Wieder Labs?

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Andrew Huot
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Wieder Labs?

Post by Andrew Huot »

I'm a high school sophomore and spent this past summer earning money for my Fusor project. After 3 months I had enough, and spent over $700 on vacuum components from "www.wiederlabs.com". I ordered them in August and they still havent been shipped. I know the head of the company, Scott Wieder, is also part of our Forum. Any advice? Has anyone else had a bad experience with them?

Thanks!
Andrew Huot
Tyler Christensen
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Tyler Christensen »

Have you tried contacting the company? May have better luck than asking on a public forum.
skidevil7
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by skidevil7 »

I also think contacting Scott would do you better than addressing the general public. I've exchanged a few emails with him and ordered a chamber from him. It took a couple weeks to ship but I was pleased with the cost and quality.
kernd
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by kernd »

I agree with others that contacting him directly would be the best thing to do.

But I do have an experience to share. I'll keep the following to just the facts.

On September 29th, I placed an order for a chamber and accessories. The order total came to just shy of $3,000 which I charged to my credit card. I received an automated email confirming the order.

Many days go by and I received no further communication. The order status on the website merely displayed "processing".

On October 13th, I sent an email, to which I received a prompt reply from Scott. They were waiting on stock for some components and anticipated shipping on October 29th.

October 29th passes with no communication.

On November 7th, I send an email checking on progress. No response.
On November 12th, beginning to get quite concerned, I send another email indicating I really needed some communication and I would have to contact the credit card company otherwise. (By this point I'm wondering if I'm being scammed).

I receive a response to the email of the 12th and it is indicated that the chamber is almost done and will ship Thursday (November 15th).

November 15th passes with no communication.

Finally on the 23rd I contact my credit card provider to indicate the situation (coming up on 60 days at this point, which is the end of their liability protection). I still want the chamber, but am extremely concerned and feel I need some help. I email Scott to inform him I've opened the claim.

I receive an email from him that the chamber is boxed and ready to ship, but because I contacted the credit card company he will cancel the order and sell it on ebay instead!!!!

Frustrating.
RobertTubbs
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by RobertTubbs »

Concern has already been raised about the (shoddy) quality and workmanship of Wieder products, obvious and inexcusable faults for an extraordinary price...

Andrew & David's experience further my opinion that we're dealing with an unscrupulous third party seller pandering to uninformed newcomers in a small hobby that is suddenly in the spotlight and looking to make a buck.

I advise to all those considering Weider to instead take 1/10 of that money and go to eBay's Business and Industrial section - the surplus there is usually TIG/Electron-Beam welded and leak-tested university throwaways perfectly suited for Fusor work at ten cents on the dollar.

I rest my case,
RT
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Richard Hull
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Richard Hull »

Some few here have the money on hand to throw at the fusor construction issues which, to many, seem daunting.

I will not advise one way or the other, but part of the thrill in this biz is to craft the thing with one's own hands.....To see the bits and pieces come together in several parcels purchased on the cheap or scrounged from some pile of junk in a university or business that is willing to lend a hand.

Part of it all can be the thrill of learning new life skills in many connected mechanical and electronics disciplines, sacrificing a lot of time instead of money.

I will admit that in spite of all the above, if I had $10,000 to spare, I would have Lesker cobble the puppy up for me. In retrospect, I'm glad I didn't though.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Jim Kovalchick
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Jim Kovalchick »

I couldn't agree with Richard more on this one. As the chief scrounger and financier for my son's fusor project I can tell you that my preference was to save the money for his tuition versus going top shelf for his high school science fair project. Personally, I think he learned more from the hodge podge of used parts scrounged from my dumpster at work, from ebay, and from gracious donations than he could have from simply writing a parts list for a top shelf vacuum supplier and handing them a check.

Some stuff I did buy new, but most was not. After all, my son wasn't shooting to generate a paper for publishing in PNAS. Though I'm pretty darn proud that he was able to coax neuterons out of a machine with a vacuum chamber made from a Kitchenaid mixer bowl.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Richard Hull »

Jim's missive is sage. If one is willing to trade time, (lots of it), for money then it can, indeed, be shown that where there is a will, there can be found a way to succeed.

Sure, some money must be spent, but the art comes in limiting the amount through determination and the application of many skills, yet to be learned.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Chris Bradley
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Chris Bradley »

It does not sound like healthy customer-relations on Scott's behalf. If as you say he stated he'd ship on 15th, then he broke his contract.

If he has sense, and because you sound keen, he should take the opportunity to offer to ship to you what you ordered, with payment to complete on your satisfaction or return.

But it is possible he has just been bogged down with other suppliers letting him down and he felt in the middle of a grinder. I've had even worse communications from some folks (!) but, needs must, you leave them alone and eventually they deliver. But with $3k at stake, you had to do what you did.

That being said, with the other comments, the episode might actually save you money - I have spend a half of that filling 3 lots of 6'x3' shelving with all manner of vac and HV stuff whilst picking up ebay 'bargains' 'just-in-case'. I say 'bargains' because, for sure, if you pay peanuts sometimes you get kit that the monkey's have been playing with! But then other times you can get a bargain.

You will be amazed at how the kit you buy ends up getting used! Just buy stuff, and figure the rest later. Inventive types will use what's around them, and sometimes the end result ends up better than what you might have planned for yourself!!! 'Go with the flow', so to speak... I think you might find the journey is more interesting and ultimately more rewarding [than hoping for a particular outcome that might end in an anticlimax!].
kernd
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by kernd »

I completely agree as well... with (much) time and a bit of luck you can cobble together everything that you need to build a fusor.

