Addressing Fuzzy Patterns, Red Lights, and Grinding Noises

General
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For those encountering these issues, please consider the following recommendations as general guidance. I was able to resolve the following problems:

  • Patterns being drawn are fuzzy.
  • Patterns do not fill the entire volume of the tank.
  • Patterns warp in the middle or are sometimes drawn very small.
  • A red light appears after centering.
  • Gear grinding noises.

This was supposed to be a star.
This was supposed to be a star.1512×1512 194 KB

A star
A star1280×1280 357 KB

The bubbles pattern.
The bubbles pattern.1280×1280 365 KB

Bubbles
Bubbles1284×1284 316 KB

To address these issues, you may need to open your Oasis Mini by following this guide.

Please be aware that opening the machine may void your warranty, and I cannot be held responsible for any damage that may occur during the procedure. I chose to proceed with this approach because my unit was essentially a paperweight due to inadequate aftersales support from this company.

Before reassembling, inspect the plastic sticker on the underside of the tank for warping, as this was the root cause of the issues I encountered, including centering errors, fuzzy patterns, patterns being too small, incorrect pattern placement, and grinding noises of the gears. The warped plastic can obstruct the movement of the ball/magnet, disrupting the mechanism and throwing off ball tracking causing inaccuracies in pattern drawing.

The plastic underneath my tank was severely warped with visible creases that prevented the magnet and gears from functioning correctly. This warping obstructed the mechanism, causing issues with drawing patterns and centering after a reset.

The removed plastic
The removed plastic1280×1280 232 KB

If the device remains stuck during centering, the Oasis Mini may display an error on the app along with all LEDs on the machine turning red. In this state, it will repeatedly attempt to reconnect to your Wi-Fi network, potentially causing disruptions across multiple devices and even leading to network outages. I had to unplug the Oasis Mini and restart my network to restore connectivity.

To resolve the issue, I removed the warped plastic and applied grease above the magnet and on all surfaces underneath the tank. After making these adjustments, I have run all 20 patterns on repeat and at full speed for over 24 hours without experiencing any further issues. Please note that YMMV.

The Cardinal
The Cardinal1422×1422 159 KB

A wipe before an intricate design
A wipe before an intricate design1414×1414 169 KB

I love this bee
I love this bee1392×1392 162 KB

The star again
The star again1435×1435 158 KB

The bubbles pattern
The bubbles pattern1403×1403 392 KB

The rose
The rose1280×1280 304 KB

I got the idea from:

Unfortunately, this problem is hardware-related due to poor build quality and I doubt that it can be fixed by a simple firmware update. Note that I did not experience this problem immediately but noticed it after running different patterns all day over a few days. The plastic will eventually warp, so you may not encounter this issue right away.

So yea, let me know your thoughts.

1 Like
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Hello, very interesting. This is explaining my observation about the mechanism being stuck always at the same places. I checked this using different regular patterns and my newly designed Test Pattern (see new topic about this). When I am home later i will have a closer look inside. After checking and maybe improving this i will return here give a report. Thank you.

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Do you have any pictures of the sticker before you removed it? We haven’t seen any cases of wrinkling in the field, but we’ll do an inspection.

I wouldn’t recommend removing that sticker before contacting our team with a picture. It’s intended to reduce the wear and friction generated by the contact between the magnet and the bottom of the tank.

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No, I didnt take a picture before I removed it but the wrinkles/warping encircled in this picture are the same ones that were underneath the tank before I removed it.

IMG_3651
IMG_36511280×1280 232 KB

The long one in the middle is pretty bad that it prevented the machine from centering most of the time which causes it to error out and turn all LEDs red.

PS: Contacting your team was the first thing I did and until now it is still radio silence. I’m not sure how you would want to proceed knowing that the company didn’t care for any aftersales support. Yea, you may get swamped on unexpected issues but having 0 communication for weeks? That is unacceptable. Imagine my disappointment and frustration on this machine.

2 Likes
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It looks like we got to your ticket last night. I apologize again for the delay. We’re expanding our team and improving our processes to make sure that customers don’t experience long waits in the future, and I’m sorry you were on the receiving end this time.

The wrinkles you highlighted are fairly concerning. I haven’t seen those in the field, but we’re having the manufacturer run an audit, and this is something we’ll keep an eye out for.

I do think your machine will run normally without the film. The main risk is accelerated wear. You can mitigate the wear with something like Super Lube (funny branding I know) on the bottom of the tank.

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Yes, thanks. I no longer had any issues come up after removing the plastic film but I do worry about the accelerated wear. Adding grease to help with the friction would slow this down, but I hope there is a better solution than having to open up the machine to lube it up every so often.

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I just opened a ticket too as it seems that I am too now having the fuzzy patterns issue that no power cycle or reset seem to fix :frowning: I thought I wouldn’t be impacted as my mini was working fine but I was maybe too optimist !

Can I open mine to check the sticker under the top without having the warranty to be void ?

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If you use something heavy like super lube, you should be good to go for a very long time. We’ve done accelerated lifetime testing with that grease, and I haven’t seen it fully wear away.

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I’d recommend working with our team on this. Removing the sticker isn’t all that easy, and I think we’ll have a software fix for this relatively soon.

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I hope the team will be able to handle my ticket soon. That’s a bit frustrating not being able to do anything with my mini.
I’m curious to see how a software update will be able to fix some adhesive warping, but if you have something in the pipe I’ll for sure give it a try.

Any ETA for the potential fix delivery ?

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This issue is completely frustrating. I have had these problems since the first day of having the Oasis, and I wrote to support 3 weeks ago without any response.

Selling thousands of these products with so many people encountering these problems in the first week of usage is insane and without any doubt, shows a lack of quality control in the manufacturing process.

In addition I’ve just discover that in case of replacement, the costs of returning the product and shipping a new one, even if caused by a lack of quality, are on the customer. By them being in EU like 35/40 euros each, the only option Grounded left us is to keep them as a paperweight even if the problems in the product are caused by them.

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Hey, I don’t see any tickets under your email. Did you open it via https://support.grounded.so/? We’re also covering the shipping cost for defective units for Kickstarter backers regardless of what the ToS says.

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Hi Zach! My ticket was 5827, and was just answered yesterday, I just answered back and now I’m waiting news from the team to send me the return label.

You taking care of the shipping costs seems like a gesture to all of us since the experience of receiving the oasis after a long wait and having these amount of issues from the very beginning was a bit disappointing, so it’s appreciated :+1:t4:.

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I think a link probably got filtered out. Can you DM it to me?

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Sorry, just pressed reply button before all my text was written :sweat_smile:. It’s edited now with all the info.

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Can you also help me with this? I have a big air bubble in my film aswell… I prefer not to remove it, but otherwise I can not use it…

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Just for everyone to know, they told me a week ago that were sending me the return label, and that they needed the address details. I answered them within an hour, but it’s been 6 days from that without any new response.

I thought that once they reach a ticket, they keep working on it, but doesn’t seems like the case. The post sale attention with grounded it’s being exhausting…:disappointed_relieved: