Mini-Mag connector broken

[Burke Lewis]

Hi, I have a minimag that is acting up. The connector is a little misaligned so it's hardly mounting into a red card reader. Sometimes it will take me 15 minutes just to get the pins lined up so it will mount. You can see in the side by side photo where it's slightly bent. I have no idea how this happened. Can parts be bought for the minimags? I know it's just a regular blade SSD on the inside, so can a new board be purchased and replaced?

If not, are there places that can repair this? I'd hate to drop another $1,500 on a whole new card but I will never shoot on a broken card when there's a chance I won't be able to get the footage off.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[Mike P.]

Reach out to your bombsquad rep, as I'm sure RED can swap it out (they may even be willing to send you one to swap out yourself). Not sure about the connector, but replacement mag housings are ~$60, so it should be *cheaper* than that, since similar (though maybe not identical) connectors are literally ~$1 on alibaba and the like (that's presuming RED doesn't cover the cost of things like these; I seem to recall them extended their media warranty after the Jinni fiasco).

OH, also that $60 may or may not have included a $100 minimum labour charge (which they tend not to mention unless you ask)... But even still ~$160 to get a refreshed connector is better than $1500 to replace a mag this late in the lifecycle.

 

[Burke Lewis]

Thanks for the reply, Mike!

I reached out to Red and they replied by saying the cost of repair would exceed the cost of a new mag. Yikes. $1,450 is a steep price to swap out a board. But, it is what it is, I guess.

I'll post any updates if I can find a cheaper alternative.

EDIT: Turns out the rep I was speaking to wasn't correct. I was just informed that a repair should be significantly cheaper than buying new. I'll update this post when I have more info.

 

[Burke Lewis]

So just as a final update, after some initial confusion, the representative at Red offered to fix my broken mini-mag for a total cost of around $400 plus shipping.

They also offered for me to buy a new board for around $260 (including tax and shipping) and then I could just replace it myself.

I opted to just buy a new board since replacement is dead easy.