LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Well lets just say there are people who wear the Robart hat that care, they still have to move the tide and that can be challenging.
Time will tell !
I would not raise the checker flag yet .

flyingchef

My Feedback: (93)

Joe and Robart team,
Thank you for confronting the issues, your business is important to me since my freedom to practice this hobby resolve in part by using your products. Looking forward to see an improvement in communication and follow-up's. Perhaps you could create a specific manufacturer post on RCU with the latest news?
RCU great to have you!

tevans55

LDM
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDQRRXpocjUfoRQUNH4nB_A

Not sure if you have seen the new You tube Site that Century Jet has just listed for their new electrics. They are telling me that they will convert any brand of air retracts to electric. They converted my 60 size rotating retracts for $79 and I have beat them to death recently (even bent a strut) and they continue to work. The conversion of mine included the controller as well.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Not seen that add yet , sounds great is it too good to be true , that is really cheap !!!

tevans55

It took a year and a half to get the motors and transmissions built properly and tested at an appropriate price point. Take a hard look at recent electric retract development and if it seems to be unnecessarily expensive it probably is. The electronics and programming are not difficult or expensive you just have to have the equipment and know how to do it. I live close to the CJM factory and got to see their development process. The goal was to provide value and flexibility to build and retrofit for their retracts as well as other brands. They have already converted several other brands. As you know they don't advertise and they are a very frugal company in my opinion so you are not paying for a lot of overhead. Just my observations. I have installed and used all of the major brands and I believe many guys are going to like the CJM product as much as the others. I think the price to convert will make for new customers whether they are CJM gear or other brands.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Well sounds good , I agree 100% on the cost of some retracts . I am useing the 1700MM FMS corsair retracts in two planes with avg weight of 12lbs , the cost was $69 and they work great .
I may give CG a shot on my ESM gear and Sierra Gear .

tevans55

LDM-

I think we all would be interested in your opinions/reactions to any of the new electric retract setups. Electric retracts are slowly evolving into our hobby and I think we need folks like you and others sharing their experiences with flyers and manufacturers alike our experiences so that retract systems can be made better and more durable. Lord knows we beat up the retract systems more than any other system in our planes and I think the way to get them to perform more reliably is to share our ideas with each other and the manufacturers. I have tried to do that with Century Jet in particular because I live nearby (and I'm semi-pro at beating up retracts!). But, I have other brands and have worked on other brands and they all work well when properly installed and maintained...but that's a whole new thread!

Let's keep the discussions going...they are very helpful.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

I am at my office for work at this time , but I will be more then delighted to list my last 4 years of experience with eretracts , i have been involved with them for that long , and will never go back to air .
Good , bad and ugly , when you get the correct , they are a total pleasure .
Stay posted and will post my humble findings . Aslo for the record I am a VP in a candy company , I have nothing to do with the RC industry in any way shape or form , but I do travle to china , know the factories and many of the origins of the RC products.

BURT COZZLICH

I just ordered the "Gabby" Robart P-47 from Robart. I had a unique situation with a Robart certificate that I bid on and won at Warbirds over the Rockies. I had to send in the cert to Robart in order to get credit. After a few calls I landed Justin in shipping. He was very cool and I gave him my card information so he could manually apply the credit from the certificate and place the order. I asked the scarry question of how long it will take to get the plane. He told me that he should get the plane in about a week. He will open it up for inspection and then ship to my address in Colorado. He said I should get it in about two weeks. My estimate is 10/10/13. I believe him and I hope this post will give Robart an opportunity to counter some of the negative experiences that have occured.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Burt in all due respect sending you a plane that you won on a winning bid is not really an evaluation of "how Robart is doing" .
When something is won, bid on ect its probably at low margin and was donated for the event , if anything a full paying customer with real order at full margin should be the at the top of CS for first to ship , be filled or attended to , just my opinion .
I hope you get your plane in a reasonable amount of time but I dont know if that is fair for a Robart eval.
If you tell the group that your bid was 75% or more of typical retail that is a different story and I should shut up !!!

BURT COZZLICH

LDM, I tried to keep it short but because you brought it up I will fill in the blanks regarding the certificate. After bidding on the certificate I opened the envelope and noticed that it had some serious conditions. It was a certificate towards retracts ONLY. I was shocked. I wanted to order a plane when I got home. I wouldn't have bid had I not known it was for retracts. I called Robart and Justin allowed me to apply the cert to the plane. I appreciated that. He could have said take it up with the auctioneer. Believe me it is a fraction of what the airplane costs so I feel that I'm pretty much a full paying customer. Thanks for the reply. Here is to Robart and hoping they will come through. Waiting in Colorado

pattnut

I ordered a pair of 5" tires from Robart awhile back. knowing they would most likely be backordered. They were. Well,I was notified the other day they had been shipped, and Robart was crediting me with the differance in shipping cost from the original invoice. They could just as easily "buried" the differance and I would never have known. To me that's some straight up service. THANKS Robart!

Old Dawg

chuckk2

The only complaint I have with Robart is price. The "others" are more in my maximum price window.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Thanks Burt , and stay safe I hope all is well with you and your family as far as the Floods !!!

dfyjghkmgvhwen

Anyone else with bad or good experience?

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

I've ordered from Robart 3 different times, the same products in the past 9 months with good experience.

