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Author Topic: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.  (Read 30152 times)

HarperPhotos

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #20 on: October 01, 2012, 04:38:59 am »

Hi Torger,

I know what you mean when dealing with Leaf/Phase I all ways feel that the buggers just what to screw me over any way they can.

That Nikon D800E must be looking very temping right now.

Taken it from me the Nikon D800E raw files are as good as the Leaf Aptus 75.

Oh that last comment going to upset the MFDB purists.

Cheers

Simon
« Last Edit: October 01, 2012, 03:09:31 pm by HarperPhotos »
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Simon Harper
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #21 on: October 01, 2012, 05:02:13 am »

Taken it from me the Nikon D800E raw files are as good as the Leaf Aptus 75.

:)

I've done the tests myself and yes for my purpose the D800E are as good as Leaf Aptus 75, D800 is clearly a bit better on DR, the Aptus probably a little bit better on color, but from my perspective they are essentially equivalent.

My reasons for using MF is however not mainly the great pleasure of using a digital back ;), but rather to use a technical camera. My photographer's personality fits very well with the slow view camera concept, I actually thought about getting a 4x5" camera but I'm not really into the film hassle so the next best thing was getting a Techno. I've used a Canon with their new TS-E 24 lens quite much, and to be satisfied with tilt-shift lenses on a DSLR I want that flexibility, i e shift and tilt separately and no locked axis like on Nikon's PC-E. I also find it troubling that there is no 35mm TS-E, the 1.4x converter with 24 produces okay results, but well, I just prefer using a tech camera.

I just need a trusty digital back, it does not need to be the best, just fairly competitive with the DSLR equipment I could otherwise afford. The Aptus 75 fits perfectly there and is also a perfect combo with a tech cam (low color cast, no synch issues, decent focus check capability), but I'm had some bad luck with my purchase, which you can have when you buy second hand. I think the previous owner was totally honest when he sold to me, but since he shot only in studio/warm conditions he have not come across the problems I have now and did not know they existed.

I want to own and use MFD, but as seen in my latest post on the previous page the support is not making it easy for me.

It's quite simple. In the current condition the back is unsellabe (it's no worse than when I got it, but I now know about the problems and I would not fool anyone to buy it), but it costs about as much to make it sellable as I would get from a sale, and dealers won't take it as trade-in. The value of the back is thus essentially zero.

When I decided I'll try getting into this I calculated with the risk of losing money and ending up with an unusable system until I can replace or sell the working parts, so I'm not that upset. Sh*t happens. What I did not calculate with is that I would love using the tech camera so much that I have a hard time thinking that I need to go back and do landscape work with my DSLR. The love is not about image quality, it's about the compositional workflow. So I will not give up that easily I'll try to get a working system again, first see if it really isn't possibly to get this Aptus 75 to run properly, and if not look into getting another second hand back.

The support communication is still ongoing though, it may be much about miscommunication about things. Hopefully things will sort out, I'm prepared to spend quite a lot on my back, just not more than I bought it for or what another second hand unit sells for. I did actually look up service fees the best I could before buying the back in case something like this would happen. What I've got now is perfunctory communication of those numbers but adding them on top and then adding a "or more" afterwards, which have made me feel really uneasy. I'm not in for sending it away and get a surprise invoice a week later. The latest I've heard is that it is not really that way things are carried through, but they surely was good at giving that impression.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2012, 10:34:05 am by torger »
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alan_b

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #22 on: October 01, 2012, 05:21:10 pm »

Sorry to hear this. Hopefully it will work out - keep us posted.
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HarperPhotos

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #23 on: October 02, 2012, 02:26:39 am »

Hi Torger,

I was talking to a rep today who has to deal with Leaf/Phase on a daily basis and I told them of your situation. He/she reply was is Leaf/Phase have set rates on repairs and don’t price on individual cases. They do this cause there thinking is if you can afford a MFDB then you can afford the repair. I.e. remove dust $2,500.00, fix circuit board $4,500.00 even though it could be a simple adjustment or just removing some screws cleaning the inside of the UV filter and screwing it back on.

Cheers

Simon
« Last Edit: October 02, 2012, 02:35:39 am by HarperPhotos »
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Simon Harper
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #24 on: October 02, 2012, 08:23:54 am »

Hi Torger,

I was talking to a rep today who has to deal with Leaf/Phase on a daily basis and I told them of your situation. He/she reply was is Leaf/Phase have set rates on repairs and don’t price on individual cases. They do this cause there thinking is if you can afford a MFDB then you can afford the repair. I.e. remove dust $2,500.00, fix circuit board $4,500.00 even though it could be a simple adjustment or just removing some screws cleaning the inside of the UV filter and screwing it back on.

