Arc-LS Update:
Last night I updated the website with an estimated ship time of April for the Arc-LS. I also stopped the website from taking any further Arc-LS orders and stopped taking order from our distributors.
So what is going on?
First, this only affects the Arc-LS.
Back when we where working on the LS prototypes, I was advised by my business partner and other people to not produce the light at this time. They said it would stunt the growth of the company by soaking up valuable operating capital. They advised that we had sufficient room for expansion with the Arc-AAA alone.
In hindsight, I realize they where right. Being an idealist and flashlight junky, I really wanted to and still do want to produce the Arc-LS, in spite of what people say.
It has cost a lot of time and dollars. More than I thought it would, that's for sure. And it still is sucking up the time. History is replete with stories of guys and their grand projects that either ruin them or transform them (Captain Ahab, Mozart, blah blah, etc).
Truthfully, in a moment of regret, I did consider coming on here and telling you that the Arc-LS was canceled indefinitely, or the price was raised, etc.
But... Heheh. We've past the point of no return. The Arc-LS is making money now and we have considerable funds wrapped up in Arc-LS related assets. So to stop now would end up slowing the company growth further (So there!).
So we are not going to cancel the Arc-LS.
My merry band of sailors finally did ship a small amount of Arc-LS kits earlier this month. We also will be shipping another small batch early next week.
And we will continue with improvements and regular shipments.
Which brings me to the changes to website with the new delivery date, etc. What has happened there is I did the math and realized that at our current rate of production, it will take us about 4-6 months to fulfill our back orders. That will not do! So first, we stopped accepting any more orders. That is a no-brainer. Second, we moved the ship date way out to give us more time. We actually will ship some of the orders before then (like the shipment going out this coming week) but, the bulk of the orders will take longer than that.
The yields and therefore shipment sizes will increase over time. Improving the LS production line is taking a large amount of my time. For every improvement we are making to the flashlight itself, there are three other improvements we are making to the production line. This is mostly to improve quality and yields.
We are making some improvements to the Arc-LS immediately. I have already ordered new retainers to address the 123 issues. I am supposed to have samples to evaluate next week of the new retainer design. Once these have been tested, we will ship them out with the new units and as replacements for the units already shipped.
If you have an Arc-LS, you are entitled to these free fixes. We will ship the new foam retainers and instructions notes to you when they are ready.
Another improvement I hope to evaluate this coming week is a new centering tool I ordered. This will improve the whites and fix the colors so we can begin to ship them as well.
I have also promised to look at the "corona" issue to see if this was normal, or something that could be minimized.
One of my New Years resolutions was to deliver our products on time. I plan on doing just that. Not just by moving the delivery date out, but by also speeding up production.
If you already have an order with us our one of our distributors for and Arc-LS, your order will be filled. If you already have an Arc-LS, your flashlight is supported by all of us at Arc flashlight. If you haven't ordered one but would like to, we will be taking new orders around the April time frame.
Thanks for being so patient. Please contact me with any concerns or questions about the Arc-LS or our other flashlights. Thank you for the many kind reviews of the Arc-LS we have received so far.
Fellow “flash-a-holic”,
Peter Gransee
President, Arc Flashlight