My first lived in a 5-way cross: download_thread.php?bn=fusor_images&thread=1245820846

I learned scrounging, cobbling and tinkering as a kid, spending the summers hanging out in my grandfather's garage learning electronics. First by pulling apart defunct TVs, later by building things up from the parts.

Now a few years on, I have a fairly extensive lab outfitted by years of careful acquisition. One of the biggest successes: a working mass spectrometer, bought in pieces over many years and fixed over the period of a year. And to make that happy requires a 1x10^-7 torr vacuum... which was a great challenge to accomplish in an amateur setting. This required another scrounge - two past their prime Leybold turbomolecular pumps and (a year later) a controller to run them.

Eventually though, at least for me, I found that working full time, running a business on the side, and participating in numerous other hobbies left little time for my physics experiments. I have some great ideas, but was planning to spend my time constructing ion guns and other devices, not making modifications to my lathe and other machine tools so that I could construct a 10" sphere with CF ports.

Looks like that's what I'll be doing... I have a welder (MIG though, not TIG). But because I'm planning to use the chamber for more than just a fusor, and at pressures much lower on occasion, I do not doubt that materials, tooling and my mistakes will add up to more than the purchase price of that chamber. And of course it takes away a bunch of time from what I want to be working on!
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kernd
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by kernd »

Well, there it is, he put it on ebay just like he said he would: http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Spherical-Fu ... 4488903%26

I'm incredulous that a business would act in this fashion.

But you guys are right... I'll turn around and put the money into tooling and scrounging and end up with something much better in the long term!
RobertTubbs
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by RobertTubbs »

A CAD of it, I doubt he's even built it.

RT
kernd
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by kernd »

No, I have no doubt that he built it. He's replaced the image on the auction with an actual picture of the chamber. I realize that early on he had some quality issues, but I don't believe that is the case now. And the pricing really is fair, when you look at how much a 12" conflat flange costs, for example.

In further discussions with him, we've discovered that the status email he intended to send me on the 13th indicating he was waiting on copper gaskets was stuck in his outbox. Had I actually received it things would have turned out differently.

I'm sure someone will end up with a really nice chamber at least... He'd take interior photos I'm sure, if asked.
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Carl Willis
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Carl Willis »

Bizarre.

I don't know what charges a credit card processor will levy against merchants who get hit with a service-quality chargeback on a $3000 bill, but it's probably not trivial. At some point the processor will probably just kill his account if he picks up a history of these. And yet, looking at the reasons why it happened, it boils down to routine communication (lack thereof).

The scrounging advice is good, but a lot of times people will still need some assistance with a machining job or welding in order to realize their particular vision. I recommend checking out the machine shops in one's local area. One advantage of working locally is that it is easy to inspect the work, go over drawings, and deliver materials to the machinist. For university students, on-campus machine shops often provide greatly-discounted services as long as the project can be classified as a legitimate university project.

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John Taylor
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by John Taylor »

I like the configuration you chose with the larger "top and bottom" plus the 8 equally spaced smaller ports. I have a similar chamber (6") made by Mr. Weider. That many ports was needed by me for an experiment that required symmetry, but I would ask myself if I really need that many openings with the increased price and things to seal. Of course, having extra ports is nice for the increased flexibility. I have been happy with my layout, but those 8 ports are sealed with feedthroughs and I never change them.
kernd
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by kernd »

When I thought it through I did actually come up with a need for a fairly decent number of ports... not necessarily 8, but easily 6 in some cases. I was planning on using the chamber for more purposes than just as a fusor - which is why I went with all knife-edge fittings because some of the projects would require high vacuum (or better - which is out of reach for my system, for now).

Where do folks obtain their SS 304 hemispheres from? I saw a post from a few years ago that mentioned Wagner... is that still the best source?
Tyler Christensen
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Tyler Christensen »

I got them at Sharpe Products, and I think that's the cheapest place unless something has changed recently. It was some $30 for two 6" hemispheres (prices of many years ago) which I found quite affordable.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Wieder Labs?

Post by Richard Hull »

The SS hemispheres are dirt cheap! A non-issue. The conflat fittings will drain money fast, but there is no escaping them in a true experimental chamber that may need frequent entry with easy and reliable, vacuum tight resealing.

Junk chambers on e-bay from simple CF crosses to discarded semi-fab chambers can be found very cheap. NOTE* cheap chambers on ebay with lots of ports especially large ones can be a snare to the feet as blank-offs for flanges 6"or larger will eat you alive. Purchase wisely.

If I were building chambers for profit, I would give an upfront estimate of cost as well as delivery time. On the chamber in question here I would have demanded a 3 month lead time!!! If the buyer didn't like this time frame I would tell him to go elsewhere.

I would have taken images as I built and forwarded them to the buyer to show some progress at least on his chamber. Simple confidence building measures like this would afford mutual trust and confidence that thing were moving along, albeit slowly.

I fear over eagerness on the part of the buyer and rather poor interim communications on the part of the maker, doomed this effort. Buyers are typically eager to get what they pay for, especially if the job is prepaid. The builder needs to stress that anything from his work load environment changing to part acquistion issues could drag out the process, promising instant communications if problems arise.

My guess is the starting bid on e-bay just covers only the parts seen in the image. If it goes that cheap when the gavel falls, If I were the builder, I would be so disgusted that I would never build another fusor for anyone or change the contract clauses to insure the buyer knew the score, up front.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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