My Dolphin: Now I'm getting rid of it

[brent.roberts]

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.