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Thread: Innolasers - Legit?

  1. #1
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    Default Innolasers - Legit?

    Hi,

    Does anyone have any experience with ordering from Innolasers?

    Apart from accepting my payment, they have not responded to any emails requesting delivery information. Calls also go to a google subscriber voice mail box.

    My order is not large, but I an concerned about the lack of customer service response.

    AM

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    Innolasers is known for lack of customer support, but is definately legit.

    It's run by just one very busy man who regularly goes by the nickname of drlava. It appears he continuously struggles with sending out his goods on time. Yes, this is normal behaviour from him and you are not the first one to complain. Nobody knows why he doesn't want to work with a dedicated distributor.
    The time it takes for him to send out the goods really depends on luck. It could be less than a day, it could be a month. But it's always worth the wait.

  3. #3
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    Bradfo69 is offline Pending BST Forum Purchases: $47,127,283.53
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    Yup... what CMB said. Andrew is a good guy but, being a one man show, delivery is historically hit or miss. I've tended to only buy from him in person when the warm body is standing in front of me.

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    jump on the chat here and leave a message. I bet he gets right back to you. He's just a good guy. He's a great guy. Yea a bit flakey on the orders but the stuff you order you will get and love. I've known him for many many years.

  5. #5
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    I'm sure he's a great guy and I will love his stuff, but I am very disappointed with being mislead with such a professional looking website he has at Innolasers. It gives the impression of being a professionally run business, offering many products and customer support.
    If I had known it was a one man show when I placed my order, I would have made the appropriate decision to purchase from him or not with the understanding there would possibly delays.

    I deal with many one-man-shows online and receive fantastic service, in most cases, better than dealing with larger companies. I don't think it's a good excuse these days.

    These sort of situations tend to casts a bad shadow over the whole community.

    Phew.. Sorry for the rant. I feel better now.... Sort of.

  6. #6
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    The software (LSX in my case) is utterly awesome from a design perspective, however I suffered an excruciating wait, to the extent that I ended up cancelling my order when a second hand copy turned up here in the forum.

    Having got into LSX, even if I had waited for a new copy to arrive, I would certainly reccomend the wait. There is nothing that compares.

    Hope Drlava fulfils your order soon.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Galvonaut View Post
    There is nothing that compares..
    Hehe, I think you'd have to throw in some qualifiers there ;-)

    LSX is based on LDS software, written by Lennart Weitzski while he as a university student in Germany. (And as far as I know, LDS is still offered for sale.) Lennart then sold his source code a half dozen people, all of whom then made variants of LDS. LSX is one such variant. So I would argue that all of the variants "compare" with LSX.

    Now, if you throw in the qualifier "for the money", then this *might* be correct. I'm not sure... There is a German variant called Dynamics which is also sold at a low price. But other than these two facts (LDS variant and low price) I don't know much about it.

    All of these LDS variants have their own benefits and drawbacks. All were an off-shoot of LDS, where the developer went their own direction with it. In the case of Phoenix (which is Pangolin's variant of LDS), two full-time programmers spent 7 years on it, so this variant was taken the farthest from the original source, and I would argue is the most capable variant. It's also more expensive, but from what I gather, more available too. Anybody at any point in time can buy it from the LaserWorld web site.

    This is like how Linux started, and then grew into Google Chrome OS, Android OS, along with the many flavors of Linux that run on PCs, plus the many versions that are embedded into printers and other office automation products. Probably automobiles too...

    Aside from LDS variants, there are many other software products out there -- including Pangolin's Lasershow Designer series and Lasergraph DSP, both of which Lennart "studied" while creating LDS. There are also things like Spaghetti offered at a VERY low price, and probably a few open-source and other free softwares. Probably once a year or so, someone here on PL offers software they wrote for free.

