Agreed. I think @chaka is the way to go for VESCs at the moment. I’m going to try Maytech’s when they’re available though. I have a pilot project in the works and I can’t afford to pay artisanal prices for VESCs. I’m pretty sure Maytech will get their VESCs up to scratch pretty soon though. They have actual engineers working on that sheat. I don’t know if the same can be said for the other manufacturers at the moment? I’d be more inclined to trust an engineered product at face value. We all know how Enertion and DIYElectricSkateboards have struggled to get it right this far.
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I’m more interested in the quality of components.
The problems I’ve had with both of my enertion VESCs (1 which came broken, the other broke in day 2 and of course no help or replacement, and chakas in the same setup have been great in 2 months since then) I believe are related to poor quality of components. Chaka spends a lot on components, and has stated that his old price (around $110 usd I believe) was basically the cost of components. He has said him self that he’s over engineered the components to be able to take more abuse then they should ever take. This is what needs to be done with the vesc, as these are going into 1000’s of different configurations, many of which are likely poorly engineered, which will lead to more stress on the vesc then it was originally expected to take. If you leave little room for errors, they will break frequently. Chaka rarely has people break his vescs, and one of the main differences I’ve seen is his choice to use components that can take more abuse then the vesc was originally specked for.
Completely agree. This is an engineering thing though. Components are components. They have data sheets specifying their performance and if they don’t perform according to those specs, the manufacturers can be held to account. With an open source project like the VESC, it’s up to manufacturers to spec components and manufacturing processes that will work, and then test them and validate the product before they sell them. I think that @chaka has done a great job of this considering his means. I think the other manufacturers (Enertion and DIY) have suffered here for the lack of engineering knowledge into how things actually work. Yes, the VESC design works very well on paper and if you hand solder them using good components and adequate skill, but in the real world of product design and manufacture this is a completely different task, and is best left up to the big boys (as Enertion seems to have found out). With Maytech’s extensive product offering, most of which they seem to make themselves, and engineers on board, I think I’ll trust their VESCs when they’re ready to sell them.
As a side note, in engineering there is something called a safety factor. When designing something, you look at your worst case loading and you apply a safety factor to that and design based on the values that come out of that. The safety factor is based on the extremity and probability of the failure. It’s a basic risk analysis. Ie, if you’re designing a bridge that can hold 10000 people, and your probability of failure of a material used is 5%, you have a low probability of failure but a huge extremity, say 1000%. Your safety factor is then 1000/100 * 95/100 = 9.5. So you design the bridge to be 9.5 times stronger than it actually needs to be to account for the risk.
The safety factor on enertions VESCs so far seem to be 1 IMO. Time and time again I have seen posts on this forum where enertions have failed for no real reason, then chakas in the same situation work flawlessly. Then what Jason told me when they broke was that it’s my fault for running them in a configuration that hadn’t been tested before (which wasn’t really true, since several others where already using carvons with the vescs and space cell before me).
Rule number 1 of customer service: the customer is always right, even when they are wrong.
I fought with Jason forever about my 9mm belts breaking on a single motor drive system, and he always insisted he never had an issue. He said it was too high acceleration, too high deceleration, everything in the book, except that 9mm belts on mono drive systems are just too small. If you haven’t noticed, he uses 12mm belts now on mono drive kits. It took 8 months before he finally agreed a month ago to send me a 12mm belt kit for free. He did keep his word to it, so bravo to Jason for that. But why is it that you always seem to have to fight to get customer service (if you do get it), when that’s what he’s selling his products on. Heck, I emailed enertion about my receiver breaking for the steez remote, and it took 6 days to get back to me. I already had plans with maytech to buy them before they could even get back to me with an answer, lol. And that’s the great customer service enertion prides itself on?
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Yeah, exactly. I think the main problem I have with this whole experience is that they seem to waste no time telling everyone how great they are and how great their customer service is (and criticizing other business in the process, as per some of Enertion/Jason’s video’s and posts), but in reality when all of the stories come out it’s an actual load of BS.
When you have to ask/beg someone to make a really simple plan for your based on a sales performance that they are providing that isn’t adequate, you’re really at a loss. They are making money from your business at the end of the day. And if they aren’t giving you good business, on your side, what’s the point in pandering?
I’ll see how these new Enertion VESCs perform (if and when I receive them, my order might be cancelled due to this topic, will have to see). Hopefully their supplier has used a safety factor of more than 1. 
. Maybe I’ll experience a turnaround and order from them again, but it isn’t looking likely.
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Hey guys, as a member of this forum with no branding and providing a service.
