ZipDee Awning

[Gary Carmichael]

Gary, I'm with you I love the Girard's so far no trouble!

[pwf252]

Could we talk Zipdee into sending a rep to POG10? We could get them to repair our awnings and then stiff them on payment. Or tell them we would gladly pay them on Tuesday for a repair today.
Sherry and I had a great time at The Fat Beagle Bash # ???. Alot of folks there for the weekend, moderate drinking, heavy eating, lite shopping and some not seen everywhere entertainment when a GPS sent a fellow driving a new H-3 the wrong direction off the exit ramp and he picked a very unfortunate spot to attempt a u-turn with a Jeep in toe. Lucky fellow had himself a motorcycle lift attached to the back with support channel fixed under the frame. Turned out to be well spent money as it saved him alot of under bus damage.
I don't suppose he enjoted the 8-10 Poggers as an audience much, but he did get plenty of help directing the extraction operation, even included a couple cows watching intently from the ajoining pasture!!

[Seabyrd]

Funny you should say that because at the beginning of all the POG10 discussions, Zip Dee was a consideration. I would like them to come as I have a few questions myself?? so what about it guys?

Could we talk Zipdee into sending a rep to POG10? We could get them to repair our awnings and then stiff them on payment. Or tell them we would gladly pay them on Tuesday for a repair today.
Sherry and I had a great time at The Fat Beagle Bash # ???. Alot of folks there for the weekend, moderate drinking, heavy eating, lite shopping and some not seen everywhere entertainment when a GPS sent a fellow driving a new H-3 the wrong direction off the exit ramp and he picked a very unfortunate spot to attempt a u-turn with a Jeep in toe. Lucky fellow had himself a motorcycle lift attached to the back with support channel fixed under the frame. Turned out to be well spent money as it saved him alot of under bus damage.
I don't suppose he enjoted the 8-10 Poggers as an audience much, but he did get plenty of help directing the extraction operation, even included a couple cows watching intently from the ajoining pasture!!

[Sawbonz]

I think it would be great if they came. I would love to learn how to maintain the awnings, as Liberty didn't go over a lot of maintenance items. I am sure they are a great product if properly taken care of.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Too Late.

But if someone who is or has experienced problems wants to extend an invitation to our next rally we will make sure they are on the schedule. Wouldn't hurt to diplomatically mention a number of folks are experiencing problems. Next national rally is in Las Vegas October 2012. Exact dates and details to be announced.

[hhoppe]

I won't bore you with how it happened but after my encounter with Zip Dee, I gained on my auto awning problems by changing the diagonal air operated struts to their improved spring operated type. It required an exchange update on the control box ( 1K+$ ) out of pocket. So far so good on operation. I really would like to see them at all of our Rally's. There are a lot of us with their products that would gain, not loose by them being there if they will come. One way or another we need to learn the maintenence proceedures for our awning survival. It has been a case of a small canvas awning company over it's head trying to invent an automatic awning on a shoe string budget without strong engineering help. The Wright Brothers had the same problems.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

In another life I was responsible for the development of products for the medical industry.

The market was limited in size, not unlike the number of potential customers ZipDee has. The products were in some cases no more complex than those ZipDee is selling. But unlike ZipDee we had a lot of hoops to jump through before our produicst ever got in the hands of the customer. Our biggest challenge was our own in-house test group. They worked the products under extreme conditions in the same way the marketplace would and if the product had weak points or unforseen issues it came right back into our lap.

Nothing went out the door without having the in house test group bless it. Then the service people from the field had to review it to insure it was easily serviced. They were brutal. If a small part needed to be replaced it had better be easily accessed and simple to replace. They were a little more tolerant if a major part had to be replaced, but only if they could see there were no other options to make the job simpler.

Did I mention the approvals? UL, NSF, and the whole range of other testing agencies got their turn at bat. They didn't care if the product worked, they were intersted only in that it was safe. In the course of making it safe according to the standards we were also usually improving its reliability. If water wasn't supposed to get somewhere, we had to build the product so water could not get there. My point is simple. If ZipDee wants to develop more sophisticated products, good for them. But they have an obligation to not make their customers the product test group. And they especially have a lot of nerve if they are charging customers for "upgrades" because their design work or their production methods suck.

Think back to how Toyota and Honda ate General Motor's lunch because GM owned the market, produced lousy quality and made the customer pay to keep the crappy car running. Zip Dee is so exposed to having another company steal their market out from under them it isn't funny, and usually the company never recognizes how their own actions caused them to fail, even as they are circling the drain.

[garyde]

Girard has the patent on the lateral awning. If my history is correct, the owner of Girard used to work or own Zip Dee. He left and developed the Lateral awning which te industry hs now adopted.http://www.patents.com/us-6782936.html