fine line automation contact?

[Justin Cavender]

Has anyone had any dealings with fine line automation? I have been tryin to contact them via email for a couple of days and get no response. Is this how their customer service is also? Are they still in business?

[DIYaholic]

Justin Cavender,
I tried contacting FLA over a week ago, through the "Contact Us" page on the website, no response yet. From reading many posts here on the "Zone", this appears to be a "Normal" occurance with FLA. People swear by the product but say contact is slow at best.

Randy,

[dgates80]

Originally Posted by Justin Cavender Has anyone had any dealings with fine line automation? I have been tryin to contact them via email for a couple of days and get no response. Is this how their customer service is also? Are they still in business?

This is not unusual for Nate, he works a full time engineering job and FLA is a sideline business. I also had issues with frequency of email communications and it was about 40 days to get my kit, although that *was* over the Xmas holiday period. No problems in the end though, and yes, he's still in business etc.

The wait is worth it though, my FLA-100 went from boxes to finished (sort of) in three days, working about 4 hours each day. Flawless, lots of parts, the kit was complete (there were two missing thrust bearing washer, easily obtained at the local hardware store for a buck -- and I might have misplaced it vs. being short in the kit). I worked it out, one could save on the order of $500 by getting all the materials on your own, but the value of having everything sourced, spec'ed, and proven is well worth the $500. A couple of mistakes along the way could easily wipe ouot any savings, IMHO!

I spent the time waiting for the kit to ship getting a *lot* of prep stuff done, built the table for the machine, built the controller electronics box, read and reread the Mach 3 manual and watched the tutorial videos, got the computer set up, shopped for CAD/CAM software, and read everything I could get my hands on including running though the massive forum posts here.

[brtech]

nate@finelineautomation.com

I had the same issues as most. I also think it's worth it. I have the FLA-300 4 x 4 R&P

[francismolloy]

Hi,
Just a quick note, I've also sent 2 e-mails to Nate trying to check on schedule of the kit, still no response, I have mine sent out to a shipping dock in the US, to save on shipping to Canada, so I'll need some kind of acknowledgement that it's shipped. Anyone had experience with the "track order" link on the website.
One thing I should add, I contacted nate about needing NEMA34 mounts on the kit and one day later he updated the website to include them in the drop down option list. Pretty good service if you ask me. I don't expect super fast delivery times since we're probably all in it for fun more than serious business.
Cheers.

[eaglezsoar]

I purchased an FLA100 about a year ago. It took longer to ship than I expected and Nate can be a little slow to respond to emails.
I would like to say one thing about this Company however, Nate is a most professional person who cares a great deal about his customers.
He does work a full time job in addition to making these kits. IMHO you will
not find a finer kit on the market. The accuracy is impressive and each hole
is where it belongs and are tapped where necessary. These are strong heavy
units so they are perfect for CNC. Give Nate a chance to get to you, it is
worth the wait.

[Justin Cavender]

Thanks guys for all the comments. I am going to order one soon can anyone tell me if his kits come with limit switches?

[brtech]

No, they don't.

You need to get:
* limit/home switches and the cables for them
* power supply wiring (both AC and DC)
* router mount (the Z plate is drilled for a K2 mount)
* motor relays and anything else you need to get into or out of the G540
other than the motors
* e-chain, or something else to manage the cables
* table surface (Nate suggested 2 layers of 3/4" MDF with T-track)
* For the smaller -100, you need a base
and of course the router, collets, bits, computer, ...

[Chris Lee]

Originally Posted by brtech nate@finelineautomation.com I had the same issues as most. I also think it's worth it. I have the FLA-300 4 x 4 R&P

I've sent several inquiries through his "Contact Us" page over the last week, with no response yet. I'm really interested in building his FLA-300 model but don't want to spend the whole chunk on a full kit all at once.

Did you buy your FLA-300 as a complete kit?

Do you know if he offers parts bundles for the FLA-300? The only bundles I see are for the FLA-100.

[brtech]

Originally Posted by Chris Lee I've sent several inquiries through his "Contact Us" page over the last week, with no response yet.

Welcome to the club

I'm really interested in building his FLA-300 model but don't want to spend the whole chunk on a full kit all at once. Did you buy your FLA-300 as a complete kit?

Yes

Do you know if he offers parts bundles for the FLA-300? The only bundles I see are for the FLA-100.

He probably doesn't have them listed, but I'm sure he would do that.

On the other hand the build goes pretty fast. I got the motors and gecko way before the frame and mechanics, and only got a couple of days of play time before I got about as much as I could out of that. So, you can spread it out over a couple of weeks, but you might as well save your money until you can get the whole kit.

Of course you can trade your time for his time and buy most of the parts yourself. I'd suggest getting the rails and the rack from him though unless you are really good at drilling lots and lots of holes in steel accurately. The plans have the actual MSC or McMaster part numbers, plus the 8020 extrusion spec and length in them. You end up spending a bit more on fasteners if you do that because of how the suppliers package them. He sends you exactly what you need plus one or two extra (of nearly everything). With MSC or McMaster, you often have to round up to their package size.

Cutting and tapping the 8020 is more manageable (although I was happy to pay him to do that for me).

[Aryantes]

I've purchased quite a few items from FineLine in bits and pieces.

I started with the bearing carriages and associated moving parts.

Anti backlash nuts, motor mounts, hardware to attach stuff.

Then later,changed my leadscrews out to a rack and pinion complete setup.

And now, a Gecko package.

Most of the "packages" I got were tailored for me by Nate. Pretty much just told him what I wanted to do with my machine and he put together the right bits and pieces, including all screws and lock nuts etc, and then bundled it into a package with a small discount.

Now, I have pretty much an entire FLA package, but with my own 8020 extrusion.

I've done a lot of trial and error with some MDF-type builds cause I didn't want to buy a whole kit back in last february but now I've lost a lot of money (and who knows how many hours!) redesigning/rebuilding and wish I would have picked up everything at once.

Sure I've sent a few emails that went unanswered, but a follow up later on was always enough. In the end, I've really forgotten about the communication issue as it wasn't a big deal to me in comparison to the product.

[Chris Lee]

Thanks for the info guys. I appreciate it all.
I've contacted him again just to get all my questions into him and now I'll wait patiently for his reply.