I offer BLDC tool for Windows and OS X to make it easy for end users to program and use your vesc. (Chaka doesn’t support this and suggested to use Linux.)
But I am answering over 20 customer emails a day providing assistance for installation and how to program vesc and no finacual benifits to my self or maybe a $20 donation here or there, but the service time out weighs the time I spend on the product.
What you have to understand is that Jason has a lot of paid products he is selling so his time spent on service is huge I would say over 100 emails a day and up until last couple of week it was just him and a young guy who helped him in the USA answer emails. Plus packing orders, assembling raptors, doing stock control making sure vesc are being made, making videos and editing and replying to emails. Plus he is a stay at home dad and only works 3 days a week.
Then for most of you there is a 12 hour time difference.
I’m not taking sides but most of you already know this as you watch his videos and have read posts when he has said all of this. So don’t make the order or wait for things to improve, guess what I’m trying to make an app and I don’t have any working vesc ATM coz I’m also waiting and I don’t have the time to solder some up my self.
He has alot of vesc waiting shipment and the fight on price isn’t worth the time.
I brought an iMac a while ago and it went up in price 40c to the $1 in 1 week because of exchange rates well I was pissed and wish a made that order a week earlier but I wasn’t emailing Tim Cook giving him shit about it.
I was the first person to organise a bulk vesc order just over 1 year ago. I ordered 50 vesc and Jason Brough 25 of them off of me and resold them. The factory screwed us and used wrong componants and we got blasted for this on endless sphere. Jason has never made that mistake since and every vesc order since componants have come from mouser according to the BOM so it’s not about components. he could have had vesc out early but he refused to use different mosfets with a little higher resistance because of the back lash he got with the very first order. He has used a few factories since and he doesn’t have the skill or equipment to be soldering 100vesc or 500vesc in a month so he uses a factory and that has been a learning curve but he is trying to improve.
Moral of the story, buy from enertion or don’t buy from enertion.
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Here are some simple facts that might make it easier to understand how we operate.
- Big Commerce (our e-commerce platform doesn’t allow orders to be modified easily)
- All website sales need to be recorded into our accounting system, it is linked to our big commerce platform, it doesn’t automatically update.
- We don’t send out PayPal money requests, because this transaction isn’t accounted for in our accounting systems, It would need to be manually entered and update across three different platforms and still wouldn’t meet our accounting requirements.
below is a summary of our communications with you.
1. You asked us for a delivery date of the vesc, we didn’t give you that information because we didn’t know the answer. I suppose we could have lied to you and made up an answer. However honesty is our policy so we told you the truth, we don’t know.
Your response:
“Hmmm. So what you’re saying is that you have absolutely no idea of the regularity of your stock arriving”
Yes, that is why we said we don’t know
2. You asked to modify your order to add items, we said its not possible and that you need to order the item separately or alternatively we could cancel the first order & you could place another order with the correct quantity.
Your response:
Unfortunately I’m simply not going to accept this level of customer service.
Both your’s and the owner’s slow response time to my messages, combined with your inability and lack or will to make a very simple plan to help as customer are now going to cost me a lot more money.
My request was very very simple. Nothing outlandish. I ordered 3 VESCs (preordered even!!!), paid upfront, with absolutely no accurate idea of when they are to arrive. A couple of days later I said I’d like to add one another to my bulk order. What excuse could you possibly have not to be able to do this?! You use PayPal. I use PayPal. You didn’t even have the VESCs yet at that stage. Now you want me to pay 40% more?
This is incredibly poor customer service and for an organisation that’s so marketing conscious about having good customer service and for acting like you’re doing everyone a favour. This is pretty disappointing.
This isn’t a threat or anything. But if we can’t sort this out rightfully, people are definitely going to hear about it. Because no body should have to stand bullshit customer service.
We gave you very clear options, you ignored them and instead started threatening & swearing at my staff.
The problem here is: 1. You ordered incorrectly. 2. You ignored our instructions.
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Look above your post. Lol.
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Here’s an interesting bit from another thread posted earlier:
lol
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After what? Your post? EDIT: Is there supposed to be an image on your post?
This part.
Oh, ok. Are you new to the forum? If so, welcome!
Yes, I’ve been lurking for a few weeks now. Still not really used to the quoting and replying-functions.
Hey “mate”. Thanks for elaborating.
I’m not going to nit pick your post and choice selection of quotes of our correspondence, although I will just say that they’re a pretty disingenuous selection and far from an accurate summary, so for anyone interested in a more comprehensive summary, read the first post.
