AutuPilot Dig-48 DEAD out of the box!!!

[Sardian]

Boy did I mess up. I bought an Autopilot Dig-48 last June 27, 2006 thinking my pool would be done in time for me to install it by the end of the summer. Well, it wasn't.

So i waited till this spring for everything to get done and I installed my Autopilot Dig-48 today. The unit doesn't work at all!!! No signs of life from the control box at all...nothing. I checked all the power connections and I'm getting power into the unit and I pulled all the fuses and checked them in an Ohm meter and they are fine.

Now the place I bought it from, aquasuperstore.com, tells me that all I can do is deal with the mfg. since it's been so long and they are closed until tomorrow. I would guess the unit is still under some sort of Mfg. warranty, I guess now I'll find out how well they are at dealing with problems like this.

Maybe Poolsean can chime in and give me an idea of why thing could be dead out of the box. It sure was easy to install, too bad it didn't work.

I guess I want to vent, I worked hard to make I didn't a nice neat job of installing the unit and then for it to give no signs of life is like rain on a parade.

I guess I should have waited until the pool was done before I ordered, then I could just exchange it with the place I bought it from.

I guess I'll go dump some bleach in the pool.....I thought I was done with that ;-)

Russell

[catnip]

Russel, sorry to hear about the problem!

Just to give you a little temporary relief, the Pool Pilot is fully warranted for 2 years (on-site service included free within 50 miles of a service center). I just talked to their customer service yesterday to check on the warranty coverage, as I'm in the process of ordering one this week.

So, I'd suggest you give them a call; maybe they can walk you through a fix on the phone without having a service call or needing to return the unit.

Good luck!

[Sardian]

Thanks for the reply. They are sending someone out to check it out. We went over the install and everything is hooked up correctly, so there must be something wrong with the unit. I re-wired it for now so I can run my pump to help keep all the spring time junk out of the pool.

I'm sure it'll all work out. The folks with Autopilot were very nice and helpful on the phone. He said it could be something to do with how long it had sit before I installed it.

Russell

[Sardian]

I talked to AutoPilot again today. The nearest service center is 5 hours away so at the moment they don't know what they are going to do. They said the would call me back (I thought today) but so far they haven't.

To me, since the unit was bad out of the box, it should be replaced since there isn't anyone near by that can check it. I have my fingers crossed.

Again, so far, everyone has been very nice on the phone but they don't seem to know what to do when one of their items has a problem.

Russell

[Smurfe]

I just bought one (Autopilot Dig-60) from the same place you did. I hope yours was packaged better than mine was. It was just the 2 boxes containing the control unit and the cell thrown in a big box twice the size. No packing material to protect the inner boxes. Hard telling how much they got beat around. The package was delivered Friday while I wasn't home. The inner boxes contents are packaged /cushioned well so I hope everything is OK. It is going to be a month before I can fire the unit up to assure it works properly. Waiting for new liner to be installed.

[Sardian]

UPDATE:

Well, first thing first. Everyone I spoke with over the phone for the past week at Autopilot couldn't have been nicer.

I had to call every day since last Tuesday. The first day I called I wasn't at home so we couldn't do any trouble shooting, that was last Tueaday. I called back Wed. and the nice man at tech support confirmed that I had everything hooked up correctly and I had already checked all the fuses so there wasn't much else that could be done over the phone so he said they would send someone out to check it. So he passed me over to another nice lady who got all my info and said someone whould come out.

I called the next day around lunch to see if they had decided who was coming out and when. The very nice person on phone found that the nearest service center was about 4 hours away from me and there weren't sure what they were going to do. She said that someone would call me back when they figured out what to do. So I waited until near closing time and called back again. They talked to somone in tech support and said that it had to either be a bad fuse (already checked so that ruled that out) or a bad "board" and they were going to mail me one out. It was too late to get it out that day (Thursday) but it would go out Friday.

I gave it till yesterday (Tuesday) and called back to see if I could get a tracking number. I was told that they didn't know what stage it was in but a dispatcher would have to call me back (after sever waits on hold, not long though). So I called back a little later and asked to speak with a manager.

Ah, the manager trick....that did it. He said they would ship my board out that day and send it overnight. I got it today and my Dig-220 is now working.

I was a little aggrevated by having to call everyday to get results, and if I hadn't called so much the board may have still not shipped, even after being told it was going to ship last Friday.

But in the end, all the nice and friendly people on the phone kept my blood pressure down and I have a working unit. So I'm not displeased with Autopilot too much.

Setup of the Dig-220 couldn't have been easier. Set the time, power level, percentage, and program the pump schedule (I'm using the timer in the Autopilot which seems to be working great).

[Sardian]

Photos of my install: