tutmeister

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!

Hi all, and especially to our customers and backers. I am very sorry for the current state of communications and production. I also understand that there are some very frustrated customers and rightly so. I feel like all we have managed to do is miss deadlines and annoy customers. It is no secret around here that we are been seriously late with shipments, this has been for various reasons. Firstly, let me assure you that Fulcrum are still trading and producing. I know there have been questions about our status and even that we might be a scam. I can assure you that we are not a scam! We are still producing the best flight controllers available and we will meet all our orders without fail. Production We have had production issues that have delayed this massively, I had to let a staff member go and have not replaced them, we have had supplier issues and various other things that are internal. I have been back on the tools making parts and assembling and communication has lapsed because all email communication, forum posts, supplier liaison and the rest of the company duties is up to me. So all I can do is say sorry for that. I appreciate the extreme patience that has been shown to us, without which the company would not have survived so thank you sincerely. So, orders. I am aiming to have all orders of yokes caught up within around 4-5 weeks, so that is all the really old orders up to the more recent ones. I have heard that the lead time of metalwork that we are missing is 3-4 weeks. We have yoke handles and all the wiring and internals here and assembled into sub sections so once we get parts we can start to ship. Throttles Throttles are in the same boat I'm afraid. Metalwork is the hold up and it is from the same production line. These will start shipping when the case metalwork arrives. Email I am going to email our customers with this update too. This brings me on to email issues. For some reason our website email changed to have an extra www inserted into it. This should have been fixed now and enquiries@fulcrumsim.com seems to be working. We have had some requests for refunds, and I completely understand peoples reluctance to support a company not delivering on time, rest assured that your orders are safe as we have paid for the stock and have most of it on the shelves. I know the past few months have damaged the reputation that I have tried to build for Fulcrum, thank you deeply for the support shown and the patience. We will definitely get there! Chris

Hi John, can you explain where it is sticking? Also contact us via email directly enquiries@fulcrumsim.com if you want.

Hi Roeland, Apologies, you should have an email from us now. Chris

Sorry Ron, and all who have put their faith in Fulcrum. I will try and get up update very soon as I have been chasing a date from our metalworkers for the throttle chassis.

Hi to both, it is a poor show from us at the moment. We are struggling with a backlog and the wait is longer. I will ask for the website to be updated and you are right, it is a but undetermined which is not a good place to be in. I fully understand that people are unsatisfied with this. We are trying to improve and hopefully very soon I can get some concrete dates in place. Chris

We can offer custom shaft lengths depending on the panel requirements. The shaft is quite long already but there are options for more and also bushing and mounts if the panel; needs a very long shaft/

I agree, sorry this is a poor showing. While we are not entirely a one man band we are small and I am down a member of staff too. We are shipping and trying to catch up. Again, sorry for the very long delays. Chris

Hi all, just a quick note to say I have just read your posts and I will give an update later today. Chris

I will get back to you later today once I've looked into it.

Sorry I will look into this and get back to you today.

Sorry, I ended up in a UPS depot. If anyone thinks it is a good idea to start a hardware company then get them committed. Between electronics delays for yokes to metalwork hold ups for throttles. I have heard that they have some parts for me to look at. I said parts? I was expecting a whole throttle! This week I will be visiting the metalworkers to assess the levers and some other parts that have been laser cut. I am hoping the whole production sample will be ready shortly after because I need to get the order for them in! The next stage is still the same, as soon as I have the sample that is correct then we will order them all and I will post pictures of a working throttle. I am hoping to know more by midweek. Thank you all again. Chris

Moritz, we have sent an email. To you all, apologies, we are very frustrated that we cannot get them out fast enough. We are now waiting on some controls boards due to delays at the manufacturer with machines breaking down, staff shortages and components not being ready. I have had word that they are sending what they have ready with more to follow. Thank you for your ongoing patience, I appreciate it hugely as a small business owner. Chris

The standard throttle comes with 2 red, 2 blue and 2 6 black so you could have all 6 with black tops on it. This is so you can simulate a jet or whatever else. Chris

🙂 I not going to say no......

What do you mean? Chris

Think the sofa will keep you safe?! It should have read from the end of Feb, It actually read 'in the February'. I mean, who even wrote that?!! It now says from the end of Feb. Anyway, an update. I was at the sheet metalworks a week ago going over the final design changes with them. They are now making a final production sample for us to assess. I'm hoping that will be ready this week because we need to get our order in to be able to start shipping soon. In theory there should not need to be any further design changes. Chris

No problem, done! 🙂 Thank you for your custom!

Thanks for the update! I will pass that along and we will probably thread lock them just in case. It is not something we have seen but it may be that yours was not as tight as it should have been when we assembled it. Regarding the rail, we have changed our process for making sure all the shipping oil is removed. When those linear rails arrive, they are coated in a shipping oil that is rather viscous. We clean this off and flush it out of the bearing blocks and then lube with a teflon spray. We have had a couple of reports of sticky pitch and this it turns out was due to this oil not being fully flushed out during assembly. A small amount was left inside and was diluted by the light lube and over time it evaporated and caused it start sticking. Since those reports we now fully strip the bearings and flush everything out fully before reassembly. Now you have re-lubed it I dont think you will have any more issues.

Hi Jan Replied via email

I agree Ray, they feel so much better when angled, but this is a no cost option for people who want them mounted on top of the desk. If there is enough demand then we could make a desk top or flat surface mount that still angles. By the way, you can easily grab all 4 and give a solid push all the way open. It is strangely satisfying! Chris

You could have a mouse shelf mounted there, but it might get awkward, see this quick render. Chris

I think that is an excellent idea that will cost us very little to implement! Thank you. I will make the changes to the final design before we push go! We are currently waiting on the first production samples to arrive. This will be an easy change to them. The down side is part of the clamp will stick out underneath the throttle but I think it will work and it is basically a free option! Regarding credit card, it is charged at the time of order. We are using PayPal as our card service provider because, certainly for us, they are charged a lower percentage fee for processing the card transaction than other card providers we have been offered. However, I think they are similar to most card service providers in terms of the exchange rate. They are all more than the general banking exchange rate. You can also do direct bank transfer in which case you would be paying the bank exchange rate. Chris

Yes Sergey, correct. Grub screws bite into the shaft better though as they have a hollow point cup on them that a standard bolt does not have. @Briar I can get some in the post once Royal Mail start delivering internationally again. Apparently stopped due to some sort of ransomware attack on them. Chris