Here is my story with ordering original Pixhawk from https://store.3drobotics.com/
April 2015 - I try to place my first order ... everything looks good, order accepted, I see they charges my card ... and after 1 week - nothing! They did not ship, did not send any confirmation letter, no any invoices, nothing! Ok, I try to ask support team .... get response "Thank you for contacting 3D Robotics Help Desk. We are experiencing a high volume of tickets at this time. A customer representative will get back to you in within 1-3 business days.We apologize for the inconvenience."
After 3-4 days they answered - my payment was not accepted due to some errors at payment service and they did refund. Yeah, they actually returned money in a couple days. They suggested to make new order after a week. So, I wasted 4 weeks here.
May 2015 - I did same order after a week - with same results. I wasted 2 more weeks to get answer from support and refund. They still can't accept credit cards.
June 2015 - I placed one more order with paypal. Waited about a week, so they can process my order. Nothing! No any confirmation, no any invoice, no any shipping! Just nothing! Hey, I paid for order and get nothing. Ok, I start to wring again ... support team, and again "Thank you for contacting 3D Robotics Help Desk. We are experiencing a high volume of tickets at this time. A customer representative will get back to you in within 1-3 business days.We apologize for the inconvenience." I HATE this message! I get on every my email to support team.
Ok, after 3 days I finally get response from support. And now, they don't have in stock one of the item in my basket! Why, why they allow to add it into basket if the don't have it in stock? And why they do not inform me after order or after they accept payment??? Here I spend another 2 weeks - just to get response. I asked to remove missing item from order and make refund for only this one item - still after 5 days did not get any reaction.
So, now I'm trying to make refund via paypal as support team useless, and can't do anything. They can't sell anything. So, I wasted about 2 moths to make order for original Pixhawk from 3DR. It looks like I have to buy some clone, it's impossible to buy original directly from 3DR now.
3drobotics - sucks!!!
Replies
Here is my experience with 3DR, hot off the press. I purchased my X8 in December of 2015 because of the great deal I noticed on the 3DR website. Didn't realize they were abandoning the Iris/X8/innovator platforms - they didn't bother to tell anyone. To go to a high-priced, subscription service, mapping solution with their third party software company of the week. I hoped 3DR would be a partner to really innovate and professionalize my UAS mapping platform and skills.
The x8 always had issues when it went from one waypoint to the next in auto. It sometimes would drop and flop and nearly crash. I got some great advice from this site and eventually tried resetting everything. I went round and round with this and support and eventually got on teamviewer with them, as they no longer take phone calls. A phone call solved an earlier problem with my Iris that many texts and emails would not resolve. The support person was unable to fix the problem and eventually determined that it was probably pixhawk or a wire. Basically one month past the 3 month warranty. The erratic flight issues started immediately after purchase and precipitated the ultimate breakdown.
3DRs solution now is to ship on my own nickel to their third party repair center - on the west coast, for $50 an hour evalutation and repair. If the pixhawk is the culprit - $200 + $100 shipping +???$ for repair - almost certainly a total loss. On an X8+ purchased last December that never flew correctly and was barely used because of winter and erratic flight.
I patiently begged the sales rep with customer relationships and loyalty- to no avail..... if it's past 90 days they won't provide any relief whatsoever. But we offer a one year on the Solo. Best of luck with this business model. Please advise if anyone can provide a better platform and company to work with for mapping uas - one that can look past the next 5 minutes.
I am currently in the middle of my first order with 3DR and this will be the first Pixhawk f/c I've used in my builds. I've been hearing great things about both the APM and PX4 platforms, especially those designed and manufactured by 3DR, from my friends and colleagues.
That said, I placed my order on the 3DR site a week ago, and it's just kind of been...setting there "Ready to Ship" (but not shipped). I called 3DR on 7/28/2015 and spoke with Monica. She informed me it would be sent out 7/29/2015 and would arrive by weekend (I'll update this weekend). I realize this isn't amazon, but what is a reasonable expectation for shipment times I should expect as a consumer, in general? I'm not including delivery time, as that is in the hands of another company. But how long to get the product out the door, and onto a UPS/DHL/FedEx truck?
Simultaneous to ordering the Pixhawk from 3DR, I purchased other items for a complete octo-x build...at this point everything else has arrived. The frame came from Hobbyking...and arrived in a week (I was shocked). Comparisons like this have to be made, if the process is going to get better. On the bright side 3DR, if hobbyking can do it, so can you!
There are many threads here complaining (rightfully so - a month or more of waiting is really bad!), and I'm really not trying to throw more fuel to the fire, but after reading some of your posts (some of the discussions go back a few years), it seems like an important line of dialog to keep open. The end result, if our dialog remains open and the criticism can be constructive, will be faster shipping and improved support. I think we all benefit from that.
Update - Received an email as promised with tracking information this evening, and the f/c arrives tomorrow.
Monica and all @ 3DR: Thank you for the upgraded shipping! Very much appreciated (and unexpected)! Really looking forward to trying out the Pixhawk.
