My Dolphin: Now I'm getting rid of it

[brent.roberts]

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

[CarlD]

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.

[cheshamjim]

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

[Rescue30]

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 .

[CarlD]

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.

[Rescue30]

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

[cruzmisl]

I too am interested in the Blue Diamond/Aquabot Turbo T4. I have been a Dolphin user for the last 3 years but if it's better I'd buy one. It doesn't look well thought out though. The cart looks cheaper, the power supply has a big antenna on it and no joystick on the remote are just a few of the things I noticed. I'd also like to see a video of how it changes direction. I look forward to more reviews.