Yes I've heard that they have "fixed costprices at the request of dealers and customers" for repairs, i e here it's €1900+VAT for a typical repair, but it is still a bit unclear how this is actually handled in practice, because both dealers and support engineers have told me it can be adjusted both up and down. If the sensor needs replacing for example it would cost more. I don't know what would cause it to cost less though, maybe if it's a silly simple "repair" it will be less, don't know, or it is based on what temper the support engineer is that day :).

I don't know for sure, but I think this fixed price thing is a Phase One policy since several years, and Leaf now got the same when they merged. I don't know what the policy was when Leaf was independent.

Probably the fixed price is quite good when you have a high-end back for €30,000 and the likely repair if any is a big one (dropped into a stream of water type of things), but for servicing old gear which is worth say €5000 or less and get simple errors like depleted clock batteries it is not so good.

Another thing is that they have a separate fixed price for sensor glass replacement, which is ~€900, and in that package I think a simple clean should be included. So probably your problem would be fixed if buying that package instead instead of the generic repair package.

And then there's the final strange thing, you can swap mounts for I think it is €2000 (say change a H-mount to a V-mount), but what I've heard is that you actually get the whole back exchanged since the Leaf Aptus backs cannot have mount exchanged. Not 100% sure this is true though.

Anyway I don't really think this is a good model. One problem is that the major part of the cost of a high-end back is not manufacturing/parts cost, but development cost due to low sales volumes (and maybe a large margin). If we exclude the sensor the manufacturing cost of the whole back I would guess is around €2000 or less, but I think the MFDB manufacturers want to maintain a myth that the hardware indeed is extremely expensive so repairs must not make the stuff look "cheap".

I'd rather like to see that they try not to make (a lot of) money on repairs, but keep the costs down and you get to pay for parts and the work separately, just like when you repair your car. I also think they should have some known max price on repair which would be the manufacturing cost of the back plus work. I think customers are quite smart and understand that a €30,000 back does not cost €28,000 to make when you're in production, so the support organization should not need to try to give that impression.
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heinrichvoelkel

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #25 on: October 02, 2012, 08:43:57 am »

Usually in this forum dealers and reps are all over the please. Would be interesting to hear their take on this.

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degrub

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #26 on: October 02, 2012, 09:15:34 am »

Does the back work if kept warm and then placed on the body when outside ? Did the firewire power test work ?
It sounds like electrical contact is being lost in a connector from thermal contraction or in a chip. That's how we used to find intermittent faulty components - spray a little freon on the chip to chill it. If you are brave and have electronics skills, you could carefully disassemble and see if there are any loose or corroded connectors. It could also be a cold solder joint that only breaks at lower temperatures. No easy fix for that.

i don't know about it not having value - just explain the situation about it only working at room temperature.
Frank
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #27 on: October 02, 2012, 10:02:02 am »

Does the back work if kept warm and then placed on the body when outside ? Did the firewire power test work ?
It sounds like electrical contact is being lost in a connector from thermal contraction or in a chip. That's how we used to find intermittent faulty components - spray a little freon on the chip to chill it. If you are brave and have electronics skills, you could carefully disassemble and see if there are any loose or corroded connectors. It could also be a cold solder joint that only breaks at lower temperatures. No easy fix for that.

i don't know about it not having value - just explain the situation about it only working at room temperature.
Frank

Yes the back works when it's warm, except for some slight CF strangeness (usually need to try twice to boot after switching card) but that's survivable. It starts getting more and more trouble (hard to boot up) the more it gets cooled down by the surrounding air and eventually it stops being able to get any pictures (always an error message coming instead of a picture). The breakpoint temperature seems to be around +5C.

I have not yet tried it with firewire powering, I just minutes ago got all parts together, firewire cable, computer with firewire port etc. Now I need to wait for some colder weather, it is a bit warm outside for the moment.

Yes it does work for the studio photographer or someone living in warm climate, so I could probably sell it with some discount.

But the clock battery is depleted too, and that's just too irritating so I'll need to do a basic service in any case, so I will eventually send it away but may not afford to fix it in full depending on what price they want for it, something that's far from clear yet. It could be €580 + €990 + €1900 + some more, or just €1900. I've got a bunch of numbers with somewhat contradicting statements on how they are combined. The good thing I know now is that the base cost look-and-clean is €580+VAT, and then you get a price and a chance to say yes/no to extra repairs if any.