As for your accusations of threatening and swearing at your staff, yes, I said “bullshit”. Big whoop. My intention was not aggression to your staff, I was merely describing your organization’s level of customer service. As to my theoretical “threats”, that’s a matter of perception, but I can see how this is a convenient place to go to for you because it means you can point fingers and not have to take responsibility for your poor service.
Anyway, we’ve had our argument and there is no point in rehashing it on here. Bad service is bad service. Simple as that. I’ve moved on and I just thought people should know about the lengths you’re not willing to go to to help your customers.
The actual problems here are: 1. You were not willing to make a very simple plan to help your customer. 2. When I offered to comply with your instruction for putting through a second order, you wouldn’t allow me to pay the same price as the first 3 items. 3. Your accounting system is inefficient. 4. Your customer service leaves much to be desired. It’s slow and unhelpful.
Out of interest, I wonder how much money we both spent on emails back and forth, when this could very easily have been sorted out after my first request? Probably the cost of a VESC. Food for thought.
Peace out and good luck with your future ventures.
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Hey mate, I’m not passing judgement on the issue here, I suspect it is a little column A, a little column be when it comes to the fault for the issue blowing up here. But I do want to argue something that seems to pop up frequently- and that is the notion that 'the customer is always right".
This is a notion which makes us feel empowered as consumers, but it is, to a large degree, a fallacy. Why? Because if this was the case, then this would imply business existed solely for the purpose of satisfying the customer, and it isn’t. It also exists to pay wages, grow, and make profit. So really, it exists for the both the customer, and also it’s own reasons.
The more accurate saying for business is “There are some customers you don’t want to do business with”. This is when it isn’t financially viable for a business to do business with a certain client, and some clients cost more to deal with than it is worth in return. Business is fundamentally an exchange of value between two parties; the business exchanges goods and the customer exchanges cash, and a relationship builds based on joint value creation.
The adage the ‘customer is always right’ suggests that the only value that needs to be created is for the customer. Which is wrong.
What you might be seeing here is a case where @onloop is making a choice about value creation- it is simply makes more sense for him to service the next set of customers than to invest the same finite time trying to satisfy @makepeace et al 100%, especially when @onloop was not in control of the decisions the customer chose to make all by himself.
You can argue the merits of that in terms of reputation, building customer loyalty via reciprocity etc, but ultimately he runs a business and is making his choices based on what he believes is best for him and his business (and he is probably prioritising short term gains over long term effects because he has no choice as a home business with bugger all capital).
In terms of deciding which customers are worth doing business with and investing the extra mile in, I suspect most the growing businesses engaged on this forum find that the DIY scene is actually pretty fickle. Many (of course not all) openly shop on price alone, despite the pitfalls in doing that, and show almost zero brand loyalty by openly supporting cheaper clones or direct-from-factory suppliers, and trying to pressure price reductions out of small business with group buys and bulk orders with non-DIY scene suppliers. I find that ironic, especially when there is such a strong expectation of superior customer-support, but almost no brand loyalty in return. The title and intention behind this thread is a classic example of that.
I think @onloop could improve his messaging and demeanour with customers, but I also feel almost every issue is out of his control. If he wasn’t growing 1000 odd % in 3 months you could be assured he would be working 24/7 to solve dicky little problems like the one in this thread, because he would have no choice. But he does have choice (like @makepeace does) and it seems he is prioritising effort where it makes the most sense right now.
And if anyone thinks superior customer service comes for free- it doesn’t. You pay for it because it costs time and man hours and those costs get passed back in price rises. The blokes going after the DIY market share are always looking to reduce costs because DIY’s are largely driven by a desire to build boards at home as cheaply as possible. Cheaper prices is offset with an expectation you can order yourself without screwing up, you can determine what you want/ need yourself, and can build/ self-help yourself. It all goes to custard when you want all of that flexibility and support, plus superior quality products and the cheapest prices- it’s a mutually exclusive situation and something will give.
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Completely agree with you here. It’s entirely his decision as to whether or not customers are worth his business, as it is mine vice versa. He must just understand and own that if he chooses not to provide a very basic level of service that people are going to talk about it.
I stand nothing to lose as I can just go somewhere else. His business is not a unicorn. And I certainly don’t want to do business with someone who doesn’t want to do business with me.
Dear Mr Makepeace, I have provided a refund for your order of the 3x VESC priced at the sale price of $99ea = Approx $300USD?
Now you can go buy the VESC for a much higher price wherever you like…
You could nearly buy two from Chaka with that refund, However shipping to South Africa will be a killer… Or Maybe some from Maytech, they will charge shipping too, good luck.
.
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