So I have to tell everyone here that after all the grief I have experienced with 3DRobotics and their support, my case was escalated to Lorena Diaz who is one of their support supervisors. This woman was incredible. She listened to every single issue had ever had with 3DR, not just with their support personnel, but with the loss of over $2000 due to faulty drones. She became my go-to person and never once had an issue getting ahold of her. She always got right back with me and for once, I felt like a valued customer. She read all the conversations I had ever had with 3DR, knew I was getting the shaft and wanted to make it right. She not only replaced my Iris+ with a new one, she had a brand spankin' new Solo shipped to me straight from the factory, which I got in 3 days. She also replaced my GoPro 3+ with a GoPro 4 and the infamous Solo Gimbal, which should be arriving this week. In addition to all that, she gave me store credit for the equipment I lost due to the multiple crashes AND credit for items that were Iris+ specific that I could no longer use, such as: the travel case, extra batteries, spare props, etc.
So my advise for anyone having issue with 3DRobotics. Get ahold of Lorena or another supervisor and they will do everything in their power to make everything right!
I've had a rather similar experience dealing with 3DRobotics. They are masters at marketing their products, which is why I purchased an Iris+ about 6 months ago. I wasn't nearly as impressed as I should have been for the $750 price tag. I noticed several design flaws that I had to correct before I was able to actually enjoy flying it. There are also some things that should have been added to it that are fairly inexpensive, but are worth their weight in gold to any RC enthusiast. With those additions and changes, I would then state that they had a product worth the $750.
That being said, I only had the Iris+ four days before experiencing a malfunction, causing it to drop to the ground. This snapped two of the arms, broke two of the motors, the shell, battery door, props, etc.. I contacted 3DR and got the RMA process started rather quickly. I thought it was going to be a pleasant experience dealing with their support, boy how I was wrong. Even though I only had the drone for less than a week, they still required me to pay for all of the parts needed for the repair. All of this is something that should have only taken 1-2 weeks to get done however, it took about 5 weeks to get the Iris back.
The most recent experience with 3DR customer support is mind blowing. I experienced another malfunction, where the receiver just stopped receiving signal, causing it to rocket to the ground, annihilating my quad. I had my go pro and gimbal connected, long range video transmitter, custom antennas, RDF900, etc., all destroyed! I went through the RMA process again. Long story short, it was impossible to ever get ahold of anyone to get a status on it. Six weeks went by before I finally managed to speak to someone there and was told it was complete and was going to be shipped out that same day. About 4 days later, I called in to verify it was in fact shipped out and to get the tracking number. I was informed that I was basically lied to. They haven't even started to look at my quad, let alone do any repairs on it. It was basically just sitting on the shelf for 6 weeks collecting dust, completely forgotten about.
Needless to say, I was rather irate. He told me that instead of waiting for them to repair my unit, they were going to ship me a refurbished one so I would get it sooner. That was 2 weeks ago. I called to check on the status last week and was told that it was going to ship out this Monday (2 days ago). I have been calling and sending emails ALL week and am still unable to get ahold of ANYONE. I call their support line and I get the message saying to call back during normal business hours, despite it being 1pm on a weekday. I send emails and all I get back is the automated response stating someone will get back to me within 1-2 business days. Uhm, no. No one has EVER gotten back to me either by email or a phone call.
So in short, avoid 3DRobotics at all costs! Maybe their support should take some pointers from the people who do their marketing. It's a real shame because they really do have some great products but would rather go with any alternative if it means not having to go throught the nightmare of dealing with their support.
Hi Brandon,
Wow. I'm very sorry about your experience. I checked our system and it does show that you've had quite an ordeal with a string of correspondence between us.
I'm sending you an email, we'll get this resolved today.
So my experience keeps on getting better and better with 3DR!! So after months of waiting, I finally got the Iris+ via FedEx a couple of days ago. I performed an initial test flight and it flew perfectly. I decided to keep the drone completely stock, making no modifications of any kind. Well last night, I decided to fly it around a little bit so my son could watch. He's three years old and fascinated by anything that can fly. I had it up in the air maybe 3 minutes just simply hovering in Loiter mode, which is basically GPS fixed or assisted mode. I was around 60 meters in altitude when all of a sudden it looked like either a motor flew off or an arm broke and it just spun out of control, falling straight to the ground. This broke two of the arms, two of the motors were 20 feet away, the shell is cracked, battery door broken off, battery destroyed, and of course the props. That's just what is visibly broken, who knows what damage was done to the insides. I also had my GoPro attached, which didn't survive the crash.
There were no modifications, no crazy sport flying, I was simply hovering! I waited for two months to fly again, just to get a defective unit that completely fails after having it for one day!!!!!! I sent an email to 3DR stating I need to speak with a manager as soon as possible. Who knows if they will even get back to me. I don't see any other option than to get my money back and swear off 3DR for good. I don't think there is any way to salvage my business. I have a lot of friends and coworkers who are just as passionate about flying as I am. Some of them have been contemplating going with 3DR, but after I tell them everything I've gone through, they won't be interested in them anymore.
20150705_140502.jpg
20150705_140826.jpg
20150705_140654.jpg
Hi Brandon,
I've instructed my team to reach out to you tomorrow morning and get to the bottom of this. My manager will also reach out to you as well.
Hi Andrei,
What's your order number? Let me get to the bottom of this.
Vu, I have sent you email.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next