Rising Cam after sales service

[tomato]

When discussing if the money saved buying a cheap  camera from China is worth it, the issue of what happens when it goes wrong is rightly raised as a concern. 
Well, I could be in that boat now as I somehow applied a short to my RCIMX571 when plugging in the power, resulting in a burning odour and a whiff of smoke. Looking on CN the general view is don’t bother trying to send it back, and my view was if it lasted a few years it won’t owe me anything, although I’m obviously a bit miffed that my actions have broke it.

I’m just wondering if anybody has sent one back for repair and what were your experiences. 
 

 

[gorann]

Sorry to hear this Steve. I guess you have nothing to loose to send it to China. We are all eager to know what will happen. 

[gorann]

PS. Maybe a good idea to tell them that you have started a thread on a major astro forum about your experiences dealing with them.

[Gary Clayton]

Might be worth having a word with Altair Astro as well?

[Clarkey]

I have not sent anything back, but I did have a couple of issues after I purchased my RisingCam. I found they quick to reply to emails etc, so it would certainly be worth trying.

[gorann]

One would think that an expensive gear like this would have some built in protection for switching polarity, as I guess is what you did. I wonder if ZWO or QHY have it.

Edited January 17 by gorann

[wimvb]

8 hours ago, gorann said:

I wonder if ZWO or QHY have it.

Probably not, since the power plug has a standard pin = +, barrel = - configuration.

17 hours ago, tomato said:

When discussing if the money saved buying a cheap  camera from China is worth it, the issue of what happens when it goes wrong is rightly raised as a concern. 
Well, I could be in that boat now as I somehow applied a short to my RCIMX571 when plugging in the power, resulting in a burning odour and a whiff of smoke. Looking on CN the general view is don’t bother trying to send it back, and my view was if it lasted a few years it won’t owe me anything, although I’m obviously a bit miffed that my actions have broke it.

I’m just wondering if anybody has sent one back for repair and what were your experiences. 
 

 

As others wrote, contact them first. But if they are reluctant to deal with it, it should be easy to assess the damage. The electronics is probably just behind a cover held in place by a few screws. Unless the printed circuit board is fried, only some components will need replacing.

[tomato]

The general view is it would be almost impossible to reverse the polarity when trying to plug in the power. However, I managed to do something to cause the damage, the camera will be on @Tomatobro’s work bench on Friday and we will see what we find.

To all you camera owners out there, if possible, plug in first then switch on the power.

[Stuart1971]

Sorry deleted as posted in wrong thread…☹️

Edited January 18 by Stuart1971

[tomato]

My 268mono behaved as it should last night, keeping it -10 deg C with the external temp at -5 deg C using around 4% cooling power.

Not so the 268c, -38 deg C with 0% cooling! Yet if you put in a room temp environment the cooler controls as you would expect…

[Stuart1971]

33 minutes ago, tomato said:

My 268mono behaved as it should last night, keeping it -10 deg C with the external temp at -5 deg C using around 4% cooling power.

Not so the 268c, -38 deg C with 0% cooling! Yet if you put in a room temp environment the cooler controls as you would expect…

Sorry, I posted on the wrong thread…my appologies, re posted in correct thread now

But odd you needed 4% power to keep your camera at -10 and I had zero power for the exact same temps….-10 camera with -5 outside…🤔🤔

[gorann]

On 18/01/2024 at 08:39, wimvb said:

Probably not, since the power plug has a standard pin = +, barrel = - configuration.

As others wrote, contact them first. But if they are reluctant to deal with it, it should be easy to assess the damage. The electronics is probably just behind a cover held in place by a few screws. Unless the printed circuit board is fried, only some components will need replacing.

If you run the camera on a car battery you could of course mix up the red and black clamps. Maybe that is what Steve did?

[tomato]

4 hours ago, gorann said:

If you run the camera on a car battery you could of course mix up the red and black clamps. Maybe that is what Steve did?

No I have a dedicated mains powered 12v supply with distribution modules on each scope for the power to the camera, focuser,  FW etc. @Tomatobrodoesn’t have the camera yet but he has studied photos of the Touptek circuit boards and they appear to have a polarity protection diode on there. 

Needless to say I have plugged power into cameras many, many times and never had an event like this, hopefully we can establish exactly what happened.

[tomato]

Well, there was some indication of heat and degradation around components C39 and L2 on the power PCB, see photo:

However, the capacitor was removed from the board and appears to be OK. I have contacted Eddie at RisingCam, first response is that it will need to go back to China, but I'm trying to see if they would be willing to sell me a new power PCB. That would be my preferred option from a shipping and logistics standpoint, especially if the cost is reasonable.

