tutmeister

Hi, would you mind emailing me [email protected]. I don't have a solution for you but would be happy to test out things with you to try and find a solution. It's probably just issue with this particular beta. I won't be in a position to do any testing for a few days but I will do when I get back and get it installed. Chris

USA Customers, I shipped a throttle to someone in the US and it got hit with a $989 tariff! This was clearly a mistake as they applied a 200% tariff for steel and aluminium products without checking the package details. The UK is exempt from this and only has a 25% tariff applied to the value of the steel in the product and not the value of the whole device. I appealed on behalf of the customer to UPS to correct this, but there is such a huge backlog of appeals, there is around a 3 month delay. Apparently they are unable to change it once it has been applied so you have to sit in the first come first served system they are operating to deal with all the appeals on tariffs. In theory, they should check the details and there are now new customs forms that they have issued to me that should help mitigate this happening again. However, the best way to stop this from happening in future is to get Fulcrum products pre-approved by US Customs and Border Protection. You are then issued with a reference number than is attached to shipments to the US that mean they can pass through customs unmolested. There is a process in place for this where you submit technical documents, detailed description, photographs, normal use case, packaging details, proof of origin of parts etc to USCBP and they assess and approve or deny your product. The problem right now is that due to the Gov shutdown, the Customs website that you upload your documentation to states it is currently unmonitored and any decisions will not be made until Government funding has been re-established. I am currently waiting on approval for the throttle. I can still ship to the USA using the new forms but obviously there is a risk that the wrong tariff gets applied and the package then gets stuck in the appeals queue. I will email you before shipping to confirm address and ask if you want me to ship or hold off. Regards Chris

I appreciate your kind words. Chris

I am dispatching but it is slow as the rate of posting them is bottlenecked financially. I hate this situation but can't see any way of speeding it up until I can start selling products again and going back to full time production. Until then, Fulcrum is not a fully functioning company with staff and premises etc. I am still providing support to existing owners though. I will email when the throttle ships to you, and I will be sending out more this week like I do every week. Thanks again for all the patience shown. Chris

Dear all, I am posting this update to let you know that Fulcrum still aims to fulfil all outstanding orders. It is not a particularly eloquent statement, but I hope it does the job. I don’t expect any sympathy or want to keep apologising as I feel that after so many delays customers who are still waiting are getting fed up of hearing excuses. I just want to explain what is happening and why things are like they are. The short answer is a lack of time on my part. The longer answer is below. When I made the decision to honour orders placed rather than walk away from it all, I knew that it would take a lot of work on my part. I did not realise how much it actually takes though. I know it has been multiple years, but shipping of throttles is still taking place, and the outstanding ones will be shipping soon. I am not going to give deadlines, but I want them all done by the end of summer. I know that is vague, but it is because of the circumstances. All orders placed were paid for, so it is up to me to make good on this. It slows shipping as I have to fund each batch but I will get there. I don’t know if it was completely clear from my previous announcements but while the Fulcrum website is up, it is not trading and I am not taking orders and haven’t since I ceased trading so there is no income. This means that I must work full time to cover all my living costs involved in running a house and then use whatever is left over each month to finish assembly and then ship them. All components are paid for and in stock and the majority of throttles are assembled. In the meantime, Fulcrum does not have working offices or staff and will not until caught up. Once caught up then I can return to full time running of Fulcrum and normal production. From then on, items will only be offered for sale when they are in stock with no preorder system. I am still offering support on existing products though and can still be contacted by emailing [email protected] Thank you again for all the support and patience shown, I know I've said it many times but honestly I cannot express how much it means. I also know that it has probably worn thin or worn out with a good number of you. I do not take it for granted. Chris Fulcrum Simulator Controls

Hi Guys, I will get a more formal email out but just to let you know I am assembling them in between working as I still have bills to pay and parts to buy which is slowing things. I know you are all fed up of hearing the same old excuses but we are definitely closer! I'm hoping the first ones will be on their way in the month. Chris

Absolutely, I will follow this up with an email update to all over the weekend. I will show some pics of some finished and what to expect in the box. Speaking of boxes, that is one thing I am waiting on now. The first ones will be going out very soon. Chris

