[3dem] Gatan K3 reliability issues

[Dokland, Terje]

I wanted to poll the community for others’ experience with the reliability of the Gatan K3 camera. We got ours installed in March last year, and In our experience the reliabilty has been appalling. 

So far we have had to send it back to the factory for repair THREE times, all within one year. Each time it takes 1-2 months before we get it back, during which we are not able to do any imaging. This is in addition to problems with the computer, the capture cards and the MIB (shutter control) that have all failed at least once in the past year. 

My question is whether this is typical for the K3, or did we receive a dud? 

I can imagine and accept a few initial teething problems, but this is getting ridiculous. We had the K2 for somewhat over a year before we got the K3, and had no problems with it. Before that, we had a Gatan CCD, which did not have any problems at all in its 10 year lifetime. Did Gatan run out an unfinished product, or have we just been unlucky? 

Any insights would be appreciated. 

Terje