On Thu, 22 Aug 2013 12:35:34 -0400, "Lee Michaels"
leemichaels*nadaspam* at comcast dot net wrote:



"Swingman" wrote

#1 rule of troubleshooting electronics: Check the voltage, first.

Yep, as an old time techie, who went to school to learn this stuff, I am
well acquainted with that rule.

A mantra that was pounded into our heads was, First, check the power supply.
If you have no power, you have no electronics. If there is no power, then
the problem lays in the power supply itself or the power cord. Once that
first step is done, you can start to look for problems elsewhere.

Hell, I design electronics for a living. You'd be surprised how many
of my colleagues don't know that the electronics don't work unless the
power supplies are working. It's always the simple things. When it's
not, blame the programmers. ;-)

One thing I also looked for when dealing with any kind of audio equipment
was switches. When a piece of equipment has several different "modes" you
can easily switch off what you want. So go through all the switches.
Either a switch is turned off or it failed. I replaced a bunch of switches
in my time. And a few power supplies as well.

...or half way between two positions.

Another old time trick I used on audio or radio gear was to simply change
out the capacitors. If the equipment was old at all, I assumed that the
capacitors were dying or dead. Putting in all new capacitors sometimes
created a "miracle cure" for any old favorite piece of gear.

Computer equipment, too. Except that by the time the capacitors have
failed, I don't want the hardware anymore anyway.

This technique doesn't work on the stuff I design, either. The
capacitors are new. If they're bad, I have a much bigger problem. ;-)

It was amazing the number of fixes that were done with just the above steps.

getting' all misty eyed reminiscing here

It's an every day thing.