We hope our astro kit never breaks, but what happens if you do need to send it off for repairs? I recently had to post my ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera from my home in the UK to ZWO’s HQ in China. Let’s find out what happened…
Disaster strikes
My camera woes started in autumn 2023. My ZWO ASI2600MC Pro had, until then, performed flawlessly. This wasn’t to last though, as I started getting errors about exposures failing, the camera not being powered, and the EAF having issues (it’s connected to the main camera’s USB hub). Annoyingly, these were intermittent issues — one night everything would work fine, and the next it would be a disaster.
Time for troubleshooting tech issues, which is my least favourite aspect of astrophotography! I posted the symptoms on some Facebook groups and got a lot of advice back, mostly about swapping out various components such as cables and power supplies. I was reassured that any problem with the camera itself was very unlikely. Spoiler alert: I should have been more sceptical of this advice, but it was what I wanted to hear; I’d much rather fix the issue by buying a new cable than sending the camera off for repairs!
I won’t bore you with all the troubleshooting details, but long story short, I spent a torrid month and a half trying everything I could think of, including buying an entirely new ASIAIR Plus unit in case that was the root cause. It wasn’t, and I was grateful for First Light Optics’ generous returns policy!
Shout-out here to my friend Ryan, who has a lot of electrical know-how and tested my kit thoroughly. Clean bill of health. With potential causes narrowed down, I bit the bullet and emailed ZWO customer support. I got a reply the next day from Simon, a friendly Technical Support Engineer from ZWO USA. I don’t think ZWO has a European centre, so it looks like UK enquiries are directed to the States. Simon suggested a few different things to try, so we had some back-and-forth emails. It was looking like the camera’s motherboard could be at fault. I didn’t want to hear this, because it would involve sending the camera off for repairs, and it was also three years old — past the ZWO warranty of two years.
Another disaster!
Then, would you believe it, my camera developed another fault: the infamous camera sensor oil leak.
I knew this affected early copies of the 2600, but thought that mine had been manufactured later, after the production process had made oil leaks a thing of the past. Oh well, this meant that my camera definitely needed to be sent for repairs. And I’m pretty sure I’d heard that ZWO were obliged to fix all the leaks for free, so I’d just need to pay for the motherboard to be replaced, or whatever it was that was actually causing the problems.
On the horn with Simon again, and I was given an RMA number and the address in China to post the camera to for repairs. Off I hopped to the post office…
Timeline
Day 1 (27 Nov 2023)
I posted the camera using Royal Mail International Track and Sign, costing £27.40.
Day 5 (1 Dec 2023)
The camera’s arrived in China, and is being processed through customs.
Day 24 (20 Dec 2023)
It’s finally left customs! That was an anxious few weeks…
Day 25 (21 Dec 2023)
The camera has arrived with ZWO.
Day 39 (4 Jan 2024)
I check ZWO’s RMA site, which has a few details about my case. There’s a message: “Your device is being arranged to be sent back. You will receive a notification email with the tracking number after sending out.” There’s also an option for payment via PayPal. However, I haven’t been emailed any information about the repairs, what was needed, or the cost. So I don’t know how much to pay. And I only found out about this by proactively logging onto the system to check for updates. I email ZWO for clarification…
Day 40 (5 Jan 2024)
…and get a reply the very next day. “Hi Lee, your machine is under warranty, we will arrange the shipment as soon as possible, the system prompt can be ignored, thanks.”
Um, ok. Great! Hang on, what’s been repaired exactly? And how come I don’t have to pay? I’m worried that the oil leak has been fixed (which I was expecting to be free) but maybe they missed the power issue, which surely I’d have to pay for as the camera is a year out of warranty. I ask for more details.
“the camera disconnection problem was not reproduced, but we replaced the motherboard for you,thank you for your understanding.”
I think that’s a win? I’ll take it anyway, especially if it’s free! ZWO send me a link to a tracking site, but it’s a) all in Chinese (Google Translate works well though) and b) says it’s unable to check the status of my parcel because the information may be incorrect. *groan* I’ll just wait a bit.
Day 45 (10 Jan 2024)
I receive a text from FedEx saying they have a parcel for me. I’m a bit suspicious as it sounds like some scam designed to get me to click on a link. So I go to FedEx’s website and input the tracking code that ZWO gave me (the one that didn’t work with their tracking site). Hooray, it works! FedEx do indeed have my camera. How long will it take to reach these shores?
Day 48 (13 Jan 2024)
It’s back in the UK! That didn’t take long.
Day 51 (16 Jan 2024)
Finally, the camera is back in my hands. It was 51 days from start to finish. I could have actually had it delivered a day earlier, but I wasn’t in the house then. That’s a shame, a round 50 days would have been satisfying!
The camera itself is well packaged, but with no accompanying information about what was actually done to it.
So, what was the whole process like?
It’s actually really hard to answer that question because the experience was so varied.
Contacting ZWO support was very good, and I wish I’d done that sooner rather than pooling expertise from people online that were well-meaning, but actually sent me down the wrong path.
The ZWO RMA repairs website is rather scant with information, and I was largely in the dark as to what was happening. If I hadn’t emailed to ask what had been done to my camera, I’d have no way of knowing! But the iffy-ness of the website was balanced out by the helpfulness of ZWO staff I contacted. They were always prompt and useful.
I was unable to do any imaging for about 3.5 months, and over the darkest time of the year as well, which wasn’t much fun. 51 days for repairs, (most of which was postage time) is quite long, but it was around Christmas, when I expect postal services get overwhelmed. At the time of writing my camera has had three full nights working perfectly, so I’m pretty sure that the camera motherboard was the issue.
I wish ZWO had a UK repair centre, or at least one based in Europe. They’re a global company right?
Ultimately though, I got my camera repaired and it only cost the £27.40 for postage. Thanks ZWO!