Because the service policy for InfiniiVision 1200 X-Series and EDUX1052A/G
oscilloscopes is unit replacement, no replaceable parts are available for these
oscilloscopes.That's a solid YES. This isn't HP's first non-repairable, and completely unsupported product.
IMO if HP wants to market this kind of schlock then the buyers might as well go buy Siglent or other piece of non-repairable junk.
Xrunner,
That policy against hobbyist sales confirms what I was thinking about the current HP/Keysight support strategy.
Not wanting to be mean or too general in my comments, but I have had many manufacturers tell me that the profit to support cost ratio of ‘consumer/hobbyist’ sales is very poor compared to that of ‘Professional/Industrial’ sales. Some companies ditched their consumer orientated products as they found the support costs unacceptable for that market segment. There are some real horror stories I could tell, but they are discrete cases and not representative of most consumers or hobbyists.
Operating in the consumer electronics/test equipment market segment requires significant customer support capacity and sometimes, highly skilled customer support agents to ‘deal’ with difficult support cases.
Fraser
That's a solid YES. This isn't HP's first non-repairable, and completely unsupported product.Get in the right century will ya ! :P
IMO if HP wants to market this kind of schlock then the buyers might as well go buy Siglent or other piece of non-repairable junk.
Replacing encoders is totally feasible at home, i would not worry about that.That's fair. I exaggerated a bit. There's many other stuff that can fail which is not as easy to replace though.
What bothers me more than hardware failure support is licenced software support. As an example I own a very clever and expensive piece of data analysis equipment that is really 50% hardware and 50% PC software in terms of how it does its job. The marketing strategy of the manufacturer was very clever…. You bought the hardware and it came with the software but you need a licence code to install the software. To obtain a valid ‘time limited’ licence code you need a support contract with the manufacturer. The licence was an annual renewable and covered software updates. If the licence expired, the software did keep working on the PC but no updates could be downloaded. Fair enough….except….. if you wanted to use your data analyser on another PC, a new Licence code was needed and this was only available if you bought a years support contract. Fair enough many would say. Not unusual really. However, when the manufacturer is bought by another company and your particular product is deleted from the range with zero support…. You are stuffed. No more support contracts or software installation licences so you cannot ever install the software on a new PC. I should add that the support contract licence that permitted software installation was not a simple design and in loved serious levels of encryption that incorporated variables from the host PC and the hardware data collector as part of the encryption seed.that sounds really bad, how is that even legal! |O
I contacted the new owner of the company that made my data analyser and they stated that I was out of luck as they did not hold the required information or software to assist me. It was deleted upon product discontinuation. I thought I was SOL but managed to contact a service tech in the company via other means and he agreed to help me. He had been an employee with the company that made my unit. He had the required activation licence software on an old PC and created a new multi PC support contract licence that lasts 10 years. I can nowinstall the software as many times as I like.
I got lucky. Others may not be so fortunate with other equipment. The thought of perfectly functional and useable equipment being rendered effectively useless by a time limited support contract that cannot be renewed annoys me somewhat ! With the modern trend for ‘subscriptions’ from anything from TV streaming to software and hardware use is not a happy future in my opinion. Too much like the Inkjet Printer scenario where you buy a printer and pay through the nose for ongoing use via DRM protected inkjet consumables.
Fraser
Replacing encoders is totally feasible at home, i would not worry about that.Agreed. Many problems originate from wear and are perfectly diagnosable / fixable without schematics. What people here seem to forget is that many test equipment manufacturers had a habit of using custom parts (like encoders with long shafts) that are not available anywhere once the stock runs out. Having schematics is nice and dandy but doesn't help if you can't get the parts.
No idea why HP decided to place “Refurbished” labels on brand new units coming off the production line,
That policy against hobbyist sales confirms what I was thinking about the current HP/Keysight support strategy.There was a good example of that (borged through Keysight moving their support forum/platform, user posts were absorbed to a generic support account):
Not wanting to be mean or too general in my comments, but I have had many manufacturers tell me that the ‘profit to support cost ratio’ of ‘consumer/hobbyist’ sales is very poor compared to that of ‘Professional/Industrial’ sales. Some companies ditched their consumer orientated products as they found the support costs unacceptable for that market segment. There are some real horror stories I could tell, but they are discrete cases and not representative of most consumers or hobbyists.
There was a good example of that (borged through Keysight moving their support forum/platform, user posts were absorbed to a generic support account):that might not be because they were individuals, though. I think quite a few forums does that.
Xrunner,It seems like all the people that had Keysight refused service were all from the UK. perhaps it's only Keysight UK that has that problem? not that that's any better.
