Folks,
Recently made my first purchase from HobbyKing and unfortunately I have to say I've come away incredibly disappointed with their quality control and also commitment to post-sales service.
Cut a very long story short, my Accucell 6 (which is an excellent value hobby charger - though pretty much internally identical to numerous other hobby chargers around the same price) arrived and looked fine.
However, upon first usage I found that the fan was faulty &/or dying - sputtered on and off - really struggling to work - INCREDIBLY noisey (30mm fans are always loud but rest assured this was FAULTY loud). This is a very well known problem with the Accucell 6 and to HobbyKing's shame they've done NOTHING to correct this except allow users to upload a text document on their product page detailing how to open the case and lubricate the fan.
Interestingly this 'solution' while clearly sanctioned by HobbyKing (by allowing it to remain on their main product page (when their mods very heavily 'censor' reviews and product comments) also just happens to TECHNICALLY void your warranty on the Accucell 6 - as you've opened the item's case and 'modded' it. Go figure.
Anyway I did this - using a quite expensive teflon based lubricant - and then when this made no difference a more common machine oil one - again no difference.
BUT the real shocker for me was the terrible condition of the LCD and insides of the charger. The pictures tell the story - but in short:
- border of LCD screen was covered in flaking/fall off paint
- LCD screen cover (meant to stay on?) had massive bubbles under it - finger prints and dust
- significant amounts of white heatsink paste smeared around the internals of device
The faulty fan was annoying but not unexpected (I knew this was a known problem but still very poor on day 1 of use!) however getting this level of quality control was unacceptable. I ended up sending 6 emails to Hobby King's customer service team who refused to take any responsibility for the state of the item. The only option I was given was returning the item to them as my expense and they'd examine the item and consider providing a replacement item.
However, I'd be out of pocket the return postage fee (from Australia 50% of the items original cost) and obviously inconvenienced without the item whilst the process occured. I argued quite hard with them but they would not do anything more than this.
I write this as a warning to prospective buyers from HobbyKing - if you have any faults with your item you will have to wear the return postage costs and obviously quality control at HobbyKing's end is quite poor.
Considering they already charge quite heavily for postage (sub-500g parcel from HKG to Aus is $USD10!) I find this a very poor practice - I'd consider DOA items their responsibility (same for perhaps the first 2-4weeks usage).
In the end I told them to stick their customer service and have removed the fan an am operating it 100% passive (using active external fan when needed). To be fair its a very nice little charger but HobbyKing's customer service is abysmal and prospective buyers may wish to consider trustworthy localised sellers instead or go for clones of this charger e.g Imax B6
Cheers, Nick
PICTURES (apologies problems embedding forum sized thumbs
One of many globs of thermal paste!
PS. Sorry for woes with uploading pictures!