Royal RC40 40-Pound Rate Calculating Shipping Scale

Rating:
Summary: A Royal Pain In The @#S!
Review: After returning 2 of the RC40 scales, I have yet another defective unit. I am totally disappointed in this product. The computer interface and downloads fail consistantly, and there is no product support. None of three units worked with any regularity. Stay away from the RC40!

Rating:
Summary: Downloading
Review: allow 45 minutes for set-up, including crawling behind your PC and SECURELY plugging in the serial cord. after you install the CD software, and ask to DOWNLOAD rates, you get a message saying the software needs to be updated (better go to royal.com and download the RC40.exe file directly).it downloads the data to your PC and THEN downloads it thru the serial port/cord to the scale.after a couple of false starts saying the software was incompatible to the scale (shut off the scale and try again)...and then scale messages saying it was downloading when it wasn't, a PROGRESS box appeared and it downloaded verrry slooowwwly to the scale. by the time the cheery DOWNLOAD COMPLETE! message appeared, i couldn't decide whether to jump for joy or smash the scale. have yet to try it, so the scale's fate remains open :).as a person who considers it a personal defeat to have to call tech support, the installation process comes close to "pain in the butt" status. OFFICE DEPOT performed flawlessly, delivering in 2 days.

Rating:
Summary: UGH!!! Worthless!!!!!
Review: I purchased this for Ebay. I thought it worked just fine... but the post office kept telling me that I was putting too much postage on my packages. Those were the "up to date" rates the scale was giving me! Then I had to reformat my computer and that meant re-installing the RC40 software on my computer (which was not a hard thing to do) BUT from then on, this thing will ABSOLUTELY NOT download the new shipping rates from the internet. It keeps telling me that for a regular letter, the postage is $0.34... and we all know that's not true. This is a waste of good money. You're better off buying a cheap $10.00 scale for weighing and just look up the rates on the internet. Don't waste your time or money on this thing. Oh yeah... I emailed customer service at Royal and never heard from them.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent scale
Review: I'll tell ya' folks, I wasn't sure if this product was going to be good or not, from the reviews above.....so I bought it anyway and got it the next day, which was a pleasant surprise. There was no need for customer support. This was easier to set up than a bowl of cereal. If you follow the directions to the letter, then you shouldn't have a problem. It helps if you read them through first to familiarize yourself with the steps. It has a lot of great features whether your computer is on or not. In other words, it's only dependent on your computer for downloading the rates, which takes very little time if you have a P4 (highly recommended) with 1.3Mhz or better. The whole set up took about 10-15 minutes with download and updating. For a more accurate weighing, I recommend using the pound & ounce function (e.g. 2lbs 12.6 oz). This makes things a lot easier than getting quotes over the phone or online from 4 different mailing services. The extra features like insurance, etc are real nice additions for more accurate pricing. I highly recommend this scale that sends a lot of small to medium weight packages. Oh, one more thing...if you're business depends on weight to the 1/1000 of a gram or ounce or whatever, then don't buy a scale used for mailing packages. Get a chemistry or food scale with pinpoint accuracy. You might pay more, but you'll make it back in your profit margining. Good luck all and happy buying!!!

Rating:
Summary: RC40 Scale, great product, highly recommended
Review: I'll tell ya' folks, I wasn't sure if this product was going to be good or not, from the reviews above.....so I bought it anyway and got it the next day, which was a pleasant surprise. There was no need for customer support. This was easier to set up than a bowl of cereal. If you follow the directions to the letter, then you shouldn't have a problem. It helps if you read them through first to familiarize yourself with the steps. It has a lot of great features whether your computer is on or not. In other words, it's only dependent on your computer for downloading the rates, which takes very little time if you have a P4 (highly recommended) with 1.3Mhz or better. The whole set up took about 10-15 minutes with download and updating. For a more accurate weighing, I recommend using the pound & ounce function (e.g. 2lbs 12.6 oz). This makes things a lot easier than getting quotes over the phone or online from 4 different mailing services. The extra features like insurance, etc are real nice additions for more accurate pricing. I highly recommend this scale that sends a lot of small to medium weight packages. Oh, one more thing...if you're business depends on weight to the 1/1000 of a gram or ounce or whatever, then don't buy a scale used for mailing packages. Get a chemistry or food scale with pinpoint accuracy. You might pay more, but you'll make it back in your profit margining. Good luck all and happy buying!!!

Rating:
Summary: Nice looking junk.
Review: I've never written a review but this product deserves it.
This product is junk. I bought mine off eBay for $70 or so.
When I tried to program the pricing data you could not read the
"Download?" on the scale-screen it was garbled. I kept trying
and the PC software would just hang saying it was erasing memory.
Eventually the "Download?" was visible and I got it to program.
Then the batteries went dead and I could never get it programmed
again. The company's site is awful. Do yourself a favor and
look for a different product.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent scale
Review: Instruction manual is straightforward. Easy to connect to Royal's internet site. Using a 56k dialup service, download took around 30 minutes. Pros: Rate change updates from internet are free. You are automatically notified when rates change. Scale is battery (2 nine volt) or ac adapter powered. Can weigh packages up to 40 pounds. LCD display is easy to read. Wide variety of features which you can use or ignore. Takes less than a minute from Power Up to having the shipping price. Cons: none.

Rating:
Summary: I like it!
Review: lawsouth from Birmingham, AL is somewhat right. I experienced the failed updater but I chalked that up to just poor software. Instead, I went directly to the Royal site, downloaded and installed the NEW version in a different directory, and all worked great. It updated rate info and pushed it to the scale. What an awesome unit for less than a hundred bucks!

Rating:
Summary: Limited customer support, but low price
Review: My RC40 successfully downloaded the latest software update from the company site. However, the scales then stopped working. Royal provides a customer support phone number (non-toll free), where I waited on hold a long time for a person and then was transfered to another person's voice mail. Royal's site also offers an an email address (...) where Royal promises to respond to your email within "two to three weeks." However, a customer service rep did return my call within one day, and told me to return the product to the place I bought it. I also checked prices and was not able to find any similar machine at a competitive price. And so I have increased my rating of the product to 3 stars on account of low price. But it is a good idea to buy an extended warranty at original purchase in case you have to return it.

Rating:
Summary: Downloading
Review: Scale a little difficult to set up. Had problem with downloading rates from internet. Called for support help. Phone number in instr. manual was wrong,not toll free, long wait to talk with someone. Gave me another phone number. No one answers and no way to leave message at second phone number. Called back first number said he couldn't help me. Very frustrating. HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. Finally got it set up. Very complicated for mailing regular daily letters. Must push several buttons to get weight and postage for one letter. After you get postage for one letter you have to push five buttons to get back to the starting point. Tried pushing buttons as suggested, it does not work. I am sending this scale back. Mainly due to lack of support in getting familiar with the use of this product.