Ti PD Condolences Thread

Well, the bad news from Don was waiting for me when I awoke this morning. And I have to say that this really does suck. What especially bothers me is that it's not like I wasn't here last night. I turned down Saturday night plans so I could be online at 10PM. And I've sold a couple of lights recently to make room for this one, confident that there was sufficient supply to meet the initial (at least) demand.

Don states that all these lights were spoken for within a half-hour. Actually, I think they were gone in less than 20 minutes. My "email sent" post here is time-stamped 24 minutes after Don opened the thread, and I posted that note a couple of minutes after I had actually sent the email. Ironically, I "wasted" five minutes making sure that I had my email to Don right, especially my bin code prefs--I spent extra time giving him a descending order of four different bins, so that I wouldn't get shut out because a given bin wasn't available. Hah.

Given the number of people who were shut out so quickly, the fact that others will be receiving 2 or 3 Ti PDs (or possibly more for all I know) is difficult to justify. One thing's for sure: with the supply of these lights going to far fewer people, resale prices will be insane.

Don, I know you're the last guy in the world who wants to disappoint your buyers, or to create an insane stampede around the sale of one of your lights. So if/when there's another run of these lights I would IMPLORE you to go to a prepaid, pre-order system which would allow you to build to meet demand without any financial risk to you.

The Ti PDs apparently were sold out in LESS THAN 13 MINUTES. Flashgreenie has posted that, per his note from Don, he was the last person to get in on this build, and the time-stamp of his "order sent" confirmation here was 13 mins after Don opened the thread. Geez, Louise.

I had to work last night and I wasn't able to get to a computer till two hours after the opening so i obvisiously got shut out. I've been looking forward to this light for a year now but I knew they would go quick. I don't mind if people bought more then one. i kinda wanted two of them myself. I do however reserve the right to curse out the first person theat sells his light on BST for double the price

First off, i really feel for everyone who diddnt make the list, I know of the excitement building for this, and it has been a fun ride so far. What i would like to point out is that don posted his "sales post" Here
days ahead of time, so everyone could be prepared. This may have not been the reason for everyones misfortune, but it sure would have hellped to be ahead of the game. It may have seamed a bit silly then to Pre-Write your order, but after the dust has settled, i think it was the best bet for everyone. Don said he would prob do more of these in the future, so all hope is NOT lost yet.

At this point and having used the Ti PD lately, I see no reason this light should be limited to one run but time and interest will tell.

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Good luck on future sales :candle:

Wow. Honestly, I am very very surprised and awed by the response to this order thread. I never would have anticipated this. And I guess I am not alone.

Don said he was going to do another run of Ti's so for those who missed this one, there is still a chance of getting one.

I was the second person to post my "email sent" post and here is what I did to be near the top of the line. Maybe it would help future buyers.

Since Don posted his order requirements a few days before the sale, I composed my email accordingly and saved it in my "drafts" file. About 15 minutes before zero hour, I opened my Avant browser to the McGizmo page and set an automatic refresh rate of every 30 seconds (Avant is free BTW). Then I watched for the new sales thread to appear and it hit 5 minutes before I expected. I made a quick check for any changes and fired off the email which was already opened on my desktop. Somehow his Dogliness beat me by seconds.

I would love to see a count of how many people missed out on this.

Another issue to keep in mind is IF Don does another Ti PD run, a lot of the pent up demand has been taken care of on this initial / secondary offering ( if you count the original McLux III Ti). The McGizmo page was taking forever to reload because so many people were doing the exact same thing, refreshing every 30 seconds if not sooner. I know it took me almost 10 minutes to get my response / post to the order thread to load AFTER I had sent the email.

IF Don offers another run, I am pretty sure that a number of us that were lucky enough to get at least one in this last offering will be in line for another one ( I know I would buy at least one more). I know it has been suggested that Don accept prepaid orders in order to ascertain just how many he needs to have made. In the past Don hasn't done that due to the lack of control of some of his parts fabricators, but maybe given how much time he had to spend sorting out emails and inputting them into his spread sheet he might reconsider. Possibly Don could establish a 1 week window for orders and payment prior to ordering the necessary components. While it makes great sense, Don has always carried the burden on his own shoulders to deliver a great product after the components were ready for assembly. That is part of what makes him such a great builder.

Kiessling said:

Wow. Honestly, I am very very surprised and awed by the response to this order thread. I never would have anticipated this. And I guess I am not alone.

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I am with you there, Bernie. I really thought with 85 available, it would take awhile. 13 minutes?

I didn't have anything pre-prepared, I suppose I was just lucky enough to have read the post early and fired off my e-mail for one in time.

A big Thank You to The Don :thumbsup: not only for the light, but also by letting us all know the timing and order details way ahead of time. Can't be much fairer than that IMO.

I basically did the same thing as you rev11, but manually. I had 3 windows open, one on CPF to see how many people were viewing the McGizmo forum. (71 at time of Sales thread!).

The second window was on the McGizmo forum, I was refreshing every 15 seconds or so.

The third window was a E-mail to Don that I pre-typed, all I had to to was hit send.

So I refreshed, saw the sales thread, skimmed it briefly, then sent my E-mail. Next I posted on the sales thread. I think I was 4th or 5th.

To all who missed out, I am very sorry.

All this for......a flashlight.

Psm and Rev11, I as well did that, and it paid off! I had my laptop next to my PC to handle the email end of things, and the PC was to refresh cpf. I couldnt imagine trying to use dial up. I wassnt going to use the CPF email feature because i knew the Server would lag 10 minutes or so before so i knew i had to use another option. It would have been a true race if don diddnt tell us what the thread would have looked like, or when he would decide to post it. That would have been a crazy event, as if this wassnt wild enough allready!
-bobby

Blindspot said:

All this for......a flashlight.

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Correction, not just a flashlight, this is THE light

nakahoshi said:

Correction, not just a flashlight, this is THE light

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Sic transit gloria.

I had a similar arrangement, with the email composed ahead of time. Of course, about three minutes after I sent it I wondered - is Don's Pacbell account being read/used in Hawaii? Eek! So I quickly composed and sent him another email via the CPF link, thinking I might have lost out due to poor planning. Which act only added to the confusion, I'm sure, as Don received duplicate emails. I felt like a dummy for sending two, but I honestly wasn't sure which would be read...

Well this explains why CPF was so damn slow last night! I had completely forgotten about the big sale.

charlesn said:

Given the number of people who were shut out so quickly, the fact that others will be receiving 2 or 3 Ti PDs (or possibly more for all I know) is difficult to justify. One thing's for sure: with the supply of these lights going to far fewer people, resale prices will be insane.

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All's fair, but love and war.....and Ti-PD purchases..... :naughty:


WP

Regentag said:

Sic transit gloria.

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...you left off the important ending: sic transit gloria mundi - for flashlights are only transient things of this world. It's the emotion and feeling we put in them that makes them objects of glory.

nakahoshi said:

Correction, not just a flashlight, this is THE light

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Eh. The light of the week. Maybe of the month. Sure, it's a nice light, but it's still just a light. Doesn't break any new ground, really. Just Ti. My bike frame is Ti, but I don't worship it.

You don't need to worship this light either ... just use it and take advantage of the ti.
If you don't see this as an advantage there is no need getting one. Can save you a lot of $$ if you go for the cheaper aluminium alternative.

For some of us the ti-body and interchangeable heat-sink portion and driver is the last step to make an already groundbreaking light concept "perfect" (in nowadays technical limitations) ... and more open for future developments than most other lights.
Which is good considering the price.

bernie