Regarding the product/QC/customer service concerns, see my answers below…
The topic of FOC has already been addressed here.
You’re right. We should have put limits on the initial Falcon pre-orders. To be honest, this was actually discussed prior to the pre-order, but we figured we had enough in the supply chain that it wouldn’t be an issue. As has been said elsewhere, we severely underestimated how much demand there would be for the Falcon. Hindsight is 20/20, and we’ve learned from our mistakes.
For those that haven’t seen it, here is our Return / Repair / Replacement policy. Per your previous paragraph, the initial release of Falcons went out of stock pretty quickly. So with that being said, what were we supposed to replace those with? Sure we could have accepted them as RMA’s, fixed them ourselves, and shipped them back, but considering the time it takes for that entire process to play out, it doesn’t do FRC teams much good. Was having teams fix the issue themselves the perfect solution? Of course not. But the fact of the matter is that it’s simply cheaper, faster, and easier for the team to buy a $7 tube of threadlocker from Amazon (if they didn’t already have it) than to return them to us.
I think there’s a couple misconceptions in this paragraph….
Yes, the batch of Falcons for the 2022 season had the same loctite issues as the 2020 batch. More on this later…
We do sell an upgrade kit that allows customers to upgrade V1 Falcons to V2 Falcons, and this upgrade kit had all the parts you needed if you were missing a shim, or needed replacement screws. This upgrade kit (which is $2.99), is not priced to be a profit driver. This was priced to give V1 customers a low cost option ($3 is much cheaper than $150-$180) to get a V2 Falcon, while covering our manufacturing, kitting, shipping, and operations costs associated with making the kit.
However, VEX did send upgrade kits to affected customers for free. In addition, customers who had fatal failures as a result of this problem, or had problems with the repair, were given replacement motors for free if they contacted support.
Due to when the issue was discovered (February), we again decided to push the repair on to teams rather than the ideal solution of replacing faulty Falcons or RMAing them and repairing them here at VEX. We simply didn’t have enough Falcons left in the supply chain to replace them, and it would have taken much longer to go through the RMA/repair process. This decision wasn’t done out of laziness or greed, it was done in the best interest of teams - and what would enable teams to repair their Falcons, and get up and running, the fastest way possible.
As for the inspected Falcons that “VEX didn’t actually inspect”, this creates an interesting (false) narrative. What this narrative implies is that VEX/CTRE found a problem, told teams they were going to inspect it, and didn’t. What does VEX/CTRE gain by doing this, when people would eventually discover that nothing was done? Why would VEX/CTRE do this? It would have been better/easier to just throw our hands up and go “it is what it is”.
The truth is we did inspect and rework Falcons in February. I personally worked with our manufacturing folks to set up the disassembly/repair/re-assembly lines. On top of giving them instructions on how to repair the Falcons, I also worked with the people doing the repair to make sure they were doing it correctly, showing them what to look for, showing them how to properly reassemble motors. Was I able to watch every single repair? No, but they were definitely taking apart and re-applying loctite to motors, and checking for shims.
As was pointed out, it’s obvious that some of these repairs were not done correctly, and we will do our best to ensure that this is a non-issue moving forward.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so I’m going to pull some stuff out and address it individually.
VersaFrame Hole Spacing / Missing Holes
A few years ago we changed VersaFrame suppliers, and early on there were issues with hole locations or hole patterns. Sometimes these were one offs, sometimes this affected an entire batch.
If they affect an entire batch, and we’re in the middle of the season, we evaluate if they’re still useful to teams and put appropriate notes on our website.
As I’ve said before, and will continue to say, if you have any questions or issues with VEXpro products, please reach out to [email protected].
Oversized ThunderHex Shaft
Yes. This was an issue with the first batch of ½” ThunderHex shaft. The web page had a note on it that explained this issue, so teams knew that it was an issue. This wasn’t something VEX was trying to sweep under the rug.
This issue was resolved with the 36” lengths because they sold at a much higher rate than the 18” lengths. However, due to high initial MOQs and the slow sale rate it took much longer for this issue to be resolved on the 18” lengths.
Falcon Pinions & Shafts
This issue has been discussed ad nauseam. I don’t feel the need to rehash them again in this thread.
