Crazy Expensive RAVEN repair bill

[Jay Slater]

Hi guys,

Just wondering if any other RAVEN owners have had any unexpected faults? I've had my Raven just over 2.5 years (LOVE it). I went to turn it on for a shoot before Christmas and all I got was the fans spinning up for a second before shutting itself down - DEVASTED (obviously!)

I have taken it for repair at CVP and they have quoted me almost £3500 for the repair!! They have identifyied a couple of blown boards (DSMC2 BRAIN LEFT SIDE BOARD and DSMC2 BRAIN IOB BOARD - seperate issue, I thought the RAVEN wasn't DSMC2?). However, they don't have an explanation as to how this hapened and the insruance company won't cover the repair as they say it is down to manufacturer defect. Obviously the RAVEN is out of warrenty, I was wondering if any other RAVEN owners have had any issues and if this is a common problem or if this is a one off? It's a super expensive repair bill and seeing as the RED trade in value of the RAVEN is less than the cost of the two boards that need replacing I am trying to decide what to do!

If any RAVEN user has had any similar issues or if anyone at RED knows if this is a commone issue then that would be great to know!

Many thanks guys.

Cheers

Jay

 

[Giles Harvey]

Jay, that is very annoying for you. A huge cost of repair also. I can't believe the insurance won't payout. Who you with? Anyway absolutely zero point getting that camera repaired. The BMCC 6k would be better and cheaper than the repair and newer tech. If you can afford a dragon or even komodo then you are better off than having raven. I've owned a shit ton of REDS for over a decade and I have had very few hardware issues, loads of firmware ones but we are now at the most stable period (IMHO) of RED camera ever.

But i would put more pressure on the insurance company and get an expert opinion on why it should be covered. Are you with GTC or any other camera organisation? they would help to make the insurance do the right thing.

Good luck

Giles

 

[Alan Zarnegar]

Hi guys,

Just wondering if any other RAVEN owners have had any unexpected faults? I've had my Raven just over 2.5 years (LOVE it). I went to turn it on for a shoot before Christmas and all I got was the fans spinning up for a second before shutting itself down - DEVASTED (obviously!)

I have taken it for repair at CVP and they have quoted me almost £3500 for the repair!! They have identifyied a couple of blown boards (DSMC2 BRAIN LEFT SIDE BOARD and DSMC2 BRAIN IOB BOARD - seperate issue, I thought the RAVEN wasn't DSMC2?). However, they don't have an explanation as to how this hapened and the insruance company won't cover the repair as they say it is down to manufacturer defect. Obviously the RAVEN is out of warrenty, I was wondering if any other RAVEN owners have had any issues and if this is a common problem or if this is a one off? It's a super expensive repair bill and seeing as the RED trade in value of the RAVEN is less than the cost of the two boards that need replacing I am trying to decide what to do!

If any RAVEN user has had any similar issues or if anyone at RED knows if this is a commone issue then that would be great to know!

Many thanks guys.

Cheers

Jay

Hi Jay,

If your insurance is not able to help cover your repair charges, and you want to have a second opinion you can ship your camera directly to RED HQ. We can evaluate the failed parts and see if and how we can help.

Once you have your camera back from CVP, you can contact our team here: https://support.red.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=163057

 

[Jay Slater]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for this offer - it is someting that I would probably like to take you up on, however does that mean shipping it to America? I don't know if you guys are still at Pinewood? Last time I shipped something back to RED HQ (my RH1) the courier lost it, would prefer for that not to happen to this as that would probably be an even more complicated insurance claim!

The guys at CVP have been very helpful and say that the damage is usually caused by some of the monitor pins being shorted - however they can not see any damage to the monitor cable so have ruled this out as being the cause.

The worst part of all of this is that they can't guarentee that the camera will work after replacing the boards as they can't assess any further damage until these have been replaced!!

If there is anything RED can do to help then this would seriously be appreciated as I love shooting on this and don't feel it should fail like this, certainly not ready to give up on it so woudl hate to have it sit there all broken.

@Giles - I am actually waiting for the pre-order on the KOMODO but I wanted to have both REDs for A and B. If I have to shell out £3.5k for this repair then I may not be able to get the KOMODO as well which would suck!

 

[Alan Zarnegar]

Hi Alan,

Thanks for this offer - it is someting that I would probably like to take you up on, however does that mean shipping it to America? I don't know if you guys are still at Pinewood? Last time I shipped something back to RED HQ (my RH1) the courier lost it, would prefer for that not to happen to this as that would probably be an even more complicated insurance claim!

The guys at CVP have been very helpful and say that the damage is usually caused by some of the monitor pins being shorted - however they can not see any damage to the monitor cable so have ruled this out as being the cause.

The worst part of all of this is that they can't guarentee that the camera will work after replacing the boards as they can't assess any further damage until these have been replaced!!

If there is anything RED can do to help then this would seriously be appreciated as I love shooting on this and don't feel it should fail like this, certainly not ready to give up on it so woudl hate to have it sit there all broken.

@Giles - I am actually waiting for the pre-order on the KOMODO but I wanted to have both REDs for A and B. If I have to shell out £3.5k for this repair then I may not be able to get the KOMODO as well which would suck!

I'll send you a PM so we can figure out next steps to get you taken care of.