My Dolphin: Now I'm getting rid of it

I heard a lot of good things here about the Dolphin so I got one about 2 weeks ago. Initially it was in a rut about 10' long ... back and forth, like Carl's

I sent an email to the folks I bought it from ([poolsupplydeals.com). No response whatsoever.

So I diddled. I am impressed that this thing has abosolutely minimal intelligence and sensing capability. At first I thought putting in the length of the pool and telling it to climb walls woudl really do something. The cycle seems to be the same whether it is going across the width or the length.

I did find that
1) by moving the handles to the extreeme ends of the slots, not in the semi-circular cut outs that look like they are made for the handle ... made the unit hang at a different angle when it hit the surface and that caused it to travel along the waterline and cover different areas.
2) it will not work at all well with the cover on
3) it "seems" to wander around better with the cord entering the water at end of the pool rather than the side.
4)the amount of debris in the bag affects the flow through the unit that affects its ability to push itself agains a wall and climb.
5)on the long cycles it seemed to get in the rut more than on a 2 or 3 hour cycle, that I now start once in the morning and once in the evening.
6)it is not nearly as intelligent and programmable as the advertising would lead you to believe.
7)the yellow trim makes me think the dumb thing should be declared legally blonde.
8) depsite all the above, it is working well enough now that I have not vacuumed since I put it in and that's the only good news ... but that was, after all the purpose of the expense.

Lessons learned
1) I'll never order another item from poolsupplydeals.com regardless of price.
2) I will try another brand when this one dies.

Don't feel too bad Carl ... lots of folks said these were the greatest thing since sliced bread.
PS part of my business is building CNC machine tools with programmable interfaces, and other than the lenght of time this thing runs until it reverses,
I find it hard to beleive there is much of a program in there.

The folks that make the Dolphin need a good class action lawsuit against them for false advertising. First, there is no way the damn thing can "learn" your pool. I don't think it has any memory chips, but that is just an opinion. How could it learn anyway. If the water level changed slightly it would have to relearn. If you put it in the pool in a different place each time it would have no way of knowing where it was and would think it was a different pool.

Also, they claim in their ads and on their box that the unit includes a free extra filter bag. While maybe techincally true, it is not what you would expect rather a cheap paper disposable bag. This is pattently a case of gross disception if not outright lying. I would never buy another product made by that company and would suggest that others think twice. I just wish others bought it from a place that would take it back.

Carl

I was watching my Dolphin tonight and turned off the wall climbing. It covered a much smaller area of the pool.

You've been watching yours a lot more than I've seen mine but it seems that the only real progress to new turn is when it hits the surface and craps along the waterline.

The amount of time it spends there seems to be tied to the size of the pool you tell it you have. I think it calculates the time to cross it and adds some for water level cleaning and crabbing along the edge to new territory.

If your unit will climb the walls to the surface, try going up one size on the set up mode and see what happens.

I can try that but I think 40' IS the biggest size--I'll have to check the programming.

It would help an awful lot if the remote had a "re-learn" button that would wipe the memory and let it re-learn the pool.

Yeah sure, learn, that dumb chunck of plastic.

What annoys me is that the instructions do not tell you what mode the thing should be in to program. Power off, hardly. Power on, maybe. Power on and in the pool, maybe.

The directions are absolutely minumal. Darned shame. So close to being really good.

As you say it works well when it works. I think mine is saving me a couple hours a week of vacuuming and brushing.

Hope it helps

I do know that you program it in the water, powered on.

Yeah, it's a shame. I am eMailing back and forth to Maytronics in Israel.

Oh, and they tell me that they can provide brass weights rather than lead. WHY DON'T THEY DO THAT AS A RULE???????

At least it's working in crippled mode--no climbing, short cycle. Next I'll try to get it working in a longer cycle.

I'm worried too. I had a big problem with my new Dolphin right out of the box. Maybe we should pull all these Dolphin stories together in this thread.

SmartPool told me to send it off to a repair depot in the Detroit area. Haven't gotten it back yet.

Since I charged this purchase on my Visa and haven't yet paid for it, I'm wondering if I shouldn't just send the unit back to Leslie's or SmartPool and contest the charge with Visa. Does that work?

There ought to be someplace on the internet that can link this thread to potential victims of these companies. This is a high ticket product and its too bad that we, their customers (victims), have so little leverage.

Thanks in advance of any and all advice.

-Jim

First let me start off by saying I have owned and tried , the Polaris 380, Polaris 360,Polaris 340, Baracuda G3, Letro Legend, Letro Platnium Truck, Aquabot plus wireless remote, all these were bought and then returned or sold on Ebay .I now have a Blue Diamond remote AND a Hayward Phantom.I drive over 6 hours for work each day and WILL NOT vacuum my pool after a whole day of work, so I own the 2 best pool cleaners (in my humble opinion)If you want a pressure cleaner go with the Phantom , if you're looking for robotic go with a Blue diamond .I am on my third season with the Blue Diamond , I got it at Frontgate for $1100 brand new , I saw it on their website, wanted to get it but the $1600 price tag was a little too much for me , one day I go on the website and one of their geniuses swapped the prices of the remote model to $1100 and the regular model to $1600 !!!! I jumped for joy, placed my order , and sure enough they shipped it out and charged me $1100, couple of days later they realized their mistake and swapped the prices back to their correct amounts.My boss, who uses my pool decide this year to give me a pool present , he gets me a Dolphin Dynamic remote , I figured what the hell, let me try it , if it's good I'll sell the Blue Diamond on Ebay , probably get my $1100 for it as they are going now for $1600 new and I also gain a 3 year warranty on the Dolphin , i throw in the Dynamic and it's a total waste of time, !! goes back and forth over the same line for 2 hours ! I call customer service , they tell me to set the cleaning time to 8 hours as my pool is 25 x 40 .tried that and then it went over the same line for 8 hours !!I sold it on Ebay, and kept the cash .The Blue pearl is a less expensive model but I'm sure it's fine, you can order them from Frontgate and they have (just double check for yourself before you buy) a 90 day money back guarantee, use it for the summer and see if you like it .The Dolphin's were the original robotic pool cleaner , looks like their American rep for them, copied the cleaner and opened Aquabot, Watertech which makes the Blue Diamond is the son of the owner of Aquabot . in fact the Blue Diamond warranty registration card goes to Aquabot service department !! The Dolphins do not have a "random" mode in my case they kept hitting one of the ladders in the deep end then back down across the pool and hitting the other deep end ladder .the Blkue Diamonds will go in a pattern , then turn suddenly goin a total opposite direction, it does this every couple of minutes and therefore covers my whole pool spotlessly , 25 x 40 , 30, 000 gallons in an HOUR ! Aquabot has a new 2006 model the T4 remote which is a nice cleaner as well and has the same programming as the Blue Diamond , something the Dolphins are seriously lacking .

Please do not post the same post in multiple threads. We just end up deleting one of them, much as I personally appreciate your insights on this topic.

Sorry arld, I just wanted to help the people looking at both topics .