At first it sounded as if you sent it away and got it back a week later together with a surprise invoice with any random number from €1900 and up, but it is not really that bad :)
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Doug Peterson

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #28 on: October 02, 2012, 11:16:36 am »

Usually in this forum dealers and reps are all over the please. Would be interesting to hear their take on this.

Cost of repair:

Warranty repairs for digital backs are free provided that the damage is not physical (e.g. dropping it into an ocean).

The cost of out-of-warranty repairs on digital backs that do not require opening the back are reasonable. These include repairs on external ports, some electronics/firmware issues, and some connectivity issues. These can be done on a standard work bench and only require the technician to be familiar with a limited number of potential issues and procedures.

The cost of out of warranty repairs on digital backs that require opening the back is high. It requires an industrial clean room and someone with enough training and experience to disassemble and reassemble the back and repair the back regardless of which component has failed. Partly due to the markets served (including major intuitional and corporate users that use the back 8 hours a day 300+ days a year) the repairs are executed to extremely high standards and include a 6-month warranty; re-repairs, especially compared to other photographic equipment, is very rare (based on my experience as a point of service for such equipment).  

The repair department has fixed costs (e.g. staffing, maintaining a clean room, having replacement parts for every component including ones that have since become discontinued from their original source). The irony is if they broke more often these costs could be spread more efficiently, but the repair rate is low so those costs are higher per back. I can absolutely assure you that the repair department is not "making a bunch of money" off customers.

I can't speak to the repair policy of Mamiya Leaf in the rest of the world (the US is handled differently since there is a repair facility in the US for Mamiya Leaf) but what follows is based on the repair policy for Phase One across the world... The cause of any internally-caused issues can only be determined by opening the back, and this can only be done at the factory in the clean room. This requires shipping the back to Denmark with the required paperwork and insurance for international shipping of a high value item. Consequently the traditional formula of "estimate then repair" does not make much sense. Instead Phase One provides a set rate for all internal repairs (excepting physical damage like dropping it into water). This provides certainty to the end user so they can decide up front whether it was worth repairing; a strong advantage to the system. The necessary downside is that, by definition, some number of users will have a relatively minor repair done at the same price as a repair that turns out to be more complicated than first anticipated. However, having once had a standard dental filling turn into a full root canal ("o look, it's worse than it looked on the x-ray; I can put a temporary cap on this gaping hole in your tooth and you can shop around for root canal pricing, or we can go ahead and do it right now") I greatly appreciate the value in clear up front pricing for repairs. In cases where it's not clear if the issue is internal or can be fixed without opening the back there is a "service check" fee which accounts for any external repairs and, if the problem is determined to be internal they will contact you and you can decide if you want to proceed - in such cases you are not charged twice but rather the "service check" fee is used towards the cost of the "full repair".

Purchasing from a Dealer:

If you purchase from a dealer even pre-owned backs comes with a warranty (at least it does with us), and the ability (encouragement even) to test the back in your own workflow before deciding to buy. If you purchase from a private individual you are taking a (often but not always) lower price with a higher risk. Seems a lot like most purchases of major assets (e.g. buying a 2005 BMW from a private individual).

Moreover the entire support system of Team Phase One (Leaf/Mamiya/Phase) is designed around the dealer as the primary point of contact. If you do not work with a dealer the manufacturer will absolutely work with you on service/support/repairs but it may be awkward at times since that's not how the system is designed to function.

Torger bought a used back from a private individual. The back was defective and since private individuals are not professionals at evaluating/testing backs it was not discovered to be defective until after the purchase was complete. This is not an indictment; Torger lives in an area where he does not find the local dealer very useful to work with for various reasons. Although he had the option to buy from an out-of-area dealer like us he may not have felt comfortable doing so for whatever logistical/personal/business reason. He may also have felt comfortable rolling the dice, knowing that the rate of failure/repair on Leaf/Phase backs is very low. Sounds like he's ended up with a solid dose of bad luck and I have a lot of sympathy for him. In the future perhaps he will consider making his purchase through a respected dealer to provide him support and protect against any bad luck - I certainly hope it doesn't spoil medium format for him as (from reading his posts for a long time) it certainly seems a great fit for what he wants to do and how he wants to do it.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2012, 12:56:20 pm by Doug Peterson »
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gerald.d

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #29 on: October 02, 2012, 02:28:33 pm »

Doug -

Across what temperature and humidity ranges do you test the pre-owned backs you sell?

