My Zephyr came back - yipee!!!

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Larry Launstein Jr

Member
Just to let everyone know my Digitrax Zephyr came back, and there was only a minor problem with it. It was a booster plug, that they modified to rev 10 and tested it. They said there were no other problems.
 
Larry Launstein Jr said:
Just to let everyone know my Digitrax Zephyr came back, and there was only a minor problem with it. It was a booster plug, that they modified to rev 10 and tested it. They said there were no other problems.
Click to expand...

Good to hear, no major problems. I'm gonna be sending mine in to have it checked out. Haven't been able to get mine to do much of anything. Probably just me, but I want to know. So for now it's DC, at least I can run the train now.

Paul O.
 


ICG/SOU: this is what happened

Apparently what happened was that they had to replace a booster plug, modify it to rev 10, and test it.

I was charged the fee they charge to fix it - $35.
 
That's what they did for mine too. I sent it in when one day there was a electrical burning smell, and it stopped working.

After they fixed it, about a month ago, again, it made that burning electrical smell, and the back of the unit was hot. I ran trains with it, and it cooled off and seems to be fine, for the most part.
 
I guess if you have been in the hobby for quite some time, and have many nice older engines that continue to provide reliable service (meaning you haven't really purchased much of anything hobby related in the past 10 years or more..) to be charged $35 for a repair to something important like a DCC base station might seem like a bit of a kick in the pants. I can understand that. I dropped my prized PCM Y6b four weeks ago, broke the front engine, and asked BLI if they could help. Bless them, they said "Sure, send it in. The cost will be $45 for all required parts, labour, AND return shipping!!! :eek: I don't know about you guys, but to me, even where pennies count as a retired serviceman, that is a really good deal. Astounding, actually. I would suspect the only reason they offered to repair the engine is that they have a new supply of parts now that BLI's new Paragon 2 Y's are shipping to customers.

They must pay their techs something like $12/hr, assuming they haven't imported some Chinese nationals to do the work for $4/hr, and the parts can't be that cheap. In real terms, the front engine of a Y must be worth about $15...? So, when you consider that they'll return it to you for the total cost, I think they look after us very well in this hobby.

-Crandell
 
At first, I thought my issue was something I did, by having too much wired on the same surge protector. I paid $35 but was disappointed that it was a unit less than 1 year old, and not used as much as I've wanted to. I became more disappointed that within the last month, the repaired unit tried to do the same thing again, but I was more vigilant, and got to it before damage was done (and another trip to Digitrax).

I don't have any faith in my Zephyr, which is now just a year old, and am saving up for another command station.
 
I would have expected them to foot the bill for a repair that wasn't of your doing, and when the unit is less than a year old. What gives...?!

-Crandell
 
That's what I don't understand. Finding out that several folks here had similar fixes for their Zephyrs (update to rev 10, ship back, $35 charged to the credit card) seems odd to me.

If the Zephyr had a serial number on it, we could look up ranges, and extrapolate if certain batches had issues.
 


I wonder if they have the same problem as NCE had with their power boosters. I had 2 go bad after engine shorts on switch frogs. Might be a similar problem.
 
I think there should have been a recall

I think that there should have been a product recall on the Zephyrs, or at least those that were having the problems.

My Zephyr was two years old, thus it was outside its warranty period. However, when something like this happens, and you see smoke coming out of the Loconet ports, it creates a potential fire hazard. Personally, this is the reason I think they should be recalled.

Someone should consider contacting the US Federal Product Safety Commission about this.
 
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