Who is responsible for paying for repairs a serviceman created by their own doing?

[jay etheredge]

whats an alignment bar? lol Sounds like and encoder strip or encoder reader.... What type of printer is it? Thats why I loved working on flora printers, simple...

 

[HulkSmash]

I just talked to another company Roland serviceman and told him my problem and he said if he did that, they would be responsible to fix it. I can't have a service contract on the printer, they don't sell them after the warranty goes off. I asked they said no. What this would be like, is when installing a sign, a hammer falls down off the lift and hits the storefront window and shatters it. I don't think it would go over to well to them that it is their responsibility to fix the window, just because it is a casualty of installing a sign. The circuit board would of never been cooked had the service technician would not of unhooked the cables to another circuit board. The only reason they unhooked them was to see the ink lines. NO other reason. In the end, only a dampener was replaced as well as the head circuit board and fuses they blew out twice and the ribbon cables connecting to the board.

this is absolutely 100% dead wrong. It's their fault, and they should fix it. FOR FREe.

 

[jay etheredge]

Yeah, In 7 years, Haven't broken anything, Had I I guess I would expect to fix it. Like I said, just giving my perspective, if it doesn't align with the reality of what happened here, forget I said anything. I'm Glad your printing now.

 

[ikarasu]

whats an alignment bar? lol Sounds like and encoder strip or encoder reader.... What type of printer is it? Thats why I loved working on flora printers, simple...

FB500. its a hybrid flatbed... so you put the media on the belt and it'll feed it through. the Alignment bar is what you push the media against to "align" it all.. It's just a channel of aluminum. They wanted something like $2000 for it... when we could machine one in shop for $20 in parts... its crazy.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

Which flatbed printer do you have ?

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

With hybrid printers you must cut a a fully square corner since they aren’t perfectly square sheets of Coroplast.
Another thing I have set up for customers is a laser beam mounted to the ceiling above the printer.
Set up the laser to line up with the 8’ long side of the Coroplast and check it for perfect squareness to the rail the carriage runs on.
If you want perfectly positioned prints, you should get a true flatbed. Not a hybrid.

 

[jay etheredge]

FB500. its a hybrid flatbed... so you put the media on the belt and it'll feed it through. the Alignment bar is what you push the media against to "align" it all.. It's just a channel of aluminum. They wanted something like $2000 for it... when we could machine one in shop for $20 in parts... its crazy.

Oh..... Its to square up your media.... Not a very high tech part. Like Bruce said, A true flatbed is the way to go. Something that prints a full 4 x 8 in no slower than 3 minutes. There are 3 row Konica i printers that print a 4 x 8 in 90 seconds. You can print it flip the board and print the opposite direction on the other side......

 

[C5 Service&Repair]

PM me

 

[FrankW]

I‘m a service technician too. As long as I do not destroy parts negligent, the customer is responsible for the costs of searching for errors. But I explain that to the customer.

 

[spectrum maine]

i had a similar thing happen. A roland service guy was in the area working on someones machine he called me & asks if i needed anything. My machine was working fine but it could be tuned up, (dampners, wipers sponges etc...) The tech shows up & after 1/2 hr he tells me i need a new head. it was only at 25% hits & worked fine. Soon i found out he broke the risers on the head changing dampners.. they left my machine broken & went home to mass. after a week of back &forth the owner agreed to fix it for 1000 dollars even.(i know right? doesnt a head cost 3-400?) sadly i agreed to it as it was summer & i was way behind. The tech finishes & he gives me a bill for 1350. i laughed & gave him his 1000$ (which i shoudn't) He laughed when i threatened lawyer. He never admitted guilt but he knew i could prove it as i had over 100' of feet printed that morning. be careful folks

 

[Jeff grossman]

Had a sales rep years back update my color profiles and plotter/printer bios , only problem was he sent the info to the wrong plotters ..... edge 2 was a brick . 12 hr round trip drive to gerber , reflash memory all ok . Got a big credit for supplies for my troubles. ( choice was ship and wait or waste a day , no loaner available) Both the co. And sales rep Are no more . Looking back I think My first mistake was letting the sales rep touch anything - they sell not fix .( at least back then)
This was a gerber nightmare ...

 

[HulkSmash]

So We've had repairs done, to large and small machines. Sometimes they charge you to find the problem - for example - if replacing the dampers did not fix the issue, but replacing the heads did, they would charge you for both.. however.. any DAMAGE done because of their mistakes, is not your fault.. period

 

[redprint]

Yeah, In 7 years, Haven't broken anything, Had I I guess I would expect to fix it. Like I said, just giving my perspective, if it doesn't align with the reality of what happened here, forget I said anything. I'm Glad your printing now.

Hey Jay!

Thank you for your input as it did enlighten me upon how you do go about repairing wide format printers. I always assumed that they would have a schematic upon how to test to find bad parts. But it seems that it is by common sense and test and confirm. I do understand that you have to replace parts to figure out what is bad, didn't before. Makes complete sense and I am all on board with that. Taking a ribbon cable off of a circuit board to look at the ink lines I do believe is the reason my other boards blew out because of the pins being crossed or bent or whatever the problem was with the connection after that. They were fine before. If it was to replace the board to see if that fixed the problem, I could understand totally. But the board was fine until that ribbon cable was removed for no reason other than to move it out of the way to look at the ink lines. If I felt that it was replaced in the process of finding the problem of the head dripping ink, I would have no issues. But I just don't feel responsible for paying for a circuit board that was okay before the ribbon cable was disconnected. I noticed the ribbon cable connection looks might vulnerable to being damaged due to it being a little fragile if not removed with proper even force. The tech actually said that the cable didn't want to come off and was stuck so that is why the pins bent and then were in the wrong position. I think they wanted to say that the connection already had a problem. But we know it was okay. I would assume to pull it off you need even force all the way across the connection and using your hands would not do it effectively.