Hi John, please contact me via [email protected] and I will send you some. Chris

True! The metalwork is in and some of the control boards. I am programming and testing them and manufacturing some of the other parts needed for assembly. I am getting close to putting together the first units but am still stuck having to work to pay the bills as well. Thanks all again. I can't say thank you enough. Chris

I do read all these posts even if I don’t reply. Honestly I appreciate them as I don’t feel I or fulcrum deserve them. By the way, throttles are well on the way to being ready. Chris

Thanks for the continued support guys. The re-soldering is on the sensor boards. They are a mass produced part and in general they ok, but in early batches we found failures due to poor soldering. Since then I reflow all the sensor connectors and individually test them all. It saves time in the long run and ensures they won’t fail once in use. They are the same sensors used in the yoke so are proven. Chris

I have just checked and I can see your order in the system. I see that you originally checked out as a guest, or it is showing as guest checkout anyway. I have assigned this order to your user account so you should see it now. Let me know if you can't. Chris

Hi Bob I understand your frustration, it is totally warranted, you aren't the only one. For clarity, the site is up and all user accounts are available. I will not be taking any orders yet. Throttles will be made and sent with the remainder becoming available through the site. Proceeds from these sales obviously then go towards funding the next batch etc etc. Chris

This isn't an easy post to write even though I am excited about being able to share some good news with you. It is actually really intimidating to publicly post things when you have faced public criticism and abuse after messing up as badly as I did with Fulcrum. Initially I just wanted to hide away from everything. As most people who are reading this section of the forum know, Fulcrum Simulator Controls ran into difficulty and ceased trading. They should also know that all customers at that time were written to explaining the situation. In that email I went through some of the reasons why the company went down and left us all out of work and left some customers with outstanding orders. One of the complaints I have seen here is that I am a crook and ran the company into the ground knowing it was going down. This is simply not true. At the time that orders were being taken, we were expecting a start up company assistance loan from the Government to help with costs etc that we had faced and to allow us to jump to higher production throughput. At the time this was applied for things were going well. 6 months later we were still waiting for this. I did close new orders and issued some refunds that were placed at the end. I did not take peoples money and run. However, I know that many people were angry and felt cheated or scammed. During all this there were things outside of the company to deal with and that were of a personal nature and made life very difficult, including facing the criticism here. No excuses for that but sometimes life is what it is and things don’t always go as you wanted. Now, as stated in the email to customers, I aim to stand by outstanding orders, even though Fulcrum was a limited company, and I could walk away from it. It would not be right to do anything else as I am a longstanding member of the flight sim community and not just a faceless company in China. I also don’t want to walk away because I believe in my designs, my principles in delivering what I promised and the tens of thousands of pounds of my own money I started the company with. That investment in product design, development and knowledge allows me to start production and deliver the same quality and future products. The way this will work is this. I am currently working another job to pay my wages. I will not be taking wagers from Fulcrum until it is built back up. Throttles are being produced first. This is because there are some parts already available to me. Orders have been placed for the remaining parts. Over the coming weeks throttles will be assembled and once ready, customers who ordered a throttle and were not able to claim a refund will have their orders fulfilled and remaining throttles will be available for purchase via the website. This is not an ideal approach and involves even more long waits. I understand the frustration in that but there is no alternative. I do not have a large cash pool I can issue refunds from, All I have is the ability to work and build up what is needed to start producing again. Also there will no longer be any pre-orders. Orders will only be taken when stock is on the shelf ready to go. If we are out of stock then it will show out of stock. Any other way just leads to too much risk. I am sure lots of companies thought otherwise until it all goes wrong! For clarity, all profits from sales will be going back into buying more parts to produce more products. This means that customers who lost out will get their order eventually and there will be off the shelf Fulcrum products for new customers. I will not be taking a wage from Fulcrum until this point is reached and everything owed is repaid. I hope this shows that I am trying to do the right thing and Fulcrum will be run in a customer focused way. There will be changes to the forum to clean up a lot of ‘where are you?’ threads. User to user support threads may get edited and moved around to make it less of a mess. I will not be deleting any threads – even those that make me feel bad. I will move them into an archive folder, but I do not wish to delete history. Thanks again for the hundreds of messages and emails of support, it is quite honestly staggering to me. Chris

Hi, if it was today, you would be at the back of the queue so after the 4-5 weeks catch up. We have always aimed to be off the shelf but never quite managed it!