“Safe Top Lids”???

Eder · Jul 1, 2020

Try they’re Instagram account. Same happened to us. Took about 8 weeks but it was well worth the wait. It sucks but you won’t regret it. Beats clearviewlids out of the water. We tossed ours and got a toplid instead. Usually quite responsive to their Instagram.

xaflatoonx · Jul 1, 2020

New management. New people. Great product. I bought two. I love them.

newjack · Jul 1, 2020

here’s my 2 cents worth, (which probably isn’t much). lol
I bought a lid from safe top lids, I want to say about 1 year ago. I had ALL the same issues with communication and wait times everyone is talking about with this company. I paid in FULL right from the get go, right after our first conversation. I ended up waiting close to 5 months for the lid to arrive. My constant calls to them were mostly unanswered. From what i understand, this is a small 1-2 man operation & they are way way over stretching themselves. In the end, I did receive my lid, it came out beautiful, but for the wait time involved, the $$$ that is cost, ($450) these are not cheap lids! and the lack of communication, I would not do business with this company again.
They really need to hire more people or stop taking in more jobs than they can handle.

Clownreef · Jul 1, 2020

SAFE TOP is terrible. I paid $600 for one, weeks went by and I never heard anything back. I emailed over and over and zero. PayPal got my money back. Never heard from the guy..LOL. Absolute trash service.

kkelly007 · Jul 2, 2020

Update: got a call last night from Fernando at Safe Top Lids. He was very apologetic, said there was a wind storm that knocked out phone lines and that the end of month is always crazy busy for them. I did not audit either of these statements, but I was very happy that he reached out to me and apologized. He said I should receive my 3D drawing from the engineer next week and then into the production queue--said it will be 4-6 weeks, which I expected. I'll update this if anything changes for the better or worse.

S.Pepper · Jul 2, 2020

kkelly007 said:
This is so interesting to read. Three days ago, I reached out to Top Lids (i.e., Fernando) about a fusion vent frame for my Red Sea Peninsula 500. Fernando was very responsive, sent over the blueprint template, gave me PayPal instructions, we e-mailed back and forth repeatedly while he answered my questions, etc. Yesterday morning I completed the measurements on the template and e-mailed those to him along with my PayPal payment instructions, which he immediately processed.

I have now been trying for the past 36 hours to get in touch with him to confirm that he received everything that he needs to provide me the final schematic and it has been complete radio silence. His phone number doesn't work (says "User Busy" immediately after dialing) and he is completely unresponsive to e-mail. I honestly think the build quality on these lids is exceptional, but this lack of responsiveness and what appears to be a very long production time (he told me 4-6 weeks from payment to delivery, but looks like it might be much longer) is really making me wonder.

My plan is to try and contact him a few more times between now and Monday, but if I still cannot get him, I'll likely cancel the order and start over with someone else. Really a shame that they do not take the time to focus on basic communications with their customers.

According to Freddy, mine is/was sent out yesterday. He provided me with a USPS tracking#. I checked it this morning and it isn't in the system, yet. I was given a lead time of 77 days; I paid on 4/22 via paypal.

I initially dealt with Fernando and then with Freddy in the "engineering dept." If i get my lid in the next few days, they will have met with the time frame they told me before i put my $$ down.

I can't say i wasn't a little worried after their website went down (after they got my $$), but thru email, I have always gotten a response within 24hrs.--and that goes for this week when asking about when my top would be sent.

I can't say i've been surprised by anything dealing with them. I read this thread (and others) and had a pretty good idea what i was getting involved with... and I wasn't disappointed.

But I found their fusion vent frame superior to anything on the market.

If anyone figures out how to make a quality top at prices 1/2 of what is being paid now, and can get it to market in 2 or 3 weeks, they'll probably be a rich individual.

GL.

kkelly007 · Jul 2, 2020

I was thinking the same thing. Right now, you can go on Amazon and buy a 2' x 2' piece of 1/4" thick Lexan for $48, and that is of course the retail cost. So conservatively say that there is a 20% wholesale-to-retail mark-up. That would = $35 for this piece. Just rough math, but multiply this by 3 to achieve a 6' x 2' tank dimension and you're looking at around $100 for Lexan material cost. Add the high quality nylon netting and assume it's another $20 (this is probably high considering you would buy it in bulk).

Not including labor and OH (and you wouldn't need much of either), the missing ingredients are the CNC machine and the CAD software. I have no idea what type CNC machine is required, but on alibaba it appears a high quality CNC machine that cuts Lexan (which likely comes with software) is anywhere from $20-40K. So if you paid $30K for this, the payback period would likely be 1 to 1/2 years tops--just really don't have an idea as to how many units are produced. And if you could get two of them, with a few folks working each machine in two shifts with a couple of technicians loading in the specs and couple of customer service reps working the phones and web-site, and cut the turnaround time to 2 weeks, you would be in business! And if you ever caught up on orders, you could start producing standard lids that fit the most popular brands/sizes of tanks and just sell them on-line and LFS for cheaper than a custom job.

Considering the other costs in this hobby, most reefers would pay a premium for speed and quality. Agree there is a huge need out there for this.

newjack · Jul 4, 2020

well said kkelly!

S.Pepper · Jul 6, 2020

Received my top on friday, while i was out of town for the wknd. I'll post a pic once i get it on the tank. As said, overall it was a good experience with STLs. They gave me a lead time of 77 days and they came in under. The top looks awesome.

S.Pepper · Jul 6, 2020

Here's a couple of shots of the new lid. Perfectly done to the measurements I provided. Really impressed with the quality.

scottyroj · Jul 17, 2020

kkelly007 said:
This is so interesting to read. Three days ago, I reached out to Top Lids (i.e., Fernando) about a fusion vent frame for my Red Sea Peninsula 500. Fernando was very responsive, sent over the blueprint template, gave me PayPal instructions, we e-mailed back and forth repeatedly while he answered my questions, etc. Yesterday morning I completed the measurements on the template and e-mailed those to him along with my PayPal payment instructions, which he immediately processed.

I have now been trying for the past 36 hours to get in touch with him to confirm that he received everything that he needs to provide me the final schematic and it has been complete radio silence. His phone number doesn't work (says "User Busy" immediately after dialing) and he is completely unresponsive to e-mail. I honestly think the build quality on these lids is exceptional, but this lack of responsiveness and what appears to be a very long production time (he told me 4-6 weeks from payment to delivery, but looks like it might be much longer) is really making me wonder.

My plan is to try and contact him a few more times between now and Monday, but if I still cannot get him, I'll likely cancel the order and start over with someone else. Really a shame that they do not take the time to focus on basic communications with their customers.

Wow... This is almost my exact experience. He was very fast until payment. As soon as funds cleared I have not heard a single word. Not ever just a quick not saying he received my email. I tried to call as well and same as what you mentioned. I'm about to cancel as well.