RCF extortionate repair charges

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.

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

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.

Where are you at geographically ?

If I am not mistaken some countries have laws about things like this but ap parently 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...n ope, 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 al ways 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...

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.

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 s**te.

Blimey.

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.

** 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

** 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.

The only RCF I looked at and repaired was RCF Flexa PS6320 modular amp system, ps of 2006 So 300 squid, that'll do nicely, for changing a

2.2uF SMD aluminium electrolytic that smoothed the sense voltage, was bad ESR, of the first SMPS ,for the low power control electronics,which must be operational before transfering to the main power SMPS. At least they use standard off-the-shelf components without grinding off idents.