ZWO EFW poor quality and awful customer support

[blazesx]

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

Quote

 

Hi Nikita,

I am sorry about this, but I have to tell you even if it is replaced, there will still be the same problem for you, it is a normal tolerance, which is acceptable for us and most of users.
And it has been a long time since the purchase.
We offer a two-year warranty but replacements and returns are not included.
We suggest you sell this filter wheel in your side.

 

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

[Adam J]

2 hours ago, blazesx said:

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

I assume you set the wheel to mono directional rotation? 

Its not something that I have ever had a big issue with as I keep my filters quite clean. I also dither heavily and so that might be helping. 

Perhapse there is some way you can modify it. 

Is the issue with all the filter positions or just one of them?

Adam

[blazesx]

Hi Adam, thanks for advise.

I tried unidirectional mode and it does not help.

There are always few dust particles on filters no matter how good I’ve clean them. 

The issue with all filters. I do dithering, but it not removes those calibration artifacts. Already purchased Atik EFW2 and it works perfectly.

[Rodd]

Hello Nilita (aka Blaze)  Its good to put a name to the image!  Welcome to SGL--you will find great imagers and images here....supportive and knowledgeable.   I am still forced to collect flats each and every time I image with a particular filter. At 4:00am that is not a welcome prospect.  The worst thing is if I finish collecting data on one filter in the middle of a session, I have to shoot flats prior to switching filters--which of course means losing the target and then having to reframe and all that (which I do manually so its a 15-20 min ordeal.  I suppose I should get a flatman that connects to the end of the scope and then I can shoot flats in any orientation.  Now I have the kind that sits on top of the scope pointing at zenith.  But that will be a $500 expense, and possibly only siutable for one scope.  Its a shame a difficult endeavor is made even more difficult by a company unwilling to provide support.  I don't get it. 

Rodd

Edited July 17, 2019 by Rodd