Celestron US no longer selling parts

asimov (John) · #1 28-05-2010, 11:06 AM

Ok, this is not a rant or a 'Celestron sling off' by me, lets get that straight shall we

I'm just here to state the facts.

As some of you may know, 18 months ago my CGE mount started playing up. It all started with the 'errors 16/17'. It's taken this long to effectively diagnose the problem back to the MC board in the electronic pier, with the help of the guys on CN.

Last week I notified Celestron tech. support of the problem & that I wanted to buy a replacement board. I found out beforehand (from a fellow American imager with much the same mount) the board was $106USD.

Celestron tech. support wrote back saying to get in touch with my local distributor..The new Celestron distributor is:
http://www.sheldonandhammond.com.au/

Apon writing the distributor in obtaining a board, the price was to be $499AUD but the distributor was not going to provide the board, & to approach my nearest authorized Celestron dealer.

In the end, it was going to cost me close to 1KAUD to get a replacement board.

The day before I emailed Celestron tech. support, they changed their policy on selling parts to the public. They no longer sell parts until further notice.

I don't want this thread locked, so keep your replies factual. The Astro public have a right to know.

Thanks.

bmitchell82 (Brendan) · #2 28-05-2010, 11:14 AM

ide be sending my thoughts to them in the form of a Email don't just send it to anybody either, try and peg a top person! because thats wrong! you could always talk to ACCC to see what your rights are as a consumer as it is a clear rip off, wasnt the banks recently pulled up for the same thing?

renormalised (Carl) · #3 28-05-2010, 11:23 AM

You know what they're trying to do...get people whose scopes break like that to fork out for a new one. It's an old trick...you want to sell more goods, so you restrict the availability of spare parts to such an extent that in order to keep using their product, the customer has to either wait until the manufacturer decides to sell parts (again, in this case), or they have to resort to buying a new unit altogether. Alright for somewhere like the US, but you found out yourself just how much it's going to cost trying to source the parts out here. Unfair in the extreme.

In the end game, what I would advise people to do, both here and in the US (everywhere for that matter) is to boycott the buying and selling of Celestron telescopes and accessories. Or for that matter, anyone else that did this. Even for the US, making people buy the whole unit for whatever the mounts are worth over there c.f. to the cost of the part USD$106, is nothing more than predatory. What's even worse is this...the cost of the part in the US c.f. to the cost out here. They have the gall to charge (you might as well say) $500 for a part that costs nearly 1/5th that price!!!!. I'd not only report that to the ACCC, I'd make it known publicly what they were doing...over the radio and in the papers. They wouldn't be the only business getting away with blue murder like that, but if you made a big enough fuss and complaint over it, other people would come forward with their tales as well. Too much of this sort of nonsense goes on and people just put up with it!!!!. This sort of nonsense needs to be stopped. It's got nothing to do with the costs or whatever other excuse they come up with...it's just sheer greed.

asimov (John) · #4 28-05-2010, 11:31 AM

Yes Brendan, I've made my thoughts known to all involved, in no uncertain terms I might add. which probably didn't help matters, however I stand by my decision to not purchase another Celestron item ever. Judging by the many problems guys have had with this particular mount, I'm better off keeping it as a 5K paperweight rather than fix it, only to have yet another problem down the track.

asimov (John) · #5 28-05-2010, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by renormalised

You know what they're trying to do...get people whose scopes break like that to fork out for a new one. It's an old trick...you want to sell more goods, so you restrict the availability of spare parts to such an extent that in order to keep using their product, the customer has to either wait until the manufacturer decides to sell parts (again, in this case), or they have to resort to buying a new unit altogether. Alright for somewhere like the US, but you found out yourself just how much it's going to cost trying to source the parts out here. Unfair in the extreme.

Heh...I was way ahead of them 18 months ago & bought the EQ6 as backup.

mswhin63 (Malcolm) · #6 28-05-2010, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

ide be sending my thoughts to them in the form of a Email don't just send it to anybody either, try and peg a top person! because thats wrong! you could always talk to ACCC to see what your rights are as a consumer as it is a clear rip off, wasnt the banks recently pulled up for the same thing?

I dont think ACCC will be able to help with this one as it is a sale to a private consumer. ACCC deal primarily Business to Business competition.

Also Celestron is a US company so the durastiction is the US. The only avenue is for Fair Trading but I do know that distributors can reject the sale of parts to consumers and cct infomration to other business unless they attain a formal partnership that usually entails qualified training etc etc.

If you can calculate the amount rate per hour labour would be to carry out the work to repair based on past infomration on hardware cost you may be able to take this up with fair trading for profiteering based on no available competition. Example $106.00US parts, $850.00 labour 45 minutes - looks like a good ground to investigate.

Anyway best best proceedure is if you are a private consumer Fair Trading is your first option before ACCC. Let FT decide if it is a competition issue.

mswhin63 (Malcolm) · #7 28-05-2010, 12:01 PM

Hi Daz, my 11 y/o occasionally reads threads with me, he understands the implication of words with deletives and would prefer refraining please.

