Good Service from a company

I have to give a big thumbs up to Pananvise. Recently while unpacking modeling tools and stuff I unpacked my Panavise to discover a problem. I have the #366 Wide Opening Head, bought it 'cause I figured it would hold almost anything and I was right.

However after removing it from the box, I found that the long threaded bar that the moving head moves on had developed a bow. I had packed it carefully and nothing was laying on it so i was quite perplexed. What was worse was that turning the wheel to move the head had gone from a one finger effort while I seated the model or part with the other hand to needing two hands to turn the thing and moving it even an inch became an ordeal.

I emailed Panavise and was referred to a very nice woman named Jennifer Merrit. After explaining my problem she said to mail it in forthier techs tolook at it and they would make a decision what to do at that time. I even offered to pay for whatever repairs or parts were required.

Just got in the mail today a brand new #366 free of charge. Now that's service.

I should also say I had a similar experience with Badger several years ago. I had mucked up my airbrush before I got proficient at maintaining it. They also repaired/replaced free of charge.

It's nice to know that with all the less than honest business practices we hear about so frequently in the news that two companies that serve our hobby (among others) stand behind thier product so well.

Three cheers for both of them.

Frank

I'm a builder, not a collector! I swear.

Reply to
Gray Ghost
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And now for a bad company story .......

I have an Epson C82 inkjet for printing out cardstock models. The printer is inexpensive, but ink cartridges are extremely pricy. OK, I expected that and knew it going in. Fair enough.

The quality of printing is excellant, if slow. Colors are vibrant and water resistant. Resolution in dots-per-inch is extremely finen (I think about

1,200 dpi).

Now the bad news; where Epson has crossed the line. They have a reservoir that collects excess ink that is wasted when the print heads are "cleaned" whenever you turn on the printer. The reservoir contains a "pampers like" absorption pad that soaks up the excess ink. The pad becomes saturated and eventually and must be replaced.

1) The printer is designed so that customers cannot replace the absorption pad themsleves; and even if that was possible, Epson does not make new replacement pads available nor do they publish instructions how to do it.

2) AND WORSE, they have a "chip counter" that disables the operation of the printer past a certain count of copies. The count is supposed to be around the time the pad must be replaced, but it does not actually measure moisture in the pad. So after XXXXX copies of use, the printer becomes dead. IT WILL NOT RUN!!!!!

Epson does not mention anywhere on their packaging of the printer that it will stop running after XXXXX copies.

I had learned to mop up the ink that was squeeging out of the saturated pad, so I could continue to use the printer, until a disabling error messages started to occur. Never in my wildest imagination would I think a manufacturer would "design in" an engineering feature that disables the unit arbitrarily.

Imagine if GM made your car stop running after XXXXX number of gas fill-ups.

What Epson wants is the customer to incur a $100 service call so that they can replace the pad and "reset" the chip. And worse, the nearest repair shop is on the south side of Denver, a TWO HOUR drive (one way) from my home.

I told Epson that this arbitrary disabling chip was unethical and UNACCEPTABLE. I demanded that they fix this machine at no cost to myself or that they send me a new machine.

They told me to kiss off.

I told them they were FIRED, forever. And my telling you this little story is part of my revenge. DO NOT BUY EPSON PRODUCTS if you believe my story and wish to avoid being screwed, blued and tattooed..

Never again. I am a Hewlett Packard man now until the end of days ......... Their laser printers never break.

....../V

PS The Epson cost about $2 in ink per color page printed, on average. I understand the new HP color laser printers are running about 50 cents per page.

PS Another scam of Epson. When they sell you the printer "with color ink cartridges" included, they do supply the ink, but the cartridges in the box are only 1/3 full from the get go. I consider this to be real cheesy. A new set of ink cartidges costs $60, about 1/3rd to 1/4th the cost of the printer itself.

Reply to
Vess Irvine

Canon IP5000 - great printer - cheap to run

BTW There is some software available to reset the Epson printers

Reply to
Martin

Assuming this "revenge" has the same results as your anti-Bush campaign, it may be time to buy Epson stock.

Kevin

Reply to
Kevin Carroll

If you think ink cartridge is expensive, you should try something like bulk ink system to lower down your cost:

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they have pretty good system. not only can provide continuous ink to you but also can last your waste ink pad longer. their chipset can also prevent ink wasting in cleaning cycle where you may waste 3ml ink.

if you use such device, you cost per print is all on the paper.

Reply to
Rebeca

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