Hi Everyone.
My name is Nikita.
It's my first post on this forum and I would like to share my experience with ZWO products and their awful customer support.
Sorry if posted in wrong forum.
Usually I'm not write such posts, because believe that there is a solution almost in any situation.
But in this case the level of boorishness, impudence and customer ignorance from this Chinese company passed all boundaries.
About 3.5 months ago I'm purchased a new filter wheel (EFW 7x36mm) straight from ZWO
online store. From day one filter wheel has an issue with filter positioning accuracy.
Took me a while to understand the issue because I'm relatively new in astrophotography field.
The short description of issue:
For example, if I'm start with L filter then rotating to any other filter and rotating back
to L there is an offset in filter position relative to initial one.
My regular shoot sequence during night sessions is: Flats LRGB -> Lights LRGB or Lights LRGB -> Flats LRGB.
Because there are wheel rotations between L flats and L lights (or any other RGB pair) this offset
leads to unremovable dust artifacts on lights due to offsets in dust position (dust on flats and lights not at same location).
According to their website filter wheel has 2 year warranty.
I opened topic at ZWO tech support forum and asked for help:
https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=34266#p34266
At same time I discovered topics of other people with exact same issue like mine.
After almost week of silence I sent an email to their technical support with issue description
and asked for help.
During next few weeks ZWO tech support tried to "investigate" the issue, asking me to provide test subs.
However, after all tryouts the result was exactly the same. Today I'm received their final answer:
support@zwoptical.com
to chad.cao@zwoptical.com, Sean.[removed word]@zwoptical.com, 文佳, info@zwoptical.com, me
Not only they claim that there is no issue and such tolerance is acceptable one, but also declare that their warranty service not include
neither returns nor replacements. Finally, they suggest me to sell their garbage faulty wheel to someone else
Uploaded my full conversation with ZWO technical support here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CVoUC8jJ_QWWhLTXvn1alpcyrLEpIH-N/view?usp=sharing
I will absorb 300$ loss, not a big deal - my conscience does not allow me to sell defective item to another person,
however I really hope that my experience will save some money to other people that considered to buy astronomical equipment from this untrustworthy company.
Sorry for long text and thanks for reading