RCF extortionate repair charges

[Gareth Magennis]

Hmm, I have an active RCF speaker in for repair with a faulty SMPS. ART
745A, retail around Ł1000.

Tried lots of things, the SMPS sparked up on Variac plus inline lightbulb,
but obviously drew lots of current on startup, and thus continually shut
down.

Mosfets removed and good, all secondary diodes removed but still same
problem, seems it is a primary side fault, maybe transformer.


Phoned RCF UK today, and they want Ł320 odd or so, probably plus 20% tax and
2 lots of shipping, to repair the unit, as it is out of warranty.

This to me sounds like blatant profiteering.

I mean, that SMPS PCB can't cost more than several dollars bought in bulk,
so the Ł300 plus must surely be a money making exercise for repairing their
own stuff that has broken because it is not good enough not to break in the
first place.

Suffice to say I am not impressed, and would never advise anyone to buy RCF,
even though I have done in the past.




Gareth.

 

[William Sommerwerck]

"Gareth Magennis" wrote in message news:i9KSv.266634$9I4.192713@fx35.am4...

I mean, that SMPS PCB can't cost more than several dollars bought
in bulk, so the Ł300 plus must surely be a money making exercise
for repairing their own stuff that has broken because it is not good
enough not to break in the first place.

The cost to RCF of a switching power supply for a sound-reinforcement speaker
has to be considerably more than a couple of dollars.

That said... many companies feel that their service departments should be
profit centers (rather than just breaking even), and don't care whether the
customer is happy. From my warped, anti-capitalistic point of view, a business
is entitled to only one profit on a sale.

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Gareth Magennis" <gareth.magennis@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:i9KSv.266634$9I4.192713@fx35.am4...

Hmm, I have an active RCF speaker in for repair with a faulty SMPS. ART
745A, retail around Ł1000.

Tried lots of things, the SMPS sparked up on Variac plus inline lightbulb,
but obviously drew lots of current on startup, and thus continually shut
down.

Mosfets removed and good, all secondary diodes removed but still same
problem, seems it is a primary side fault, maybe transformer.


Phoned RCF UK today, and they want Ł320 odd or so, probably plus 20% tax
and 2 lots of shipping, to repair the unit, as it is out of warranty.

Welcome to the world of RCF. We've had so much trouble with schematics and
spares and extortionate repair fees that any that come through the door for
repair now, just get turned around and marched straight back out again ...

Arfa

Gareth.

 

Where are you at geographically ?

If I am not mistaken some countries have laws about things like this but apparently you're not in one of them. Of course the US always has open season on the consumer.

I can understand for example, that parts cost all added up will exceed the value of the unit. Keeping inventory, rent and all that, and a separate box of course, all this costs money.

Last couple places I workd padded the parts. they would crank up the parts price and lower labor, the total is the same butit looks better. However I have worked places that didn't, but sometimes you have to write a bill with $150 labor and $3 parts. Sony factory service does that in the US.

Can you beat that, servicers bitvhing about servic costs. Now I've seen...nope, not going to say it. Every time I do the world outdoes itself.

But really thinling about it, masybe it's not so bad. Know why ? Because a unit like that, if you COULD fix it for anything less than $300, you can always refer the customer to what the factory servicenter would have charged if they balk at the price.

 

You know for $200 I could tae a regular power transforer, bridge rectifier and some electrolytics and...

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message news:lvfrhn$lnf$1@dont-email.me...

"Gareth Magennis" wrote in message news:i9KSv.266634$9I4.192713@fx35.am4...

I mean, that SMPS PCB can't cost more than several dollars bought
in bulk, so the Ł300 plus must surely be a money making exercise
for repairing their own stuff that has broken because it is not good
enough not to break in the first place.

The cost to RCF of a switching power supply for a sound-reinforcement
speaker
has to be considerably more than a couple of dollars.





Well, I said "several", not "a couple", and kind of exaggerated to make the
point, as one does.....


The point being, they seem unwilling to sell you a new or exchange PCB, but
would rather make the Ł320 for presumably just replacing the PCB themselves.




Don't know why I am getting so upset, because it is not my speaker, it
belongs to a Church.
Who is just going to have to send it off to RCF themselves now at great
expense.






Cheers,


Gareth.





That said... many companies feel that their service departments should be
profit centers (rather than just breaking even), and don't care whether the
customer is happy. From my warped, anti-capitalistic point of view, a
business
is entitled to only one profit on a sale.

 

Well, why can't you fix that power supply ?

You came in here and whined because a board level replacement you wanted to do but they won't let you. Welcome to Earth. Motherfuckers are in business to make money.

The fuck, how is it supposed to be clear you are in the UK ? I can't get to any of that info from here. You came in here with a fucking rant and I am supposed to research where you are, where the company isd and all that shit when you already blew the job off ?

I don't chase foul balls.

When you ASSume, I don't. I ASKED where you were. God damn.

Fuck it.

 

>"Phoned RCF UK today..."

That says you called them on the phone. It does not indicate where you are or where they are.

