys seem like they bust hump to get our "custom" lids out and seems they do their best with customer communication. For those having issues, give them a chance to get back with you or keep reaching out. Patience and understanding goes a long way.
Looking froward to receiving my lid in the next week or so and I will update on the quality of product when its received.
Jon, thanks for the post letting everyone know about your experience. We greatly appreciate your feedback and insights. So happy to hear that you love your lid!!
We love talking to our customers on the phone when we can. When the CNC and other equipment are all running it gets quite loud in the shop and the office. Many times we cannot hear the phone and/or it's too loud to carry on a proper conversation so we do indeed depend heavily on email for customer communication. Email is also preferred where it pertains to any order related specs/data such as light mount dims or changes to the original order details so we can ensure it attaches to the primary order programming notes and is accurately relayed.
In regards to the 'crease' in the mesh...We receive the mesh from our supplier precut in large sections and boxed in common carrier size appropriate boxes for shipping. The actual manufactured continuous roll of mesh is 14' wide, 1200' long, and weighs about 1000lbs. The mesh we use is exactly the same manufacturer you would find available from Marine Depot, BRS, and other suppliers. This is intentional to ensure future easy access to replacement netting if it were ever damaged on your lid. The majority of these shipping folds are 'erased' after screening with a little heat from a heat gun. If you have a heat gun the little crease/wave can likely be 'erased' in a matter of seconds (extended high heat would melt the mesh). Blow dryer's only get to about 130deg so are not hot enough. You need heat in the range of 220-350 on average to soften the mesh plastic a bit which allows the mesh to 'relax' and lay flat. The mesh has pretty good positional memory so should come out without much fuss.
As for the 1/8" gap on sides of frame that does fit within spec. Most lid master files are configuredd to provide ~1/16" of elbow room on all sides of the frame. When we establish a master file for a lid we don't have yet in our system we do so by collecting physical internal measurements from the first 3-6 customers. Those various measurements are compared to determine any level of variance in the tank's historical dimensions. The master file is locked in at a dimension that will reliably fit within the manufacturing variance determined from the pooled data.
I have to assume these lid companies operate on a small scale, with only a few employee's. Combine that with being completely inundated with orders, and you get unreasonably long wait times for a product that probably takes no more than a few hours to make.
I can't speak for any other companies, but we personally cannot disagree with anything you said as it's pretty much on point. In today's world of internet ordering we have all grown accustomed to receiving things within a few days so naturally the needed lead time for our lids can be a little hard to swallow for some.
What many don't consider is that 85%-90% of our orders are customized specifically to the customer's needs with specific modifications being made to the lid file before cutting on the CNC which makes it unreasonable to precut lids before being ordered. Lids that are 'stock' and don't need specialized programming time generally ship 1-2 weeks sooner than those requiring changes. Those stock lids mostly come in under your production time projection of a few hours when all steps are accounted for. Those with custom cutouts can take substantially longer by the time they are heading out the door depending on the complexity of the setup and the amount of follow-up/collaboration needed with the customer.
When we setup sheets on the CNC, we have to nest lids on the sheet as efficiently as possible to minimize waste as the Lexan material we use is substantially more expensive than comparable thickness acrylic. Look at it as a giant, expensive, game of Tetris. Sometimes a lid is too big to fit and has to wait for another sheet. Sometimes a lid would waste a substantial amount of material that's also too small for other lids currently ready for cutting. So, we have to find a way to rearrange the lids on the board to give us a better option or source another order that may have not yet been programmed, but is for an oddball tank that just happens to have optimal dimensions to fill the needed space.