Regards,

Gerald.
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Doug Peterson

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #30 on: October 02, 2012, 03:06:03 pm »

Across what temperature and humidity ranges do you test the pre-owned backs you sell?

While I'd say our testing in general is very rigorous I can't claim we test under other-than-studio environments.

Notably, I've not personally experienced a back which had issues but exclusively at extreme temperatures (inside their operating range) - even in this case it sounds like the back exhibits quirks at normal temperature and gets worse in cold temperatures. If we had a back which would not boot the first time when using a CF card it would not be sold to a customer without being sent in for repair before hand.

Of course nothing is impossible. A back could in theory pass rigorous testing in a studio environment with a perfect score but fail in low temperature. I've not seen this in 5 years, but I can't say it's impossible. Fortunately when we sell a back, even a pre-owned back, it is sold with a warranty. So if an issue arises similar to the one Torger describes we would have been able to address it without cost, and at minimal inconvenience. If this kind of certainty is critical to your well-being or your business plan we can also provide paid warranty extensions indefinitely (we do this most often for production shops which have a very set equipment budget and love the certainty of continuous warranty coverage even on an older product).

Moreover everyone buying anything from us (pre-owned or new) is encouraged to do a rental in which they shoot the equipment in the environment they plan on using it for. That rental is counted towards the purchase and thus is effectively free. If a customer told me he wanted to put the back in a freezer to test it (e.g. it's summer and you do a lot of shooting in the winter) I'd be glad to accomodate :-).

Can we promise you nothing will ever go wrong? Absolutely not. As the expression goes "s@%^ happens". But we do make every effort to make it as unlikely as possible, and structure our policies to make it as pain free as possible if it does.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2012, 03:18:51 pm by Doug Peterson »
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bcooter

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #31 on: October 02, 2012, 06:37:35 pm »

The repair department has fixed costs (e.g. staffing, maintaining a clean room, having replacement parts for every component including ones that have since become discontinued from their original source). The irony is if they broke more often these costs could be spread more efficiently, but the repair rate is low so those costs are higher per back. I can absolutely assure you that the repair department is not "making a bunch of money" off customers.

I don't agree with everything Doug says, but really do appreciate his information. 

Also Doug makes no bones about where his loyalties are placed.  That I really do appreciate.

In this case I think we could cut Phase and Leaf a little slack.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot.  How many times has a client asked you to process out a dozen files and ftp them at no or very little charge?

I know in our case we run three backups minimum, two raid 5's, keep galleries online for a long, long time, go into the dam system and locate the files, usually find a background plate to help with the blending of an image, copy them over to a station, process, then into photoshop for finish, make an approval gallery, put that online, then zip and load 2 gigs of data on the server for the client to download and whether a "client" is paying or not we have our brand to protect so we do some if not a lot of retouching, so when someone is aggravated that we don't do this for a "nominal" fee, I don't think they are getting the complete picture of what it costs to operate professionally.

So I can see Phase in the same light.  I doubt if they have twenty techs setting at stations working on cameras all day long like CPS does.  I would imagine it's a one or two camera a day thing but it costs the same to keep the room staffed, equipped and ready whether they work on one camera or 20.

As far as the cost of medium format backs and repairs if my p21+ or p30+ went down and it costs almost as much to fix them as they were worth, it probably would be worth it to me, as I know the backs, trust them, got great use out of them and continue to do so.

Now saying all this I hope I haven't set myself up when it comes time to replace the watch batteries, because if that really does costs $2,500 per battery, I would think that's excessive.  (insert one of those silly smily faces here).

IMO

BC
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #32 on: October 03, 2012, 04:22:02 am »

I'm not going to complain if all this falls down into some reasonable offer. If the electronics is in really poor shape and there is need to replace all the internals (except sensor) and that's done for €1900+VAT I would consider it to be a good deal. It's a lot better than getting a dust spot removed for the same price.

It's quite easy to think that this is actually a manufacturing error though. I realize that degrub's comments are quite likely, that there's some electrical contact loss due to thermal contraction, and that's the result of poor soldering work. I don't really know what type of external force that would have caused the back to break in this way. Since I'm the third owner of this back I cannot know what it has been through though, maybe it has been in a microwave oven or something :). As far as I know the previous owners were studio users though so I think it has been reasonably well cared for, and I would not be surprised if the error has been there all the time but I'm the first to notice since I'm an outdoor shooter.

