Blackmagic Forum

My Micro Panel Shadow control knob just became unresponsive without rhyme or reason. So I got an RMA and send it to BlackMagic in the USA to be diagnosed and repair. It’s been over a week since they received it but I have not heard a peep from them. I called today and all they can tell me is that they have received the panel and it will be another 10-15 days before they will let me know. Is that typically how long it will take to check in and do diagnostic so they can get me a status. Since the hardware just failed itself, would it be even more cost effective for them to just replace the panel?

Ellory Yu wrote:Since the hardware just failed itself, would it be even more cost effective for them to just replace the panel?

Hard to say. I'm sure a lot depends on how many other BMD products are sitting on the shelf waiting to be evaluated.

I can tell you that because our business (and our livelihood) depends on being able to continue to crank out work no matter what, we have two backup panels and a backup system, "just in case" anything fails. We have an Advanced Panel, a Mini Panel, and a Tangent Wave2. I've never had to use the latter 2, but... it's always possible something could fail.

You might ask around in your area and see if anybody has a panel sitting around that they'd be willing to rent you for a week or two, and that would at least keep you running while your Micro is being repaired. I've had a couple of different LA colorists (thank you again @Walter Volpatto and also @Jason Bowdach) who helped me out when I was in that situation, just to get by for a couple of weeks when a panel broke or when we had a situation with two jobs happening in two different places.

Marc Wielage wrote:

Ellory Yu wrote:Since the hardware just failed itself, would it be even more cost effective for them to just replace the panel?

Hard to say. I'm sure a lot depends on how many other BMD products are sitting on the shelf waiting to be evaluated.

I can tell you that because our business (and our livelihood) depends on being able to continue to crank out work no matter what, we have two backup panels and a backup system, "just in case" anything fails. We have an Advanced Panel, a Mini Panel, and a Tangent Wave2. I've never had to use the latter 2, but... it's always possible something could fail.

You might ask around in your area and see if anybody has a panel sitting around that they'd be willing to rent you for a week or two, and that would at least keep you running while your Micro is being repaired. I've had a couple of different LA colorists (thank you again @Walter Volpatto and also @Jason Bowdach) who helped me out when I was in that situation, just to get by for a couple of weeks when a panel broke or when we had a situation with two jobs happening in two different places.

Thank you Marc. I will check around with a couple of folks I know locally. I hope I will hear from them soon too.