Mislabeled Products
Yes, this can happen when a single supplier may be kitting 5 or 6 different products at once. In my experience (re: what has been reported), the product itself is correct, but the label is not.
It’s been said elsewhere, but let me echo something. The FRC market is a niche market with a unique set of demands:
- Products need to be readily available.
- Products need to be affordable to teams
- Products need to be able to withstand the rigors of an FRC season
- Most products are FRC-specific and don’t have a large use case outside of FRC
- Almost all of these sales happen within a 3 month period.
This creates a fairly unique challenge on a lot of fronts (engineering, business, supply chain, etc.).
Due to some of these constraints, we can sometimes put our suppliers in a very tight time crunch, which can lead to QC issues. This was the case with the 2022 batch of Falcons. VEX was pushing on the supplier to produce as many Falcons as possible by a target date, and the supplier was not as careful as they should have been. We are by no means using this as an excuse, but that’s simply what the overall problems boil down to.
It’s no secret that VEX produces a majority of our products in China. For those that claim we don’t have people overseas overseeing production, this is false. VEX has over 50 full time employees in China that work on production engineering, QC, and project management. Prior to COVID this staff was supplemented with US-based engineers who would rotate to China when products were being launched or were struggling with QC problems.
Another thing to keep in mind is that almost every engineer at VEX comes from an FRC background, either as an alumni, a current/former mentor, or a long time volunteer. When we make decisions, like how to handle Falcon QC problems, we’re doing it with teams in mind.
As you were asked in Discord earlier today, please provide us with an order number / email address so that we can look into this. I asked our customer service team if any of them remembered this situation, or could locate such an issue within our system, and none of them could recollect it or locate the transaction. Credit Card information is not stored anywhere in our website, so this should not have been possible in the first place. We are always available and happy to address any sales order issues.
I’m sorry to hear that this happened. As a general rule of thumb for everyone, for urgent matters such as this, it’s highly preferred to contact us via phone rather than email. Our sales and support inboxes get hundreds upon hundreds of emails each and every day, and like our order fulfillment, are almost always answered on a first come, first serve basis. Not to mention that there’s a non-zero percent chance that an email could get accidentally missed / deleted / filtered incorrectly. By calling us directly, it guarantees that you will at least speak with a human to voice your issues.
This should come as no surprise, but FRC build season is our busiest time of the year. This is also the time that schools are buying new products for their second semesters, coupled with peak times for our own VEX Robotics / VEX IQ Competitions.
Up until a couple of months ago, our Customer Service team consisted of only four people. So admittedly, it probably took longer than many would like to receive a response. We’ve hired two additional people in the past few months, so time will tell how much the response time improves come January.
Since their first release VEXpro gears have always had a teflon impregnated ceramic coating. Around the time you mention, we switched suppliers to help control costs, quality, and streamline our gear supply chain.
The coating provided by the new supplier has been more consistent, without a noticeable change in performance. This was tested in a variety of applications such as lifts, drivetrains, arms, etc.
The faster gear wear could be attributed to the additional power of brushless motors, which were introduced around the time we switched suppliers.
It is very confusing to us how this idea of supplier retribution came to be. As someone who used to answer VEXpro support emails and calls (and still monitors them regularly), we don’t treat customers differently because they’re critical of our products online. The customer service folks who answer our support lines do not read CD or Discord. So they are completely unaware of who is critical and who is not.
As stated earlier, our customer service team literally answers hundreds, sometimes thousands, of calls and emails each day across 12 different product lines and 9 different competitions. Seeking retribution on customers who are critical of VEX is the last thing on their minds.
Regarding orders - we don’t hand pick orders to be packed and shipped. Every order is treated the same, whether it is a random person off the street, a member of Team IFI, or our worst critic. Trying to find one customer’s order to mess with out of thousands that are shipped every day is a lot of effort. Like our customer service staff, the folks in the warehouse picking and packing orders also do not read CD or Discord.
Lastly, while IFI may provide hosting for CD, it doesn’t have editorial control over the site. Look at the list of admins and moderators. There is one current employee who is an admin. It’s not like VEX employees can jump on and censor posts. I can’t (and wouldn’t) just walk over to Brandon’s office and ask him to remove a post just because it was critical of VEX. There’s been enough posts and threads since the release of the Falcon that are critical of VEX that this should be pretty obvious.