Any of you a T.C. Electronics warranty station? Need a part

[km6xz]

Hi shop owners
I have a G-Major with the Control data encoder/button switch broken and the center know missing. The national distributor will not sell parts to anyone, the company says they will only sell to warranty stations so I am stuck since there are none here. The distributor only works on warranty items, besides does not stock parts. I was told by the tech that if they repaired it, replacing the data encoder and putting on the knob, it would be 2 months an $160 for shipping the part from the US. That is, if they would work on a non-warranty item, which they don't.
I am going to be back in the States for a couple weeks next month and I am trying to track down some parts.

[Enzo]

What numbers appear on the encoder? Perhaps it is available generically. Rotary encoders with push are in the catal;ogs.

[km6xz]

Hi Enzo
Unfortunately there are no numbers on it. There are a number in catalogs that look similar. Since shipping would be 20 times any cost I was hopping to find someone that had one, TC does not answer any emails. The bigger problem is the missing inner knob of the concentric set.

I am adding companies to my list to advise club, theaters and bands to avoid since they don't cooperate with parts or even answer emails. Fewer and fewer have anything more than a FAQ which never allows for other than cut and dry questions to be answered. My common question is "how does an end user get a unit repaired if the distributors will not sell parts and will not work on non-warranty units, and the company's stock answer is always "order parts from your national distributor". Line 6 was about to go on that list after weeks of screwing around with their on-line support forum(the only support there is, manned by volunteers) until I got the direct phone number from years ago when I was their first warranty station. That number was not on the web or literature. I called the company, bypassing the support system--non-support system.... and a parts guy was very helpful and handled all with speed and desired outcome, even though it was in direct contradiction to their published parts policy.
The national distributor for TC and I are in negotiations about doing some higher end consulting in exchange for parts access. They are also the Behringer distributor and ask me how to possibly handle such a task when they have a hard time getting parts also. Tomorrow I am having another meeting with them to finalize the relationship but TC parts would be months away since they only get them a few times a year. Generally speaking the M.I. sort of gear is not in their line of expertise, they are mostly large system installations for broadcast, video production and large should systems for venues. I ought to suggest subbing the low end stuff to me. It would be easier finding staff here than in the US, but harder to find reasonable shop space and low cost shipping of parts from source countries.

[MarkusBass]

Km6xz,

Can you post a photo of the encoder? My coleague know guys who are servicing TC Electronics equipment and they even may have this encoder. I heard that one has to be very careful when disasembling G-Major (especially with the front panel).

Mark