 

[redprint]

i had a similar thing happen. A roland service guy was in the area working on someones machine he called me & asks if i needed anything. My machine was working fine but it could be tuned up, (dampners, wipers sponges etc...) The tech shows up & after 1/2 hr he tells me i need a new head. it was only at 25% hits & worked fine. Soon i found out he broke the risers on the head changing dampners.. they left my machine broken & went home to mass. after a week of back &forth the owner agreed to fix it for 1000 dollars even.(i know right? doesnt a head cost 3-400?) sadly i agreed to it as it was summer & i was way behind. The tech finishes & he gives me a bill for 1350. i laughed & gave him his 1000$ (which i shoudn't) He laughed when i threatened lawyer. He never admitted guilt but he knew i could prove it as i had over 100' of feet printed that morning. be careful folks

Oh, that isn't good leaving you with a broken printer. Ouch. Mine was down for over two weeks because of this. I understand that there are parts that might break during a repair, I understand that, I have even done it, but not a circuit board, that takes a special electrical shock to kill it. If I have to be responsible for what a repairman does, then why doesn't Roland sell the service manuals and let the customer just fix it, and let them ruin the boards? The way companies hide their repair manuals so you can't do it yourself seems quite odd when you do have a service person come to report and they end up costing you 1000's of dollars you didn't expect.

 

[redprint]

I‘m a service technician too. As long as I do not destroy parts negligent, the customer is responsible for the costs of searching for errors. But I explain that to the customer.

Hi Frank,

I totally understand that I should have to pay for parts that are part of the repair search. Makes total sense. So if the head had to be replaced and the ribbon cable didn't have to be removed from the board, isn't removing the ribbon cable and then rehooking it back up and then causing the fuses to blow out and the board to blow out still my responsibility? They replaced the fuses twice and the circuit board, and also ordered another circuit board in which they are charging me 125$ restocking fee for the board they sent back, plus being charged for the fuses.

 

[Gino]

redprint...... when you are saying....... they this and they that..... are you referring to Roland themselves or your distributor or whomever sent this person out ?? If this is all by a distributor, I would get a hold of your area or regional representative and bring them in on this. What you're describing is quite easy to follow and you should not have to pay for their negligence or incompetence. Find out if the tech who did all this is an actual authorized experienced technician. He's starting to sound like a bumbling fool and the distributor is making you pay for their education for him.

There is/are no techs who will make you pay for their mistakes, unless you or the machine is fatigued or broken. If an auto mechanic broke your tailpipe installing a catalytic converter, he can't make you pay for it, unless he proves and shows you the tailpipe had holes in it or was no good. Otherwise, he'd be creating problems just to drum up business. That's against the law.

Question the source of who sent this piece of work out to you. Didn't you originally say, it was a cold call..... him looking for work ?? What tech does that kinda crap ?? A hungry one. Go get your ducks in a row and have a good paper trail and mark all the dates down and his time(s).

 

[redprint]

redprint...... when you are saying....... they this and they that..... are you referring to Roland themselves or your distributor or whomever sent this person out ?? If this is all by a distributor, I would get a hold of your area or regional representative and bring them in on this. What you're describing is quite easy to follow and you should not have to pay for their negligence or incompetence. Find out if the tech who did all this is an actual authorized experienced technician. He's starting to sound like a bumbling fool and the distributor is making you pay for their education for him.

There is/are no techs who will make you pay for their mistakes, unless you or the machine is fatigued or broken. If an auto mechanic broke your tailpipe installing a catalytic converter, he can't make you pay for it, unless he proves and shows you the tailpipe had holes in it or was no good. Otherwise, he'd be creating problems just to drum up business. That's against the law.

Question the source of who sent this piece of work out to you. Didn't you originally say, it was a cold call..... him looking for work ?? What tech does that kinda crap ?? A hungry one. Go get your ducks in a row and have a good paper trail and mark all the dates down and his time(s).

This is a distributor's authorized Roland repair person. I have worked with this person for a few years, I have confidence in them. They have done many repairs before on this and other printers. I just tag this up to a mistake any of us could do easily if we were not paying attention to detail of how parts come apart and get put back together, especially ribbon cables. The tech truly believes I am responsible for the parts. They said it to me! They even compared it to taking your car to the service shop and they break something and I am responsible for that breaking of the part that shouldn't of been broke. But like we have been discussing, I can see some parts that are subject to getting broke taking other things apart due to the other issues that arise due to age etc. But this wasn't one of them types of things, it was just a ribbon cable being removed and then re connected and then everything blew up from there. Due to the metal pins being bent or crossed or whatever happened with the little metal connections.

 

[MikePro]

so a service guy removes the gas cap with a blowtorch, and you're on the hook for a gas tank replacement? sounds legit.

 

[FrankW]

Hi Frank,

I totally understand that I should have to pay for parts that are part of the repair search. Makes total sense. So if the head had to be replaced and the ribbon cable didn't have to be removed from the board, isn't removing the ribbon cable and then rehooking it back up and then causing the fuses to blow out and the board to blow out still my responsibility? They replaced the fuses twice and the circuit board, and also ordered another circuit board in which they are charging me 125$ restocking fee for the board they sent back, plus being charged for the fuses.

You‘re right. How you describe it, the technician is responsible for the damages.

 

[player]

Don't pay.