I've used a lot of old electronics and while it happens that stuff dies it is quite rare and even things that are supposed to be cheap low quality easily survive those 5-6 years which is the age of this back. I would expect a $30K digital back to be designed to withstand some time, and I think they are since I see a lot of old backs being used without problems. I think I've got a lemon, or "måndagsexemplar" ("Monday copy", the copies manufactured when the workers a tired after the weekend :) ) as we say in Sweden. It's never great to get to pay to fix a lemon, something that was not up to spec leaving the factory, but I can only speculate if this is the case or not. The repair engineers will probably see if that's the case though, but they probably won't tell me :).

Concerning dealing with dealers, there are dealers and there are dealers. Not all are the same. I've noticed that there are dealers that are quite used to contact with amateurs and are understanding. Linhof studio and Direct digital imaging in the UK for example. They have some used deals that are attractive to amateurs, and if you say you are a price-sensitive amateur and look for good price/performance you get appropriate suggestions.

Then there's another type of dealer that is very business-to-business and I find these are very hard to communicate with. Those kind of dealers think that a used 22 megapixel back for €6800 is a great amateur offer, and concerning this repair business it was not really possible to find out how much it was going to cost or how the repair was handled. Their mindset seems to be "who cares if the invoice is on €2000 or €5000?", and if you do it is like your not really welcome into the elitist club. Adding a substantial amount of extra on top of central pricing due to strange currency converting is quite common with these dealers too. If you almost exclusively deal with customers where price is not important these things happen.

Going to the US is not really an option for me here in Sweden, due to taxes and customs it becomes cumbersome and prices unattractive. European dealers is a good option though, and I've done a little business already.

("Warm" and wet around here now, I can test with external power source via firewire now, but waiting for the weather to get cold and dry again)
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 04:40:33 am by torger »
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FredBGG

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #33 on: October 03, 2012, 04:43:23 am »


If a customer told me he wanted to put the back in a freezer to test it (e.g. it's summer and you do a lot of shooting in the winter) I'd be glad to accomodate :-).


How would you proceed with this test? Before and after...
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #34 on: October 10, 2012, 05:28:57 pm »

Some news -- At last rain has been exchanged for some nicer and cooler autumn weather. At almost exactly +5C I tested my back outside, and it seems if you never power it off it can do alright at this temperature, but if you power it off let it become ambient temperature then it will not start up. It starts the fan and the led emits the orange light, but it does not start blinking and change to green as in a normal booting sequence. It just sits there, and you can't power it off either without removing the battery (or firewire cable if powered through that).

If I let it be in that state (fan running, not booting) for a number of minutes it seems to get enough warmth so if I remove the power and return it and try boot again it starts up and works. Probably this all gets worse and worse the colder it is, +5C is the temperature I have noted is the breakpoint that I start to get problems, and it is a month or two before the real cold sets in so I haven't tested it in any colder weather than this so far. The most likely scenario in a few degrees colder weather is that it will not gain enough heat to run at all.

I tried to feed the power through firewire too, no different than from battery operation.

I got a new blank CF card too, that way I got rid of some of the CF strangeness I've had, so that was probably normal. There is definitely some issue with cold though.
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #35 on: October 24, 2012, 03:05:09 pm »

Further news; via the Swedish dealer I got the report that €5000 is required for complete repair, which is kind of boring since it is more than I paid for the back. Oh well, that's not exactly true since I've already paid €720 of that amount to get the message that I need to pay €4300 more if I want it to work like new, and I can strip off further ~€1400 if I don't change the glass (which has two micro scratches on it, haven't fixed it earlier since LCC corrects it). I'm counting with VAT here since I'm a private individual, and the Swedish dealer "tax" also gets added on top (they take the chance to make a good deal of money on the currency exchange).

They reported that they need to change two circuit boards inside which they call very expensive electronics (*cough* *b*llsh*t* *cough*) and that's what costs the remaining ~€2700. I'm not exactly pleased, but I was seeing this coming. This is how they work, and I get the sense that they think themselves it is attractive pricing. They charge you exactly the same if you repair an IQ180 or a H20. For an IQ180 €5000 looks almost cheap, but for a few years old back it becomes bl**dy expensive. I'm investigating if I really got the correct report from the Swedish dealer, but it probably does not matter since you cannot go around him anyway (I've tried).

