Has anyone had any bad experiences purchasing equipment from Strong?

[Jay Glaus]

Curious if anyone has had any bad experiences buying equipment (mainly reconditioned) from Strong? I purchased a reconditioned 32B and gdc 2001A “turnkey setup” from them and it’s been a disaster. Some of the key points in my transaction…

1) Took over 90 days since payment to get the projector to me

2) Bulb adapter for the bulb they sent me was missing (luckily they sent me one for free)

2) took an additional month after projector delivery to get the server

3) upon arrival of the server, I was missing hd sdi board and enigma board. I was told I had to pay for the hd sdi board, they did cover the cost of enigma

4) the projector came with a faulty ICP and CCB, this still hasn’t been resolved, waiting on an answer

5) I am basically 6 months from the start of this purchase and still don’t have a working setup.

Only reason I’m asking was because when I was diagnosing the faulty boards on the projector, I was speaking with one of the techs in Barco’s NOC and he asked me where I bought the reconditioned projector from and when I told him Strong, he informed me that they don’t have the best reputation at Barco, told me they have a horrible habit of selling reconditioned projectors with non working parts, essentially, they don’t even test the projectors.

Anyone else experience this with Strong? Hoping they resolve this and I don’t have to go after them for the faulty cards…

[Leo Enticknap]

I can't comment on Strong beyond noting that I've handled support inquiries from their techs (related to MiT equipment), and they've all seemed polite, competent, and professional to me.

All I can say, and with confidence, is that there is at least a 99% chance that the issues described wouldn't happen with reconditioned projectors bought from MiT, because we make a big effort to prevent them when that equipment is in the shop. When customers upgrade and trade in older but working projectors and servers, we go through them thoroughly before reselling them. This includes doing all the recommended planned maintenance (in the case of a Barco, that means each and every step in maintenance A through C, apart from the ones that can only be done during installation in the field, e.g. color calibration), replacing all batteries, resetting equipment to factory defaults, marrying a projector and IMB and checking that they can play DCPs. For Barcos specifically, if maintenance D is due (new coolant pump), we will ask the customer if they'd like us to do it before shipping the projector out or not, given that the pump is a pricey part for which we would have to pass the cost along. If other parts that cost a significant amount to replace have defects but are serviceable (e.g. fans getting a bit noisy), again, we will ask the customer how they would like to proceed, and order and install replacements if requested. A detailed check-out report is shipped with each projector. Here's an example:

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If we do let anything out the door with a known issue, the customer is made aware of this and it is reflected in the price. In this example, the customer was asked if they wanted the keypad, cold mirror, SPG, and exhaust manifold replaced before we shipped it. I can't remember what the exact response was, but I think I did replace the cold mirror.

IMHO, anyone selling used DCI equipment should do something like this, unless it is specifically being sold as is / sight unseen / caveat emptor. Again, I stress, I cannot comment on how any other vendor may or may not handle used equipment sales, only what we do.

[Rick Cohen]

I presume they offered some type or warranty? At least 30 days?