 

[Stuart1971]

22 minutes ago, tomato said:

Well, there was some indication of heat and degradation around components C39 and L2 on the power PCB, see photo:

However, the capacitor was removed from the board and appears to be OK. I have contacted Eddie at RisingCam, first response is that it will need to go back to China, but I'm trying to see if they would be willing to sell me a new power PCB. That would be my preferred option from a shipping and logistics standpoint, especially if the cost is reasonable.

 

Sounds like a very reasonable request, hope they see sense and go with that…👍🏻

[tomato]

Unfortunately Rising Cam won't sell me a new power PCB on the grounds that it may not itself fix the problem, they want me to ship the camera back to them. I'm awaiting a cost estimate and of course it is Chinese New Year in Feb so I wont be shipping the camera until after the holiday.

In the meantime I have contacted Teleskop Express in Germany as they are a big Touptek dealer to see if they might be more forthcoming with a replacement PCB.

[Stuart1971]

10 minutes ago, tomato said:

Unfortunately Rising Cam won't sell me a new power PCB on the grounds that it may not itself fix the problem, they want me to ship the camera back to them. I'm awaiting a cost estimate and of course it is Chinese New Year in Feb so I wont be shipping the camera until after the holiday.

In the meantime I have contacted Teleskop Express in Germany as they are a big Touptek dealer to see if they might be more forthcoming with a replacement PCB.

Well it may not fix the issue, but I would have thought that would be your risk not there’s…I am surprised really as it’s no skin off there nose, so to speak…

[tomato]

I agree, I wouldn't make any claim against RC if the replacement board didn't fix the camera, after all it's me (or rather Tomatobro) doing the repair, not them. But RC hold all the cards (or PCBs, to be more precise), so if they won't ship one and I can't source one from anywhere else, it looks like I'll be exploring the joys of returning the camera to China...

[ONIKKINEN]

That sucks, may have been a simple fix to just swap out the boards.

But i also understand the other side a little bit. Surely they are also interested in what exactly went wrong with yours and would like to inspect the unit, and like you said if the problem doesnt go away or comes back later (such as if the pcb was a symptom, not the source of the issue) then there is a chance of more backlash for customer support.

Used to work as a car mechanic and this kind of situation was a minefield to navigate around. Some customers would state that they have diagnosed part x and y to be at fault for some electrical problem and didnt want to pay for diagnostics. Lo and behold the parts were not the source of the problem and now they want refunds.

Moral of the story is that often the best service customer support can offer is no support for self diagnosed issues, at least in the long term. Sucks for everyone, but statistically sucks less for the manufacturer/supplier.

[tomato]

Yes, I still can’t work if my hesitation in plugging the power plug was the cause, or the camera would have gone pop anyway. Still, my current view is at 2 years old the camera still owes me something so if I can’t get hold of a replacement PCB, it will go back to China. I’m sure a few RisingCam owners will be following this thread with interest.

[ONIKKINEN]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

Yes, I still can’t work if my hesitation in plugging the power plug was the cause, or the camera would have gone pop anyway. Still, my current view is at 2 years old the camera still owes me something so if I can’t get hold of a replacement PCB, it will go back to China. I’m sure a few RisingCam owners will be following this thread with interest.

Indeed, i for one am very interested in how it works out in the end.

Mine has seen 3 winters and has been rained on twice, and is generally always used outside the recommended 80% max humidity mark so i am expecting trouble one of these days.

[tomato]

Teleskop Express have replied promptly but cannot supply a PCB. They suggested I try Touptek direct, so that’s my next port of call.

[tomato]

Spoke with Steve at Touptek Europe, they don't hold any spares but he is relaying my situation to his technical contact in China. He suspects they will also be reluctant to supply me a board even though it is entirely at my own risk, so it would have to go back to China. I would prefer if I could do this via Touptek Europe, then maybe I would only have to send it to an address in the UK.

[tomato]

I emailed Touptek support in China, I explained what happened and sent them a photo of the power PCB for identification purposes. They have just replied and said it needs to be sent to them for inspection via the original retailer so there is a united front on how I should proceed. 

Then again, I suppose the European manufacturers of Astro cameras don’t readily sell spare parts to Joe Public either.

However, it’s good that SW seem to be more accommodating on this issue.

I’ll just wait now until CNY is out of the way.

[Adam J]

On 31/01/2024 at 09:51, tomato said:

I emailed Touptek support in China, I explained what happened and sent them a photo of the power PCB for identification purposes. They have just replied and said it needs to be sent to them for inspection via the original retailer so there is a united front on how I should proceed. 

Then again, I suppose the European manufacturers of Astro cameras don’t readily sell spare parts to Joe Public either.

However, it’s good that SW seem to be more accommodating on this issue.

I’ll just wait now until CNY is out of the way.

If by SW you mean Skywatcher than I think that supplying replacement boards for their mounts is part of the business model and probably why they done put protection diodes in any of their products. 

Adam