I try not to ASSume things.

 

You could be in the US and the company is in the UK. That could mean both you and the company are in the UK. You could be in fucking Zimbabwe for all I know.

All I said is for that kind of money I would find an alternative solution. apparently you do not do that. Well I DO. I do not let them just say this tweny cent (pence) part is $300. (sorry, I never learned how to do the English pound sign on the PC because I have ABSOLUTELY no reason to)

Before political correctness I called in nigger rigging. I made alot of money nigger rigging. The shit works, and what's more it is relaible and safe, in some cased moreso than when it was new.

I have zero respct for manufacurers that do this shit, design their fucking garbage to last one day past the warranty. You know they do that and I know they do that.

And I would, I would take a power transformer out of a junk amp or someting with the right voltage and current output, collect my $200, have a happy customer and the money. And of course I would tell them ity is no longer original, I would tell them that now it is reliable. not like the piece of junk it was when they bought it.

 

[Phil Allison]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

That said... many companies feel that their service departments should be
profit centers (rather than just breaking even), and don't care whether the
customer is happy.

** Most service centres operated by import agents spend their time doing repairs for free under warranty - they would be very lucky indeed if the out of warranty work that came along were profitable enough to cover that loss.

If RCF UK are very smart, they may have negotiated free supply of sufficient spare PCBs, woofers and horn drivers to cover both warranty and out of warranty work. Pretty much the only way to end up with a profit.

Anecdote:

One of my customers used a fair number of replacement cones for 15 inch JBL sound reinforcement speakers. The only supplier was the local agency for JBL - Jands Electronics.

When he asked (perfectly legally) for the 27.5% sales tax component of the price to be removed, this caused a big problem for Jands.

They offered him a 10% discount instead.

You see, Jands had not actually paid anything for the cones ( so paid no sales tax) and sold them on at around half the price of a new speaker.


..... Phil








..... Phil

 

[Gareth Magennis]

wrote in message
news:04f838b5-43f8-4d2f-9f88-ea8dd31f7ec7@googlegroups.com...

Where are you at geographically ?

If I am not mistaken some countries have laws about things like this but
apparently you're not in one of them. Of course the US always has open
season on the consumer.

I can understand for example, that parts cost all added up will exceed the
value of the unit. Keeping inventory, rent and all that, and a separate box
of course, all this costs money.

Last couple places I workd padded the parts. they would crank up the parts
price and lower labor, the total is the same butit looks better. However I
have worked places that didn't, but sometimes you have to write a bill with
$150 labor and $3 parts. Sony factory service does that in the US.

Can you beat that, servicers bitvhing about servic costs. Now I've
seen...nope, not going to say it. Every time I do the world outdoes itself.

But really thinling about it, masybe it's not so bad. Know why ? Because a
unit like that, if you COULD fix it for anything less than $300, you can
always refer the customer to what the factory servicenter would have charged
if they balk at the price.



Where are you at geographically ?

If I am not mistaken some countries have laws about things like this but
apparently you're not in one of them. Of course the US always has open
season on the consumer.

I can understand for example, that parts cost all added up will exceed the
value of the unit. Keeping inventory, rent and all that, and a separate box
of course, all this costs money.

Last couple places I workd padded the parts. they would crank up the parts
price and lower labor, the total is the same butit looks better. However I
have worked places that didn't, but sometimes you have to write a bill with
$150 labor and $3 parts. Sony factory service does that in the US.

Can you beat that, servicers bitvhing about servic costs. Now I've
seen...nope, not going to say it. Every time I do the world outdoes itself.

But really thinling about it, masybe it's not so bad. Know why ? Because a
unit like that, if you COULD fix it for anything less than $300, you can
always refer the customer to what the factory servicenter would have charged
if they balk at the price.







Erm, trying to sort out what you are trying to say here, but mostly it seems
to be verbal Diarrhoea as usual.

Please re-read the post.

It is clear I am in the UK.
We are not talking $300, we are talking Ł320 plus 20% tax plus 2 x shipping,
which is approximately 625 of your North American Dollars, plus 2 x North
American Shipping costs.

And we are also talking about the cost of replacing an SMPS PCB.

Or at least I am, you appear to be mostly talking shite.




Blimey.

 

>"Well, to be fair, he quoted prices in ďżoe, not $"

I got that from context. The pound (money) sign doesn't show up for me. It just shows up as a square on my screen.

What's more, even at $320 I would make one hell of an effort to fix it some other way, at $625 I would do damnear anything.

I would find a way to test that transformer clean out of circuit, like with a generator or something. Transformers do no go bad all that often. He pulled the diodes off the secondary, but there are little caps, and some of them are right across a winding so an ohmmeter won't tell you if they're shorted. You should be able to put a 100 kHz square wave to the primary off a generator with like 600 ohms output and have it not short it out.

If it IS shorted, I doubt they wound the thing themselves, and that has something to do with location. In some countries, parts are extremely hard to come by. All servicers operate like a car boneyard. Like Poland for example, I was told is like that, or at least was when the person I know lived there.