    So there's certainly no shortage of software for people to choose from. The difference is how hard you have to work to make a laser show (hehe whether you have a lot of time on your hands, whether you are married and have a wife breathing down your neck to get household chores done, your analytical capacity and your day job, exactly how artistic you are as a person, etc.) and how much support you get. As an experiment (and I swear some people do this just as an experiment) you can call 1-800-PANGOLIN any time, day or night, even on Easter Sunday and see if you get an answer from a real human being ;-)

    Bill
    Last edited by Pangolin; 04-20-2014 at 01:34.

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    You are right Bill. For the money, it's fantastically creative software. And yes, time is required, although not so much as learning to programme PangoScript variant of C which I understand is Beyond's alternative to LSX's simple mathematical expressions.

    I had a look at dynamics at DutchLEM and it didn't seem to have anywhere near the functionality of LSX, although it was only a brief look.

    Was Phoenix developed by Pangolin or bought out? I've seen a few videos but not really explored it.

    Although support isn't as hot as Pangolin's, there is a great LSX community here who are always happy to help. LSX tends not to have issues with security protocols - and updates, although not regular, mean that the platform is pretty stable.

    I've not had issues with LSX in a live performance situation, although not used it as much as I have QuickShow. I've had 3 issues with Quickshow, the first of which was whenever I let my computer hibernate for a loo break etc, the software requires a restart - easy solution though - Turn off hibernate
    The second was a security related issue which locked the software on a certain date. This was dealt with very quickly indeed, although not quickly enough for some who were at gigs when it occurred.
    The third, which was maybe after 6 months of owning QS was that I was sold laser design software and then came to realise that the canned cues were not created with Quickshow, so I felt a bit let down at that stage - although I think you know all this.

    It's swings and roundabouts really. It depends what you are looking for in software and what your budget is. It's also important to me how a company performs it's business and I generally support small businesses if I can and sometimes have to put up with issues such as delays and the usual stuff that sole traders or small businesses have to endure as governments make it harder and harder for them while throwing tax breaks at the big boys (who generally don't need them).

    Every bit of software has it's place. Quickshow got me going in the world of lasers. Super easy to put shows on
    Others, like iShow are a great learning tool - I think many here have a learnt a lesson with that, thankfully not me
    LSX is so well featured and flexible that it is simple to create abstracts and beams that look like no one else's designs, meaning that you can be a true artist with your photons!
    Beyond has big features for the big boys, features which I'd love to explore one day, maybe when I've made enough money using LSX and built my hobby into something that pays a wage.

    Keith

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    Quote Originally Posted by Galvonaut View Post
    Beyond has big features for the big boys...
    This is definitely the truth! I have only just begun to crack open Beyond and outside of the simple "point and click" features, there is an ocean of things to learn. Going from QS to Beyond, I feel like I went from MS Paint to Photoshop! I just found out that I can do live joysticking in Beyond with a USB joystick/gamepad that can be mapped to almost any attribute. It is extremely impressive software and truly makes me wonder how LasergraphDSP still sells.

    I still have LSX and I have not had a chance to dig into it. I find that of all the software I have, Beyond is my goto... This is by no means meant to take anything away from LSX. As we have all seen, it can create some good stuff at the hands of some of the people here!
    If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room.

  10. #10
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    indeed, there are a lot of laser show editors. each have their strengths and weaknesses. the industry as a whole would benefit if there was more interoperability between them.


    Quote Originally Posted by absolom7691 View Post
    This is definitely the truth! I have only just begun to crack open Beyond and outside of the simple "point and click" features, there is an ocean of things to learn. Going from QS to Beyond, I feel like I went from MS Paint to Photoshop! I just found out that I can do live joysticking in Beyond with a USB joystick/gamepad that can be mapped to almost any attribute. It is extremely impressive software and truly makes me wonder how LasergraphDSP still sells.

    I still have LSX and I have not had a chance to dig into it. I find that of all the software I have, Beyond is my goto... This is by no means meant to take anything away from LSX. As we have all seen, it can create some good stuff at the hands of some of the people here!
    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

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