Any experience with DFROBOT customer service?

I wanted a robot chassis for my Panda so I bought a 2WD Mini and a Rover 5 from dfrobot. It came from China in 3 days! Great! Unfortunately, the ROver 5 did not match the description - the description stated that each motor included quadrature encoders. What I received was marked on the box as a model with no encoders. I have written several emails to their sales and support addresses, and they have since changed the description of the product, but they have not responded to any communication. They must have received it because they changed the description within a day of me pointing out the problem.

Do any of you guys have any experience trying to contact them? Right now I am out a chunk of money and have no way to resolve the situation. I am so thankful for what great service I have had from GHI!

Never worked with the customer service only the products they sell. Which have worked fine for me in the past.

When an order from them was not being shipped, I called customer service and was lied to by two CS persons.

Good luck!

I just got email from them and they say they are sending out the encoders today. Hopefully all is resolved.

@ Blue Hair Bob: Is there a reason you select the 2WD over the 4WD? I was looking a those kits for myself.

Hope you get your encoders soon. I buy my stuff at RobotShop since their head office/warehouse is a 10 minutes drive, so I save on the shipping. Never had an issue with their customers service, maybe because they know that I can get there fast :wink:

Probably :smiley:

I chose the 2WD because I wanted something SMALL. I have a moderately sized tracked chassis as well, but I wanted a little robot for what I am working on now. The 2WD is less than 5".

I have seen those expensive robot bases, like $600 and I am curious on how these are being used? Have you guys used and seen anyone using a $600 base?..they do have nice encoders and motors but you must have some decent project to come up with $600 for just the base, no electronics, right?

Yes I have seen them in use. Not very often mind you. The most common use i have seen is fire fighting/finding robot. The second most common use is outdoor Magellan style robots. Where the 600 dollar base is nothing compared to the 2000 dollar laser range finder.

I use to be on a robotics club when I was at university, our robot cost about 30000$ and was all custom made. It’s was pretty cool, but not really a commercial product…

Maybe you will find those chassis in industrial applications or, as mentioned before, fighting/finding robots.

Most hobbyists will either use a small, cheap chassis or build on their selves. (which I am doing too)

Tracked chassis costs like $1000+. And I do not even like the tracks. They have too less traction.

When I would have unlimited budget (not like now as a student) I would buy one of these. But for now I can only dream of… :smiley:

But the other one I have is this. For $44 USD. It is about 9" x 9". Pretty big for a small tank. Treads are 1.125" Wide.

Cheap, but the tracks are almost useless. The problem with this type of treads is that it cannot climb an obstacle. Even with my previous version of rosvem, it had significant problems with a doorstep. (we have 1 inch doorsteps)

Therefor I created this:

http://robertjacobs.eu/2010/12/23/track-1-is-done-painted-and-ready/

together with 2 cordless drill motors, and a decent (non smoking :smiley: ) motor driver, this baby will get over big obstacles. (at least, that’s the idea :smiley: )

[url]DAGU Rover 5 - YouTube
[url]http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjE5NzkwODA0.html[/url]

And without tracks:

Love the wheels!!

Today, I received an invoice from DHL for $29.30 for customs and handling for my order from DFROBOT.COM. I paid $30 shipping and now I get another bill from the customs agent for almost $30. I like the products from these guys and the website looks good and they shipped fast - but they didn’t deliver the product as described, they took a long time to respond to emails, and they ended up costing me a lot more than I expected. I have written to them again to ask about this before I pay this invoice, but I don’t see any alternative.

That would be my last order. I got board from china via mail for $3 SH on ebay other day - no customs. But safest is find a new site local to your county.

I’ll second the robot shop.

They offer some of the Dfrobot stuff and from my experience will stand behind what they sell.

I order from robot shop plenty. The only thing they are bad about is speed to shipment. I stopped ordering 2day air from then since it will be a week before it ships anyways. Otherwise they are a standup group and have mucho choices.

I did receive the replacement motors with encoders from them today. So even though their customer support was slow responding, at least I finally do have what was described when I ordered. It seems like they want to do the right thing, but maybe the China - USA difficulties got me.