On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:04:18 +0000, Arfa Daily wrote:

Canton domestic sub. Bit of an oddball fault to do with the auto
power-on circuitry. Probably something simple like a surface mount R
around an opamp. Nothing obvious leapt out at me in a sensible time, so
request put in for some service info.

"Nope. Not available. These units repaired by swap-out of the amplifier
board" came back the reply. So the shop ordered one in - presumably
after clearing the cost with the poor old owner ...

Today, it arrived. When they said a 'replacement board', what they
actually meant was a replacement everything, bar the actual driver and
its cabinet ! So that's the black satin plated back panel, every
connector, the preamp / control board, the power supply / power amp
board, even the heavy duty torroidal power transformer. All I had to do
was connect the driver (that actually involved a soldering iron !!) and
screw the plate to the cabinet. Nonsense, or what ?

A couple of weeks back, I had a problem with my central heating boiler,
so I called in an acquaintance who is a heating engineer. Whilst he was
working on my problem, I asked him if he replaced many boiler control
boards in the course of his daily work. I was thinking that modern ones
probably suffer a lot of bad (lead-free) joints from relay hammer and
general vibration from pumps and fans and things, and that there might
be some fairly easy money to be made by us both. He said that he
replaces loads, so I asked him what he did with the bad ones. "Throw 'em
away" he replied. Better and better, I thought, so I asked him if he
would be interested in getting them repaired. This was met with a firm
"No". I asked him why not, and he said that it wouldn't be worth his
while, because if he fitted a repaired board to a customer's boiler, and
it went wrong again a couple of weeks later, he would be left out of
pocket on the return call, and with a disgruntled customer who probably
wouldn't use him or recommend him again.

No amount of discussion about quality diagnosis and repair and warranty,
would sway him from his position on the matter.

So there we have it. Despite being forced to accept eco-bollox light
bulbs, and windmills all over the countryside, and everything else that
has grown up around the green movement, a significant proportion of any
planet saving that may result from this, is being chucked away by the
repair attitudes of everyone from manufacturers, right down to
one-man-band service organisations. Until such attitudes are revised,
what's the point in bothering ? Considering the amount of electronic
consumer goods that are scrapped from lack of service info and parts,
I'm sure that government could have a much more significant impact on
the electronics recycling situation, by legislating on making parts and
service assistance available. But then, it's not really about saving the
planet, is it ... ?

Arfa

And this is really nothing new. I couldn't count how many times I have
spent tracking down parts a service literature in vain. And one bloke who
worked for Nady I actually got fired for sending me schematics for a 201
guitar wireless I wanted to re-crystal.



--
Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Pretty Corpse