The first time was a 635RS 105* nose gear retract and a 5/8" diameter trailing link strut. After about a week of no response to the order (other than the automated "thanks for your order" receipt), I called them up to see what was going on. They were waiting on parts for the landing gear strut.. no problem, i wasn't in a huge hurry. 2 weeks later, it was on my door step, on time (actually earlier) than they told me. The landing gear strut was on sale for nearly 1/2 price at this time (Jan. 2013).

2-3 months later, I placed an order for the exact same thing (for my buddy who was building the same model as I). The sale for the strut had ended, but after placing an order and paying through paypal, the next day I had a partial refund of about $45. The refund was the difference between the duing the sale and normal price of the strut. I was surprised to see they had given me the same price as the original order, even though they weren't required to!

roughly 4 months later, the exact same thing as order #2. Same products, same shipping address. Same total, Same refund amount, still no sale on the items I bought.

While Robart has had its vast majority of problems ( I once waited 2 years for a set of Wing Mfg. B-25 retracts) it seems that their normal stock items and customer service are getting better. They atleast answer and return phone calls most of the time now.

robart-joe

Thank you all for your comments, positive or negative. As you know with manufacturing, we have supply and demand issues that in this hobby are next to impossible to forecast. Even if we nail down a production schedule and commitment dates from vendors, issues arise and things get delayed. It's my understanding that the majority of people are aware of this and understand delays but just want to be kept in the loop. This is our main priority right now is keeping our customer informed. While I work on things from an operational side to ensure product is on the shelves, our sales and customer service department is trying to catch up on the backlog of calls and emails. We appreciate everyone's commitment to robart and hope to show everyone that improvements are being made and made as quickly as possible. Thanks again.

Joe Rehak
Engineering / Operations Manager
Robart Mfg

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Joe, thanks again , and you email to me was both enlightening and refreshing ! It was great to see and hear from an engineering person who has great business acumen and customer servace insight .
I sincerly hope you stay connected and that Robart appreciates your "in the trenches approach and energy"

OldScaleGuy

My Feedback: (2)

I sent Joe an e mail Thursday at 11:22 am, requesting the status of an order, i received a reply at 11:30 am. Now that is service. We certainly cannot expect a reply in 8 minutes every time but the fact that i received a quick reply that was clear, concise and friendly was great.

Tally-ho

I have bad experience and will not buy more Robart equipment. This summer I needed spare parts for my Top Flite Focke Wulf electric retract. I sent several emails but never got an answer. But when I let out my frustrations on their facebook profile I got one email with price. But then I had already ordered a new second set from Tower Hobbies that I pick parts from. A very expensive solution. I tried to answer that email and asked if price was with shipping and how to pay, but never got more contact. Here where I live flight season lasts for five months and I can’t wait for months on spare parts. I can accept that it takes up to a month but not several months. Also it is not so easy to phone from other countries because of cost, time difference and language. I can not understand why they can’t sell spare parts through their dealers like Tower Hobbies. Another issue is horrible prices. An electric actuator cost 75$ and just contains a little electric “toy” motor and some gears in metal case. In my opinion it can not cost more than 1 to 10 dollar in production costs depending on the country in which it is produced.

robart-joe

I believe I responded instantly to your comments on our facebook page and would have sent the parts out immediately had you asked for them. We made a design change in this particular case and made an all new trunion to provide a better product for our customers. With the backlog in our shop, the parts took over 2 months to machine, weld, and finish. As soon as they were complete, I filled all of the order we had, which had to be close to 10 people waiting for new trunions. Actuators are a different story. We machine the components in house, send them to down and locked for assembly and testing, which they in-turn send back to us. Our parts are machined here in the USA and Down and Locked has assembles in the USA. Im sorry for your negative experience with robart and I would ask that on your next project, please send me an email at your convenience and let me try to earn your business back.

raptureboy

Joe, when are you guys going to come out with a better replacement for the 615's? These units are pitifully inadequate for todays 60-1.20 size P-40, Corsair and Hellcats on grass fields. I have repaired mine at least 5 times this summer because the links bend and the rotating gear jumps out of the side rails with the slightest side force on the gear. It would be nice to see something a little more resonably priced than the Sierra Giants. I love my 551's in my TF P-51 arf with the 7/16 struts.

robart-joe

Funny you should bring that up... I am in the process of prototyping a solution to a 550 series rotation gear as we speak. It fits within the profile of a 615 but uses our typical trunion and frame designs making it a much more durable and reliable product. Hoping to have working gear available before the end of the year. When I have something working, I will have an announcement on our facebook page with renderings and a formal release date.

LDM

My Feedback: (15)

Previously someone was commenting on Century Jet conversion of air to eletric for only $79 a set , if you go to there web , you wont find one cenversion udner $200 . So perhaps I am wrong but I look at every option visable .
If anyone is intersted in a thread on eletric retracts and simple finding of what I have encountered in the past 4 years , let me know and I will start a thread in the warbird section . One of the problems is that RCU is heavily moderated and at times a thread will get shut down as "not relavant to the category " in this case warbirds . Retracts in my opinion are more relavant to warbirds then any other section on RCU , so again if we want to start this , I will be more then glad to start whay I have found encountered

tevans55

LDM-

My bad. It looks like it is $79 for an exchange of your air system for 2 gear and $129 for the exchange of a 3 gear system. Still a heck of a deal to change over your existing CJM gear to electric.