However in the civilizd world you can get some parts. That transformer might be off the shelf. OK, I know it is hard to find them but $625 !!!

But, next time I'll just keep my fucing mouth shut.

 

>"Er, what's this "nigger rigging"?"

Some people would call it "independent unorthodox field re-engineering".

Like, what's the thing want, plus and minus 60 volts ? Well, there's an old 100 wpc reciver that is never going to get fixed which has a dandy 42-0-42 secondary, a bridge rectifier and filters. Give it it's voltage. If the warranty's expired anyway who cares ?

Maybe I wasn't being so cool about this. I had no way of nowing where you are because like in the other post, the pound soign does not show up for me here. It does on regular webpages, but not here for some reason.

There ar servicers who sort of "respect" the original design and will not modify anything. Motheing wrong with that, but I lost that a long tome ago whenit coms to certain things. In audio I keep the actual audio path as clos as possible to original, to the point where I will not even use generic replacements like ECG or NTE. (dunno if you get those there)

But, other things are fair game. As far as I am concerned, their design failed and of they make it too hard to keep their (failed) design, it's my turn.

I ALWAYS let the customer know and actually get their consent first, after telling them how the company screwed them.

Another thing is to be aware of safety concerns. Over we have a UL listing, I am sure you got something sinmilar there. Got to watch everything between the hot (mains) side and the secondary side. You have to think about if the thing gets rained on, dropped and the cabinet breaks up, WHILE IT IS RUNNING. You can't just do anyting because if bad shit happns and it is your fault you can get sued out of house and home, rvrn in countries other than the US (LOL).

So that's where I am coming from, for that kind of money I can damnear build ANY power supply within any kind of reason. I said that when I incorrectly assumd it was $320, at 320 POUNDS, the engineering department is open.

 

[Leif Neland]

jurb6006@gmail.com formulerede lřrdag:

Well, why can't you fix that power supply ?

You came in here and whined because a board level replacement you wanted to
do but they won't let you. Welcome to Earth. Motherfuckers are in business to
make money.

The fuck, how is it supposed to be clear you are in the UK ? I can't get to
any of that info from here.

Well, to be fair, he quoted prices in Ł, not $, ¤ or Ľ.
And phoned RCF UK.

Leif

--
Husk křrelys bagpĺ, hvis din bilfabrikant har taget den idiotiske
beslutning at undlade det.

 

"Gareth Magennis 3:24 PM (1 hour ago)


Other recipients:
Good call.

But, next time I'll just keep my fucing mouth

Good call.
Show trimmed content"

You're just as much of a smartass as I am.

But yes, it can rest in peace now.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"Phil Allison" wrote in message
news:3b2048da-201e-46cd-99ff-4848d196723c@googlegroups.com...

William Sommerwerck wrote:

That said... many companies feel that their service departments should be
profit centers (rather than just breaking even), and don't care whether
the
customer is happy.

** Most service centres operated by import agents spend their time doing
repairs for free under warranty - they would be very lucky indeed if the
out of warranty work that came along were profitable enough to cover that
loss.

If RCF UK are very smart, they may have negotiated free supply of sufficient
spare PCBs, woofers and horn drivers to cover both warranty and out of
warranty work. Pretty much the only way to end up with a profit.

Anecdote:

One of my customers used a fair number of replacement cones for 15 inch JBL
sound reinforcement speakers. The only supplier was the local agency for
BL - Jands Electronics.

When he asked (perfectly legally) for the 27.5% sales tax component of the
price to be removed, this caused a big problem for Jands.

They offered him a 10% discount instead.

You see, Jands had not actually paid anything for the cones ( so paid no
sales tax) and sold them on at around half the price of a new speaker.


..... Phil





OK, that's interesting.

If it's the case that RCF UK is not actually part of RCF, but some kind of
UK "franchise" company trying to make a buck from servicing RCF, then I
might take back some of my initial uninformed disgust.



Cheers,


Gareth.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

Before political correctness I called in nigger rigging. I made alot of
money nigger rigging. The shit works, and what's more it is relaible and
safe, in some cased moreso than when it was new.






Er, what's this "nigger rigging"?





Gareth.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

But, next time I'll just keep my fucing mouth shut.



Good call.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

"Gareth Magennis" wrote in message news:m7lTv.353855$3F6.167024@fx02.am4...


Before political correctness I called in nigger rigging. I made alot of
money nigger rigging. The shit works, and what's more it is relaible and
safe, in some cased moreso than when it was new.






Er, what's this "nigger rigging"?





Gareth.





And can we put this one to bed also?


Your call.



Gareth.

 

[Gareth Magennis]

wrote in message
news:105c4257-49a8-4cf0-a8c1-f0344eb920bf@googlegroups.com...

"Gareth Magennis 3:24 PM (1 hour ago)


Other recipients:
Good call.

But, next time I'll just keep my fucing mouth

Good call.
Show trimmed content"

You're just as much of a smartass as I am.

But yes, it can rest in peace now.





Good call.