DIYDrones Rants and Raves

Ok guys, with all the people waiting on APM2 and all the exciting new alpha and beta releases of APM firmware coming, I think many people are starting to chomp at their bits, a little.  

To that end, I've opened up this discussion for all those with complaints.  As I've joined the Dev Team, and not at a productive stage yet, I'll monitor this discussion, and relay things to the others on the Dev Team.

These could be both hardware or software, or just general rants and raves!

Hope everyone takes advantage of this!  Maybe we'll all learn some things in the process.

Just wanted to add this response from Chris Anderson:

Please just contact sales@3drobotics.com and inquire about the status of your order. They are not necessarily shipped in order. For example, the unsoldered ones are shipped first, because they're faster to put together. Then soldered with GPS, then soldered without GPS (or maybe those two in reverse order, I can't remember). There are approximately 50 going out each day and the team tells me that the backlog should be over by Mon/Tues of next week. 

I agree, please use this discussion for Rants and Raves.  Order issues should be directed to 3DR directly.  I think you will get better response there.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Eagle on July 18, 2012 at 6:20pm

Lorenzo please make sure my APM2 is beeing build by the original production plant!

*joking*.  I know... i know will not quit my day job to become a humorist.... I would starve if I do.

Thank you Lorenzo for the update.

-Eric

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on July 18, 2012 at 6:53pm

Lorenzo,

As I stated above, you likely saved 3DR a customer.

Thanks,
Tony

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on July 19, 2012 at 5:27pm

I received an email today saying that my order had shipped.  Checking the status at the web store, I found a tracking number.  Thanks to Lorenzo and Chris Anderson, I will be ordering from 3DR again in the near future.


3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on July 18, 2012 at 7:18pm
Tony: I'm just trying to help. I'm an investor in 3D Robotics, but I don't work there. (I'm the editor of Wired Magazine, which is my day job). I live in San Francisco. 3DR is in San Diego.

The in-stock quantity is the number of boards for which 3DR has components on hand. They need to be assembled and tested, which can take a week or more. It is an accurate number, but apperently it wasn't clear to you what it meant.

If you felt misled by the wording on the product listing and feel that you overpaid for the shipping, please PM me the amount you feel you are due with your email address and I will Paypal you that amount personally.
Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on July 18, 2012 at 9:20pm

Chris,

It seemed that 3DR communication to customers was lacking and thus my limits of frustration were reached today. I realize you are trying to help and if you had Lorenzo email me and post his message then you did help.

After checking, the difference between FedEx ground and FedEx 2day is minimal. Even if the difference was large, I'd never ask a person to personally pay for the behavior of others.

For me, this rants and raves forum has served a purpose. I learned more about my order in one post here than I learned in three emails to sales@3drobotics. Accurate information is all I sought and I believe that I now have it.

Having run a business for a long time, in-stock quanties are very clear to me. An in-stock quantity is the quantity of a product left in-stock after ALL current orders for that product are subtracted. In other words, it is the number of units available to fill future orders. It is not the number of products that the company has on hand without first filling previous orders. Let's say I have orders for 1000 widgets but I only have 750 widgets in stock. My in-stock quantity should either read -250 or zero. Let's further say I have 500 widgets on order from my supplier and they have told me I will have them in a week. I could advertise that I expect new stock in a week. When my order comes in I would fill the remaining 250 orders and the in-stock quantity would be 250. The in-stock quantiy should never reflect units that have already been sold. To further belabor the point, if I'm a customer and I see a quantity of 30 units and I then add one to my cart and then fully check-out, assuming no other sales, the new in-stock quantiy should read 29 and my order should be picked and shipped at once.

I do have another question. Mike R. posted a reply to one of my comments above stating that the cost of the APM 2.0 was lower when added to the cart than it was advertised on the description page. I did not experience this reduction in the price of the APM 2.0 when I placed my order. Can you have someone follow up with me on this?

Quote from Mike R's post above: "how about the fact that it says the kit version is $199 usd, when it really is less when you put it in the cart and purchase? In all fairness then we should ask to pay more because it says a higher price on the product page."

If Lorenzo's post and email are accurate, I have no reason to believe otherwise, I consider all problems with this order resolved. Further, if I had the power, I'd promote Lorenzo and I'd fire the Chris that answers emails to sales@3drobotics.com

On a side note, the UAV article in Wired was a good read.


3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on July 18, 2012 at 9:24pm

The price of APM 2 does not change when you put it in the cart. Maybe Mike R selected the option with no GPS (-$15)?

Permalink Reply by Leigh Green on July 19, 2012 at 12:16am

I think that's right - because when I chose ASS. originally it automatically highlights with GPS.  but when I chose Un-ASS it has it as a tickable option...or the other way around...not sure.

but the thing someone else pointed out (can't be bothered scrolling back up to see...) was one has 199.95 and one has 199.99 - assembled being the Cheaper.

Permalink Reply by Eagle on July 18, 2012 at 6:31pm

Thanks Ellison for creating this thread.

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on July 19, 2012 at 5:29pm

I received an email today saying that my order had shipped.  Checking the status at the web store, I found a tracking number.  Thanks to Lorenzo and Chris Anderson, I will be ordering from 3DR again in the near future.

This is a duplicate post because I didn't want people to have to dig through the above posts to find it.

Permalink Reply by Leigh Green on July 19, 2012 at 7:12pm

Tony - thats great to hear.  especially as I received mine yesterday, got home at 6pm and sat playing with it all until about 1:30am this morning...Everything is Peeerrrffffeeccct....

...OH...Except the GPS...But I'll post that elsewhere - maybe.

BTW love the APM case being given with the unit now...nice little bonus...Not so crash hot was the box everything came in - taped with two lines of tape over the front, not in a Fedex satchel...any manner of movement could have caused wiring and or bits and pieces to slide out the top see image.

Permalink Reply by Tony Heaton on July 19, 2012 at 7:48pm

Glad to hear you received yours and looking at the packing job, I'm glad all the parts were still there.

Permalink Reply by Leigh Green on July 19, 2012 at 7:57pm

yeah and generally speaking everything is working fine - my minimOSD won't interract with the APM at the moment as it requires a firmware update - so in case you bought one of those don't be disheartened when it doesn't work straight away - you need the FTDI cable and program the update so it can talk with Mavlink 1.0

 

I'm guessing that might be the same with any peripheral devices that utilise the RX/TX and hook into mavlink proxy.  Mind you Xbee worked out of the box (oh except you have to solder in the header pins yourself...)

Accelerometer/Magnetomer is beautiful - response back to Mission Planner when moving the APM in all directions is almost instant - even through xbee at 56k...(keeping in mind they are only 1ft apart so I'm sure distance would diminish this response - but at least on-board the servos are reacting instantly to stabilization changes.

 

So colour me happy - now I just need to get the GPS signal boosted somehow. :S

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