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #8 28-05-2010, 12:03 PM

Sheldon Hammond are the dealers...kitchen wares with your Astro gear..sigh! That is depressing.

Sorry to hear about the mount. It looks as if the RA/DEC motors are eeprom controlled and the DEC has..fried.

If it is indeed an eeprom & you can get the bin file for the programming and get replacements chips, then it is do-able. It's a little hard to tell, you have to peel up the IC's sticker to read their part number to correctly ident the IC.

Of course a letter to Celestron outlining that the cost to repair locally is a "prohibitive" disgrace may/not help.

Edit;

Could be a microcontroller IC?

asimov (John) · #9 28-05-2010, 12:04 PM

C'mon guys, keep it clean. I kindly asked I didn't want this thread locked.

renormalised (Carl) · #10 28-05-2010, 12:10 PM

Quote:

Sheldon Hammond are the dealers...kitchen wares with your Astro gear..sigh!

Well, if you buy one of our Celestron Edge HD1100 or 1400 scopes, we'll throw in a free set of steak knives!!!

If it's faulty, we'll only supply a teaspoon

renormalised (Carl) · #11 28-05-2010, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asimov

C'mon guys, keep it clean. I kindly asked I didn't want this thread locked.

Wonder if you can get detergent from Sheldon and Hammond??

They sell everything else!!!

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #12 28-05-2010, 12:16 PM

I looked up the Celestron CGE site & they have motor controller firmwares on their site (bottom of page)..in the "support page".

I suspect this updates the motor controllers via computer link, it's an exe file. Thus I'm thinking the ICs are micro-controllers, not eeproms

If this is so, maybe you can change the IC to a new one & flash re-program it?

You need to peel back a sticker to read the IC part numbers. Of Ask if someone knows the Manufacturers Reference Number (MRNs).

Bassnut (Fred) · #13 28-05-2010, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asimov

Apon writing the distributor in obtaining a board, the price was to be $499AUD but the distributor was not going to provide the board, & to approach my nearest authorized Celestron dealer.

In the end, it was going to cost me close to 1KAUD to get a replacement board.

Thanks.

I do servicing, on gear from the US, UK, china, NZ etc and get parts/assemblies from all those places, through a variety of (official) channels.

The kind of mark ups you describe for spares is certainly not unusual for non-mass produced equipment, especially from the US.

Its complicated, and difficult to justify when you see the end user cost, but there are many reasons for the way spare are priced, you are not really paying for the part itself, the raw cost is likely to be less than $20, even for a whole loaded PCB.

It might look like a rip off, but you wont get anyware complaining, I get this "problem" dumped on me all the time, its common.

asimov (John) · #14 28-05-2010, 12:50 PM

Thanks for the idea guys regarding ACCC however Malcolm has it covered, they won't handle this issue.

That's correct wasyoungonce, the IC is fried. A simple task to replace it rather than the whole board I would have thought, however I'm WAY WAY out of my depth in the electronics department. If it's mechanical, I can fix it.

asimov (John) · #15 28-05-2010, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bassnut

I do servicing, on gear from the US, UK, china, NZ etc and get parts/assemblies from all those places, through a variety of (official) channels.

The kind of mark ups you describe for spares is certainly not unusual for non-mass produced equipment, especially from the US.

Its complicated, and difficult to justify when you see the end user cost, but there are many reasons for the way spare are priced, you are not really paying for the part itself, the raw cost is likely to be less than $20, even for a whole loaded PCB.

It might look like a rip off, but you wont get anyware complaining, I get this "problem" dumped on me all the time, its common.

Who's complaining? I'm just stating the facts mate.

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #16 28-05-2010, 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asimov

That's correct wasyoungonce, the IC is fried. A simple task to replace it rather than the whole board I would have thought, however I'm WAY WAY out of my depth in the electronics department. If it's mechanical, I can fix it.

Any local TV repair tech could replace that IC for a few $. I used to do lots of jobs like that, moons ago but I'm just too far.

Would be a bread'n butter job for a tech.

All you need is the MRN of the IC..or the tech could ident it replce it!

Worth a shot.

asimov (John) · #17 28-05-2010, 01:11 PM

Yep, I'll give it a shot for sure, thanks for that.

Bassnut (Fred) · #18 28-05-2010, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asimov

Who's complaining? I'm just stating the facts mate.

Sorry, sure, I ment thinking of attempting to change the status quo in some way.

wasyoungonce (Brendan) · #19 28-05-2010, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by asimov

Yep, I'll give it a shot for sure, thanks for that.

yep keep us informed on progress.

asimov (John) · #20 28-05-2010, 01:24 PM

However fixing my problem is of little consequence, I couldn't care less in fact. Life is for living & even more so now that I'm pushing 50

I've wasted more money on being an alcoholic (now reformed lol) in a month that what I've spent on this mount

so having it collecting dust sitting in the shed is of little to no consequence to me.

If Celestron don't want to come to the party, big deal. I'll just supply myself with another brand of mount to continue my planet imaging 'career'

Just wanted to tell folk out there what the score is with Celestron.