Our c-rio is toast! Is there a warranty?

[LemmingBot]

At our last off season event our poor c-rio died right after a match. We have tried to revive it but alas, it dosent work. The team and I are now curious if it has a warranty on it, it is one year old and seems to have something loose on the inside. Can we have it replaced or do we need to buy another for next year? If we can have a replacement sent who do we contact and when can we expect a response?

[Trent B]

There is a chance the internal fuse blew. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=97620

[Mark McLeod]

How have you tried to revive it?

Have you cleaned out any loose metal dust, shards, or those curlicues we get from drilling aluminum over delicate electronics?

[LemmingBot]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

How have you tried to revive it?

Have you cleaned out any loose metal dust, shards, or those curly cues we get from drilling aluminum over delicate electronics?

We have tried hooking it up to different robots and cleaning out as much metal filings as we could (we always cover our electronics when we drill but i guess that swarf is more closely related to sand than first thought) we even tried the reset button in a last ditch effort. Since we only bought it at the beginning of the season and it may still be under warranty we don't want to go any deeper in to it incase we can get it replaced/refunded/repaired.

[kstl99]

I would give them a call. The technical help number listed on NI.com is (800) 531-5066.

[Akash Rastogi]

I saw you guys replacing the cRio at RR, what match caused it? Did anything significant happen during the match?

[Aren_Hill]

We managed to have someone spill pop on one of ours....NI replaced it free of charge

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by kstl99

I would give them a call. The technical help number listed on NI.com is (800) 531-5066.

It would probably be faster to call the NI FRC line (866) 511-6285. This was also posted in the thread that Trent linked to.

[jspatz1]

There's a very good chance it is the internal fuse. Ours blew in 2010 and many others have also. Give NI a call at the number provided in this thread. They repaired ours for free and probably will for you too.

[crake]

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill

We managed to have someone spill pop on one of ours....NI replaced it free of charge

You're lucky - that's not something covered by warranty, so the RMA department must have been feeling particularly generous that day!

cRIO Systems are covered by a 3-year warranty from the day the unit shipped from our factory. For units shipped to teams as part of the 2009 KOP, the warranty technically expired (since those units shipped in August through October 2008 to FIRST). However we extended the warranty through the end of 2011 as a grace for those units.

Short story - all cRIO's are still under warranty (for things covered by warranty). The KOP units from 2009 fall out of warranty on Jan 1, 2012.

[Trent B]

Chris,

internal fuses seem to be the common method of failure on the compact rios. After they fall out of warranty what will be the policy/cost on these internal fuses and their replacement?

[crake]

Originally Posted by Trent B

internal fuses seem to be the common method of failure on the compact rios.

While the fuse blowing is the symptom, it isn't the failure. Contamination from metallic debris is a major contributor. There's a reason why we have something called the "glitter test" when we designed the gasket.

After they fall out of warranty what will be the policy/cost on these internal fuses and their replacement?

The policy is that the repair would be treated as out of warranty. Given the age of these units, and the rather poor conditions we're seeing in returns in the RMA pool, these controllers will essentially be "unrepairable", and thus they should be replaced with a new controller. To assist with this, teams will be allowed to get a 4-slot at-discount if their 8-slot is not repairable.

I understand that this may not be seen as desirable in all cases, and we're looking at some options to ease the pain. For example, by extending the warranty period.

[Trent B]

Ahh, that makes sense.

Thanks for all you do for FIRST.

[LemmingBot]

Thanks to everyone for helping us! The company is able to replace the part compleatly and we will have our brand new rio in about a week. We are pretty sure that it was a blown fuse, their was some sort of existing problem (it would explain her 'episodes') or a combination of both. But thanks for your assistence and good luck in the up coming season!!!