With this it is probably best to sell the back for a good price (for the buyer, not me :-) ) to a non-nordic user and get me another second hand back which has a better reliability track record... maybe a P45+ in the spring... or getting out all-together. I'm a quite patient guy though and I really like to shoot with my Techno. There is a limit to how much beating I can take though, and I really don't like the feeling of getting ripped off like a fool, a feeling which the MF industry is quite good at provoking.

We'll see how it goes. I'm in no real hurry, my Canon gear serves me quite well meantime.

Maybe I'll join Fred in the crusade against MF ;) ... I've had a couple of days of MF-from-the-worst-side. I'll let it sink in first.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2012, 03:32:43 pm by torger »
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HarperPhotos

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #36 on: October 24, 2012, 03:53:17 pm »

Hi Torger,

I really feel for you Man. These MF guys are just out of control.

I know that when the unhappy day my Leaf Aptus 75 dies that will be the end of myself using my much loved Mamiya RZ system.

For the price of a repair or replacement I could have a number of Nikon D800’s or by then the latest incarnation from Nikon.

Cheers

Simon
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Simon Harper
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torger

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #37 on: October 24, 2012, 04:37:53 pm »

I'd say the longevity of MFDB is largely a myth, based on how the pricing strategy is made. You need to have a high yearly spending on the gear and keep with the latest so you stay in the zone of proportional costs. If you stay too long with your MFDB you fall outside upgrade programs, and when you want to repair you discover that repair costs more than second hand backs. If you keep your back for long your not the type of user that likes to spend several thousands of euros each year on digital backs, and then you don't fit into the MF equation. It's designed to upgrade as often as they release backs, of course.

I kind of knew this, so I just get what I deserve I guess :)

I'm still trying to confirm this, but the dealer said to me that they don't even fix the clock in the €700 service check. Clocks losing time in a few years old electronics is a not too uncommon, and that seems to cost €2700 to fix. If you want to stay with cheap MFDB the best way seems to be to buy second hand cheap, hope for the best, and if it fails, buy another one.

Right now that seems to be the most likely path for me. The "good" thing is that I don't need to do this repair now, since it does not matter if I do all service at once, the huge overhead cost is added trice anyway. I would guess that they don't actually have test facility to test it in cold so they don't actually know how it works after their service check, so I rather check that out myself than pay in the blind. With their usual price-not-an-object customers I would think the natural way to solve this is to read the my error description and just say "if we change the main circuit boards it will work", and then not really do any testing on the current state. If I'm lucky it may have started to work, sometimes it happens when things are taken apart, dust-blowed and put together again. I hope they do at least *something* for those €700...
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FredBGG

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #38 on: October 24, 2012, 10:11:13 pm »

Cost of repair:
The cost of out of warranty repairs on digital backs that require opening the back is high. It requires an industrial clean room and someone with enough training and experience to disassemble and reassemble the back and repair the back regardless of which component has failed.

Why is a clean room required to open a back regardless of what part has failed if the very backs are not assembled in an industrial clean room?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOY5qy7SGY&feature=share&list=PLD22E66923E2F8D9C

It is very clear from the video that the backs are not assembled in an industrial clean room.
The backs are handled with bare hands with fingers touching the backs. Workers hair is not covered. Not industrial clean room standards.

Industrial clean room primer:

http://www.liberty-ind.com/cr-primer.html

Some clean room manufacturing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Lkv0Sc2MxP8#t=579s
« Last Edit: October 24, 2012, 11:17:10 pm by FredBGG »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Leaf Aptus back fails in "cold" weather. Help please.
« Reply #39 on: October 25, 2012, 12:26:47 am »

Hi,

Installation of the IR filter is done in a clean room, as far as I understand.

It's not clear to me if it necessary to strip down the back to fix minor issues, like replacing the firewire port, to the extent that clean room reassembly is warranted.

Interestingly, MaxMax does IR conversion and OLP filter removal on DSLRs at a much lower cost. That work definitively demands clean room and they do it at quite reasonable cost.

Best regards
Erik




Why is a clean room required to open a back regardless of what part has failed if the very backs are not assembled in an industrial clean room?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QOY5qy7SGY&feature=share&list=PLD22E66923E2F8D9C

It is very clear from the video that the backs are not assembled in an industrial clean room.
The backs are handled with bare hands with fingers touching the backs. Workers hair is not covered. Not industrial clean room standards.

Industrial clean room primer:

http://www.liberty-ind.com/cr-primer.html

Some clean room manufacturing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Lkv0Sc2MxP8#t=579s
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Erik Kaffehr
 
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