That policy against hobbyist sales confirms what I was thinking about the current HP/Keysight support strategy.
Not wanting to be mean or too general in my comments, but I have had many manufacturers tell me that the ‘profit to support cost ratio’ of ‘consumer/hobbyist’ sales is very poor compared to that of ‘Professional/Industrial’ sales. Some companies ditched their consumer orientated products as they found the support costs unacceptable for that market segment. There are some real horror stories I could tell, but they are discrete cases and not representative of most consumers or hobbyists.
Operating in the consumer electronics/test equipment market segment requires significant customer support capacity and sometimes, highly skilled customer support agents to ‘deal’ with difficult support cases.
Fraser
as mentioned in the section 6 of their service manual:They consist of a single board, an LCD, and a power supply. I can absolutely see how in any country where labor costs more than a few cents an hour, the cost of local labor to diagnose and repair the unit exceeds the cost of swapping it for a whole new or refurbished unit. (Bear in mind that they may do board- or even component-level repair centrally, e.g. by sending all the broken units back to the factory or a service center.)Code: [Select]Because the service policy for InfiniiVision 1200 X-Series and EDUX1052A/G
oscilloscopes is unit replacement, no replaceable parts are available for these
oscilloscopes.
Granted, it's my bad for not checking the service manual before buying.
but does it mean not even their service center can replace a board?
That's disappointing, no schematic, no block diagram, no board replacement, and not even a service center are allowed to fix the scope.
am I expected to buy a new one when a front panel button breaks, after I paid a premium price for a scope?
And as I said, it's not guaranteed that they're scrapping the broken hardware. I know for a fact that Apple, for example, does at least some component-level repairs, which is why they require their stores and service providers to return most broken parts. (Things like batteries, keyboards and displays are scrapped, but motherboards, power supplies, etc. all go back). They're repaired and then become a spare part for future repairs. It's just that the component-level repairs aren't done at the stores and service providers. Those replace modules or entire machines for the customer. Some repair depot reworks the failed modules and machines.
Also: Most customers will go around boasting about how they "sent in an old one and got a new one in return" so this replacement policy also has a psychological benefit (Fluke owners often justify the purchase price of their meters this way).
It's wasteful but it's the world we live in.
I preferred repair of my unit or ‘new for old’ policies as I take great care of my kit and if it failed soon after purchase I did not want some unknown usage hours unit replacing it.
Apple doesn’t have separate stock for in- and out-of-warranty replacements. However, their refurb process is so thorough that it’s indistinguishable from new: iPhones (and iPads probably too; dunno about newer MacBooks, but older ones did not get replaced) get a new housing, display, and battery every time, so in essence they’re just reusing they logic board and replacing everything else.
Apple doesn’t have separate stock for in- and out-of-warranty replacements. However, their refurb process is so thorough that it’s indistinguishable from new: iPhones (and iPads probably too; dunno about newer MacBooks, but older ones did not get replaced) get a new housing, display, and battery every time, so in essence they’re just reusing they logic board and replacing everything else.
Out of warranty, you better have a service agreement or be prepared to fix it yourself (without documentation for the most part).
The real picture looks like this:The reality for Keysight is that purchases are "trickling up" in a very real sense. As the situation persists, consumers who are used to the Chinese competitors will introduce those in professional environments, or commercial customers will just flat out opt for Chinese equipment for economic reasons, all other things being equal. Most customers don't need 100 GHz oscilloscopes.
On one hand we've got Keysight pissing off private customers on multiple threads by refusing to calibrate or support their products.
On the other hand we've got Siglent providing patched firmware for a bug for a customer the next day without a support contract in place or even any validation that the product is in warranty or not or who the buyer is in another thread.
Pricing for the same specification device:
Keysight £1136 ex VAT
Siglent £300 ex VAT
The real picture looks like this:TBH as it has panned out, I believe Siglent already had a beta firmware to address that problem (but it hasn't 100%) and spotted the thread and contacted us to work with their customer in the US and provide them with the beta firmware. As mentioned it's a work in progress as the beta FW wasn't a 100% fix however for sure you can be impressed Siglent took the initiative to contact us before anyone had even lodged a bug report and provide us with a patch they thought might work.....it didn't. :(
On one hand we've got Keysight pissing off private customers on multiple threads by refusing to calibrate or support their products.
On the other hand we've got Siglent providing patched firmware for a bug for a customer the next day without a support contract in place or even any validation that the product is in warranty or not or who the buyer is in another thread.
Pricing for the same specification device:
Keysight £1136 ex VAT
Siglent £300 ex VAT
If the Siglent completely breaks in any way out of warranty (both have default 3y warranty) you can afford to buy another one 3.78 times in the same lifespan.