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

[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!!!