So about a month ago I sold my old laser projector and wanted to purchase a new one. I have a mobile disco so I need one.
I'm new here, and this was just before I discovered this forum. If it was after, I might not have bought this particular projector, or buy from this seller. But I did, and this was my experience.
I have bought many items from China, not just laser products. Most purchases not laser related. My favorite place to purchase Chinese products from is www.aliexpress.com as they have a Escrow system, and have many vendors that sells through them.
Yoline caught my eye, and this projector in particular:
http://www.aliexpress.com/store/9045...RGB-laser.html
I ordered and paid for it, and within a hour I had a email confirming my order from Aliexpress. Within 24 Hours I received another email from Aliexpress stating that my payment had been processed successfully and that the order had been placed with Yoline. Practically immediately I received a email from Anna at Yoline saying they have received my order and will send me a tracking number once its shipped.
What I like about dealing through Aliexpress is that you can check on your order's progress at anytime, and leave a message for the seller. Anna always replied to me in a reasonable time frame. I had a few questions and requests along the way. Aliexpress also has a MSN type chat program that you can use to speak to any seller directly in real time.
Anyhow, they shipped in 4 days and sent the laser by DHL. Laser arrived in another 4 days as there was a weekend in between.
Laser arrived and I was over the moon. Like a kid at xmas. Opened the package, and omg it was broken. Nothing due to the seller. Cabling and everything was very neat inside. It must have been damaged in transit. DHL must have dropped it from a very high as the brass spacers/studs that attach the 5mm aluminium plate to the chassis were sheered right off against the aluminium plate.
Damn, my heart sank into stomach as I thought my problems had just started.
I took pictures and sent to Anna immediately. She apologized and said they would take it up with DHL. She came back to me a day or 2 later and said that DHL would have no part of it. They said I shouldn't have opened the package. How do you know something is going to be faulty without opening it first? She asked if I could contact DHL on my side and see if I can get them to send the projector back. I didn't like the idea, but did and they also wouldn't hear about my problems. They wanted to charge me $225 to send back just the board and diodes.
DHL -100000 rep points. Bastards
Anyway, in the mean time I took some "press stick" and stuck the aluminium board into place and returned all the loose cables. When I turned it on it worked except one of the fans on a diode was very noisy. No doubt damaged by all the shaking and bumping around inside the projector. The blue diode was also not aligned anymore. I notified and sent Anna more photo's and video.
A few days before the long Chinese holidays that just took place Anna contacted me and said that she tried everything she could, but DHL wouldn't budge. She pointed out that she will be losing money but will send me a new unit if I paid $95-00 shipping. I was quite worried / pissed off at this point, but didn't protest and paid another $95-00 over to Aliexpress for Yoline. Anna contacted me again and said that they are busy with a big light show at the moment and will send my package off after the public holidays on the 8th of October.
I thought $95 shipping for a aluminium plate and some brass spacers was expensive as the original shipping was only $53-00. But if it was what it was going to take to get a fixed projector then I will do that. Keep in mind that Yoline also still not been paid yet. I opened a dispute on Aliexpress preventing their payment.
On the 12th of October the package was delivered. Not by DHL this time.
This package was much too big to be just a board so I thought they sent it already mounted and that I would need to move over the other insides. Not a happy thought.
I opened the package and low and behold. They sent me a brand spanking new projector. In perfect working order.
So now I have 1 perfectly working projector, and a 2nd that is not. But the parts can still be used in other projects that I am interested in. Or I might just try fix it.
In the end I would say Yoline is a good honorable seller that is reasonable and do what they need to do to keep the customer happy. Very rare these days.
I am sure 99% of other companies would have forced me to return the faulty unit back to them at my cost, which would have left a very sour taste, even if they did replaced it with another unit.
I don't have software to do any specific testing on the projector at this point. It works very well and there are some very nice ild files on the sd card that it projects nicely. I have QS on the way tho and will do some better testing then. For what I paid I am happy with what I got.