Scanners and mobile computers are not onsite work and we do not pretend otherwise. They come back to us, they are quoted on the bench, and nothing is done to one until you have said yes to a number. There is no call-out, because nobody drives to a handheld.
Often we can price it from a photograph before it leaves your site, which means you are not paying freight to find out whether it was worth sending.
The two jobs look similar on a website and are nothing alike in practice, so they are priced differently and kept on separate pages.
An industrial printer is plumbed into a line, loaded with your stock and printing the labels that line needs today. Taking it out is the disruption, so a technician comes to it, services it and you print again the same visit.
That is the work the call-out rate pays for, and it is set out in full on its own page.
A scanner or a handheld is a thing you can put in a box, and the repair is almost always a part — a screen, a battery, a cable, a cradle. Sending a technician to fit a screen in your warehouse would cost more than the screen.
So it is return to base, every time, and what you pay for is the part and the work rather than the driving. None of the printer call-out, driving or hourly figures on that page apply to a scanner or a mobile computer.
Two parts cause most of what gets sent to us, and both are things you can swap on your own counter. It is worth ten minutes before it is worth a courier.
The cable, nine times out of ten. It has been walked on, rolled over by a chair and bent at the plug four thousand times. Try a known good one before anything else — on a cordless unit, try a known good battery.
If that is not it and the scanner is out of warranty, buy a new one. That is the honest answer rather than a brush-off: at this end of the range a repair costs more than the scanner and takes a fortnight longer. The warranty on each model is on its own card, so it is one number in one place.
A DS3678, an LI3678, a DS3608 and their relatives. Cable or battery first here too — a cordless rugged scanner that has stopped charging is usually a battery that has done its years.
Then both halves get checked, because either one can be the fault. The scanner and the cradle it sits in are two devices, and a unit that will not pair or will not charge is as likely to be the base as the gun. Send both and we test both.
These are worth repairing — unless the unit is old and out of warranty, in which case replacing it is usually the better buy, and we will say so.
Where a cheap scanner is close to disposable, a handheld is the machine most worth repairing on the whole site — it cost thousands, your software is on it, and the parts exist.
Screens can be replaced, and a smashed screen is the single most common job we see. On the MC9100, MC9200 and MC9300, the MC3100, MC3200 and MC3300, and the TC55, TC56, TC27 and TC70 — each of those series has a replaceable display.
Batteries can be ordered for all of them, and a handheld that only lasts half a shift is a battery rather than a dying machine. For most other faults we can usually source the part — keypads, scan engines, housings, cradles, charging contacts.
What we will not do is guess. Every one of them comes back to us for a quote first, with the lead time for the parts on the quote, so you know both numbers before you commit to either.
And the parts reach backwards further than people expect. An MC9300 cradle and keypad carry straight over to an MC9400 — the 53-key is KYPD-MC9353ANR-01 on both machines, which is a part number rather than a promise. The MC9300, and what carries over →
Not every fault can be priced from a picture, but a broken screen can, and so can a swollen battery, a cracked housing and a snapped cable. It saves you the freight on a machine that was never worth sending.
A worked example, and a real one. In November 2026 a customer in Perth sent a photograph of a TC27 with a broken screen. Back the same day: $695 inc GST — the screen, the labour, and the freight back to Perth, all in the one figure. Nothing to work out and nothing added later.
And what happens when the photograph did not show everything. It frequently does not, and that is nobody being dishonest — a photograph of a broken screen does not show the keypad with keys missing from it, or the housing that has been dropped, or water that got in a month ago. The screen is the thing you noticed, so the screen is what you told us about.
So if it arrives and there is more wrong than the photograph showed, you hear about it before we touch it. Not on the invoice afterwards. This is also why the quote comes after we have opened it rather than instead of opening it.
Then we tell you what a new one costs today, next to what the repair now costs, and you choose. If the repair has become half the price of a replacement, that is worth knowing before you spend it, and we would rather you spent it on the new machine than with us. Your call, and both answers are fine.
There is no hourly rate on this page, because on a bench repair the quote is the price. Here is everything that can appear on an invoice, and everything that cannot.
| Inc GST | |
|---|---|
| Telling you whether it is worth sending On the phone, before the machine moves. The step most repairers skip. |
Free |
| An estimate from a photograph Where the fault is something a picture can show. |
Free |
| Opening it, finding the fault and quoting it No assessment fee and no minimum, whether you go ahead or not. |
Free |
| Getting it to us Any courier you like. On a repair that goes ahead, the only freight you pay. |
Your courier |
| The repair itself — parts and labour One figure, with the parts lead time on it, approved by you first. |
Quoted |
| Freight back to you, if you approve the repair Inside the price you approved, so the number you said yes to is the number on the invoice. |
Included |
| Freight back to you, if you turn the quote down At cost, with signature on delivery so there is proof it arrived. |
At cost |
| Disposal, if you would rather not have it back Confirm it in writing and it goes no further. Nothing to pay. |
Free |
Which leaves exactly one number you have to decide about — the quote. Everything before it costs nothing, and the freight home is already inside it.
Worth checking before you book a courier, because a device under cover is repaired by Zebra at no charge and sending it to us instead would only cost you time.
We will tell you it is covered and point you straight at Zebra, who will handle it under the contract. There is nothing in that for us and we will tell you anyway — it is your cover and you paid for it.
We usually do the paperwork for you. We raise it with Zebra, come back to you with the RMA number, and you ship the device straight to them with it.
The machine still goes to Zebra — that part is the contract, not us — but the half hour of admin that puts most people off claiming is ours rather than yours.
The serial number is what answers this, and on a handheld it is under the battery. Read it to us and we can tell you whether the device is in warranty or on a contract before anything is packed — which occasionally means the repair costs you nothing at all.
How a send-in repair actually runs is written out once, in one place, and it is the same whether the box has a printer in it, a scanner or a handheld.
It is on the booking page rather than repeated here, deliberately: two descriptions of one process are two things to keep right, and the second one is always the one that goes stale. The rates on that page are for printers — the eight steps are for everything.
What they cover: what to say when you ring, which photographs help, where the serial number is, whether it is worth sending at all, what to put in the box, how long it sits before somebody opens it, what the quote tells you, and what happens whichever way you answer it.
Not sure it is worth repairing at all? That question has its own answer, with the honest cut-off on it and what we would do instead. Service and repairs, and when to replace instead →
A broken screen, a swollen battery, a cracked housing — most of the time a picture and a model number is all we need to give you a figure, before you pay a courier anything.
