Anyone else having problems contacting West Coast Products?

[weberr]

For several days I have been emailing and calling (leaving a message) to find out status of an order. No reply, no nothing. Is this normal? The was the first time our team has purchased from WCP, and I am concerned. Should I be?

[thatprogrammer]

We had problems contacting WCP about our Spartan Board. They didn't get back to us for a week or so. I think they are extremely swamped with orders.

[R.C.]

We have a few of our guys helping out with an event atm. The quickest way to get a hold of us is to email us at support at wcproducts.net or me directly at rc@wcproducts.net.

Please email me directly if you need anything else or pm me. We've also been fairly swamped with orders and such, I apologize for the issue.

[1493kd]

Yes same issue, placed an order early Tuesday for backup wheels for TVR and have not received any shipping notice etc.

Emailed 3 times and no response.

[mjc49]

We had this problem last week. They do get back eventually. I know they must be swamped. We were waiting for parts and we wanted them before we left for our week 1 tournament. We were running out of time. Once we were in contact, they were able to redirect our shipment to our hotel.

[weberr]

Like I said earlier, this was the first time we purchased from them. I was told that our parts were going to ship on Monday and we paid next day air, but have not heard from WCP nor received parts. I guess we need to work on plan B.

[Johncvt]

We had issues with the WCP SS gearbox at our tournament over the weekend (aluminum drive gears wearing out and locking up). Tried emailing them on Sunday and tried calling, no response yet.

[Max Boord]

Originally Posted by thatprogrammer

We had problems contacting WCP about our Spartan Board.

On top of it shipping over a month after it was ordered despite being in stock...

4592 has had problems with nearly everything we have ordered from WCP. Ether its impossible to get an update despite calling several times and sending 2-3 emails or its only half of our order being fulfilled. We are still waiting on parts that where purchased weeks ago and listed as in stock at the time.

[zsm150]

Originally Posted by Johncvt

We had issues with the WCP SS gearbox at our tournament over the weekend (aluminum drive gears wearing out and locking up). Tried emailing them on Sunday and tried calling, no response yet.

Do you check that your cims are in the right position for the size pinion you are using? We had a similar problem in week 2 turns out one of our students put the cims in the position for a 12T pinion but we are using 11T.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by zsm150

Do you check that your cims are in the right position for the size pinion you are using? We had a similar problem in week 2 turns out one of our students put the cims in the position for a 12T pinion but we are using 11T.

I agree with your sentiment, but factually, both the 11T and 12T pinions use the in-board CIM positioning holes, whereas the 13T and 14T pinions have the CIM bolt to the out-board holes. Both the SS and DS do this. I know this first hand because the students building our gearboxes got 3/4 CIM bolts correct, but the 4th bolt caused us to destroy 2 pinions and a 42T gear the Wednesday before our 1st district. Hidden under electronics so we didn't notice until they were toast. Thank God it didn't happen AT our district event.

Sadly, we had similar problems when ordering through WCP. One of our ordered dog gears had the wrong bearing press-fit inside it (we ordered 2 identical gears and received 1 round and 1 hex), but communications took over a week to go through. By the time they finally got back with us, we had already purchased and received replacement parts from an alternate source.

I love their products, but they SERIOUSLY need to hire more people to beef up their customer service department.

[Sohaib]

Originally Posted by zsm150

Do you check that your cims are in the right position for the size pinion you are using? We had a similar problem in week 2 turns out one of our students put the cims in the position for a 12T pinion but we are using 11T.

The 12T and 11T pinions use the same "inboard" mounting holes on the CIMs.

We had the locking issue at our event on practice day, and eventually it came to the sheered off 50T gear. Looking at the gearbox it was obvious the issue was that the CIMs were mounted on this outboard hole. We thought at the time this was due to incorrect assembly, proceeded to replace it with a steel 50T gear, putting the CIM's in the inboard hole.

After inspecting the other gearbox, it appeared atleast one of the CIM's were in the outboard hole. Sure enough the next match (thankfully our last one of the day) it started locking, and the gear had sheered right off. This gearbox we know for a fact was infact assembled correctly with the CIM's mounted to the "inboard" hole. (We know this because this process was recorded on video for a reveal video, and it's clear that the gearbox was infact assembled using the inboard hole.

This leads us to suspect that perhaps the CIM's are able to shift from inboard to outboard throughout use without the bolt coming out?

Both gears have been replaced with steel gears, and red loctite was used on the inboard/outboard CIM mounting bolt.

I've attached a picture of one of the gears - at least what is left of it.

http://i.imgur.com/mVv31n4.jpg?1

Personally, I'd rather see a separate mounting hole on the gearbox plates rather than two holes side by side. This issue cost us an RP, and a match. We're open to talking to WCP's Engineers to see what can be done. We haven't emailed them yet because our robot is bagged, and understand there is a huge backlog on emails.