Rising Cam after sales service

[tomato]

I bid "Au Revoir" (hopefully) today to my damaged RC IMX 571 as it starts it's trip back to China. Eddie has said he thinks the repair will be "not much" so we'll see how that pans out. If I deem the repair quote to be uneconomic I'll ask him to keep it and put it in RC's Black Museum and I'll put the funds towards a new replacement. I suspect this will be from a UK based retailer though.

[Ratlet]

Hopefully you'll get it sorted at minimal expense.  I get why they don't want to send the board out and why they want it returned for assesment.  I'd imagine they will be keen to establish exactly what went wrong.

My money is that it will not cost too much to repair and that it'll be sorted quickly. 

[geeklee]

3 hours ago, tomato said:

I bid "Au Revoir" (hopefully) today to my damaged RC IMX 571 as it starts it's trip back to China.

Apologies if you mentioned it in the thread Steve, but did you have to cover shipping both ways or will they cover one way?  If you did, was it reasonable?

[tomato]

No, it’s out of warranty so I have to pay shipping both ways and the repair. Shipment to China with FedEx cost £40, hopefully RC’s economies of scale will kick in for the return trip.

But… I was £800-£900 ahead of the price of a ZWO or QHY camera, so I still have some headroom.

Edited February 24 by tomato

[geeklee]

2 minutes ago, tomato said:

Shipment to China with FedEx cost £40, hopefully RC’s economies of scale will kick in for the return trip.

That seems pretty decent Vs value of camera.  Hope you get a good outcome - it sounds like there's every chance of a sensible repair cost, making it all worthwhile.

[tomato]

My camera is currently delayed at Roissy Charles de Gaulle, not the dreaded Air Traffic Controllers by any chance?🙄

[tomato]

The camera is now at the RC repair facility, now awaiting assessment and the quote for the repair.

[Adam J]

On 24/02/2024 at 14:26, tomato said:

I bid "Au Revoir" (hopefully) today to my damaged RC IMX 571 as it starts it's trip back to China. Eddie has said he thinks the repair will be "not much" so we'll see how that pans out. If I deem the repair quote to be uneconomic I'll ask him to keep it and put it in RC's Black Museum and I'll put the funds towards a new replacement. I suspect this will be from a UK based retailer though.

Given it's a current gen camera it would have to be over it's used price for it to be uneconomical. So that's probably anything upto and including £800 ish I would say. I really really doubt it will be that much. 

Adam

[tomato]

Got an update from Eddie, the damaged PCB is now with the manufacturer (Touptek) for repair. He told me not to worry but I can't see me getting it back before astro darkness disappears, but then we probably won't get a break in the clouds either, so what's the rush?

[pipnina]

3 hours ago, tomato said:

Got an update from Eddie, the damaged PCB is now with the manufacturer (Touptek) for repair. He told me not to worry but I can't see me getting it back before astro darkness disappears, but then we probably won't get a break in the clouds either, so what's the rush?

It may be different up north where you are, but in devon I can manage about 1.5-2 hours of imaging during the astro dark holiday if weather permits, and with narrowband imaging I can get away with a bit more.

The brightest sky I see from that period here is when the moon is out, which means a moonless night in that time window is still better than normal full moon conditions, under which I'd either image a target at opposite sides of the sky to the moon, or use narrowband, and my results are usually somewhat decent as the last few years the summer period has had a good number of clear nights so I can make one target a multi-night project (relative to UK average...)

[tomato]

I keep on imaging throughout the summer, the results aren’t great but  I can’t let a clear night go to waste, even if it isn’t properly dark. The RC Camera awaiting repair is used with my SY135 lens, which normally gets an airing once galaxy season is over.

[tomato]

Good news! RisingCam can repair and return the camera for the princely sum of $135.😊

Just have to get it back safely from China now.🤞

[Stuart1971]

11 minutes ago, tomato said:

Good news! RisingCam can repair and return the camera for the princely sum of $135.😊

Just have to get it back safely from China now.🤞

That’s good news…👍🏻

[Ratlet]

Sounds like a win, although one with a long lead time.  Fortunately (ahem) the weather is garbage so you've probably not missed much imaging time,

[tomato]

It’s on the way back…

[gorann]

21 hours ago, tomato said:

It’s on the way back…

Great! Hopefully air fright so it does not get blown up on the way to the Suez canal😆

[Clarkey]

Doesn't sound too bad for the repair. I'm glad it worked out ok as I have a RC imx571 too. (Probably on your recommendation)🤣

[pipnina]

16 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Doesn't sound too bad for the repair. I'm glad it worked out ok as I have a RC imx571 too. (Probably on your recommendation)🤣

Same here. I look in mine and see rust and during operation it sometimes stops and needs to be off-on cycled so I fear repair could be in its future... Or the crashes are purely software based...

[wimvb]

58 minutes ago, pipnina said:

I look in mine and see rust

That doesn't sound good at all. Rust = moisture + particles, neither of which should be inside a camera.

[tomato]

When I took mine apart to investigate the fault, the internals were pristine, the bolts holding it all together are stainless steel, the camera body is aluminium and I can’t see much in the way of ferrous components inside to rust?

[Clarkey]

I dismantled mine to replace what I thought was a noisy fan. Turns out it was just a bit of a rattle from the cooling fins. I replaced the fan anyway for a better one. Anyway, I digress... The internals looked fine in mine. No obvious evidence of cutting corners.

[tomato]

Camera arrived back safely today and is once again operational.👍🏼

A 40 day turnaround and £154 total cost including shipping, I can’t fault RisingCam’s after sales service, Eddie kept me fully informed and a fair price for the out of warranty repair.

As a post script for those owners of this camera who may be concerned about their reliability, I think the failure may have been self-inflicted:

I had retro fitted a ZWO stick on heater to the camera which was wired into the same cable as the power supply to the camera. I think on the night in question as my unsteady hand plugged in the power I may have made and broken the connection rapidly thereby subjecting the camera to an induced voltage from the heater coil which blew some components on the PCB. 
This scenario will not be repeated.😏

[Stuart1971]

4 minutes ago, tomato said:

Camera arrived back safely today and is once again operational.👍🏼

A 40 day turnaround and £154 total cost including shipping, I can’t fault RisingCam’s after sales service, Eddie kept me fully informed and a fair price for the out of warranty repair.

As a post script for those owners of this camera who may be concerned about their reliability, I think the failure may have been self-inflicted:

I had retro fitted a ZWO stick on heater to the camera which was wired into the same cable as the power supply to the camera. I think on the night in question as my unsteady hand plugged in the power I may have made and broken the connection rapidly thereby subjecting the camera to an induced voltage from the heater coil which blew some components on the PCB. 
This scenario will not be repeated.😏

Alls well that ends well….👍🏻

[ONIKKINEN]

Not too bad actually, would have believed it to be far more expensive and time consuming. Great to hear that these things have proper support after warranty, would prefer to keep my unit running for many years more.

[gorann]

great news Steve! Will you put the heater back on? Maybe use a separate power source for it.