[Camaster]

A few months ago I bought a Camaster Cobra 510 ATC with a "two-year warranty" for $50,270.00. And while I had heard good things about them in the past, I have to say I have been surprised by the generally terrible customer service and poor product performance. Quite honestly, I feel like I threw away FIFTY GRAND.

To start off with, when I was ordering my machine, I requested an add-on and was told it was $500. While that wasn't cheap, I decided to order it and was promptly told "Oh, sorry. It's $700 now." When I said, "I was quoted $500 by one of the owners. Can't you honor his pricing?" I was told "No, it's $700". While that was a small thing, my experience with them hasn't got any better...

Not long after I got my small business up and running, my machine started locking up and generally having a mind of it's own. It would refuse to cut, then it would cut a sheet or two, and then skip a few commands and go on to random movements so as to completely destroy the sheet I was trying to cut. At $277.76 per sheet, this very quickly became an expensive problem. One of my biggest problems with Camaster is half the time, you can't get someone on the phone there. They have 2 or 3 tech guys and they are constantly "in a meeting", "training" or "traveling". And if you have a problem during any of these times, you are basically SCREWED. After a full week of going back and forth with the tech department (when I could even get someone on the phone), the only answer I was getting was "Gee, that's weird". Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence does it? I had personally made commitments to cut several projects and lost about $1,500 a day while I was down, not to mention looking like a complete joke to my customers thanks to Camaster.

When I finally convinced Camaster that I needed a replacement motherboard, I was told that it would take another 4-5 days to ship it to me. They could overnight it, but it would COST EXTRA. WTF? I'm out $50k, my business is put on hold, I can't fulfill my commitments while the machine is down and you won't even comp the shipping? On top of that, replacing the motherboard is not for the faint of heart. Attachment 222028 There are about a THOUSAND color coated wires going all over the place and the instructions I got from them were "Just unplug the wires from the old one and hook up the replacement". ??? Not much to go on is it? Since their factory is only about 4 hrs away from me, I thought they would send someone out to fix it, but NOPE... I'm on my own.

Now, it's less than 60 days since the last repairs, the machine will not cut ANYTHING AT ALL due to a bad Y1 drive. Again, my business is put on hold until someone finds the time to ship me the part to repair this big piece of junk. Time is money to anyone who forks out this kind of dough on a machine, but Camaster fails to realize this and fails their customers. I wish I had gone with a more reputable company, even if I had to pay a little more for it. If you are considering buying a Camaster, look elsewhere and CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED...

[cabnet636]

Done

[cabnet636]

Poster

[Camaster]

Tech support spent two hours on the phone with me today trying to figure out why the machine still doesn't work properly. The replacement part they sent didn't fix the problem. They say they are going to send a tech to check it out. The company reps were in touch today and say they will make it right. Let's hope so.

[cncadmin]

This was a email from Camaster-

1. Not long after I got my small business up and running, my machine started locking up and generally having a mind of its own. It would refuse to cut, then it would cut a sheet or two, and then skip a few commands and go on to random movements so as to completely destroy the sheet I was trying to cut. At $277.76 per sheet, this very quickly became an expensive problem. After a full week of going back and forth with the tech department (when I could even get someone on the phone), the only answer I was getting was "Gee, that's weird". Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence does it? I had personally made commitments to cut several projects and lost about $1,500 a day while I was down, not to mention looking like a complete joke to my customers thanks to Camaster.

The customer had a dust collector that was not grounded at all when he started using his machine. The noise created by the lack of proper grounding of his dust collector caused his CNC machine to lose steps. As you are aware, noise is the enemy of any CNC and it can be hard to diagnose. It’s not until he told us that his dust collector was not grounded, as it should have been, were we then able to identify the reason why his machine was losing steps. The customer did not mention this in his post. It’s the customer’s responsibility to ensure that their equipment is properly grounded. This is a point that we strongly emphasis to every customer when they buy a machine from us and during the orientation that we provide after the machine is delivered.

2. One of my biggest problems with Camaster is half the time, you can't get someone on the phone there. They have 2 or 3 tech guys and they are constantly "in a meeting", "training" or "traveling". And if you have a problem during any of these times, you are basically SCREWED.

Our written policy states that we respond to all tech support requests within 24 hrs. It says so on our website as well: http://www.camaster.com/contact/tech-support-request. At no point did we violate this policy. In fact we spent a better part of two consecutive days on the phone with him until the problem was fully resolved. I personally placed a call to him when I found out that he was having a problem with his machine and assured him that we will work to fix it.

3. When I finally convinced Camaster that I needed a replacement motherboard, I was told that it would take another 4-5 days to ship it to me. They could overnight it, but it would COST EXTRA. WTF? I'm out $50k, my business is put on hold, I can't fulfill my commitments while the machine is down and you won't even comp the shipping?

The customer did not convince us that he needed a new motherboard. We had to go through the full diagnostic process in order to pinpoint where the problem was coming from. When we indentified that the motherboard was not functioning as it should, we proceeded to send him a new one. He asked that it be shipped to him by next day delivery. Our technician let him know that our shipping policy for warranty parts is we ship by UPS ground and that he did not have the authority to ship it otherwise.

4. On top of that, replacing the motherboard is not for the faint of heart. There are about a THOUSAND color coated wires going all over the place and the instructions I got from them were "Just unplug the wires from the old one and hook up the replacement". ??? Not much to go on is it? Since their factory is only about 4 hrs away from me, I thought they would send someone out to fix it, but NOPE... I'm on my own.



We sent the customer clear instructions on how to replace the part. These are the same instructions that we have sent out to other customers. The part also does not have a ‘thousand’ wires. This is a gross exaggeration on his part. On getting the part, he demanded that we send a technician over because we were ‘only 4 hours away’. We let him know that our warranty does not cover a technician travelling to replace a part but that we would help him replace the part on the phone and by remote connection to his machine. We assured him that this had worked out very well when we have had to do it. He again demanded that we bend this rule because he was ‘only 4 hours away’.



5. Again, my business is put on hold until someone finds the time to ship me the part to repair this big piece of junk. Time is money to anyone who forks out this kind of dough on a machine, but Camaster fails to realize this and fails their customers. I wish I had gone with a more reputable company, even if I had to pay a little more for it. If you are considering buying a Camaster, look elsewhere and CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED...

Our technician, after talking to his manager, proceeded to let him know that he would ship the part to him by UPS two day and being that he was only 4 hours away, UPS showed that it would be delivered the next day. He was not satisfied with this and he became very irate that it was not shipping by UPS Next Day even though the delivery date would have been the same. It was at this point that he wrote this post.