"The only way you can tell I've been "in" something
is the date code on the part is newer. "

Yup, I clean the PC board. I try to get the same amount of solder on all the pins of an IC. At Electrasound they had us clean the board with Qdope thinner which is toluene. I usually use acetone. And I do it after desoldering and before soldering. The flux won't be burnt so it is not conductive and provides just a wee bit of insulation.

One thing I do my way regardless of hoe the manufacturer did it is that I apply the heat sink compound in a daub or bead and when mounted and tightened let the pressure squeeze it out. This prevents air pockets which could occur if you spread it out first. Apparently it is cheaper for the manufacturers in some cases to spread it out, and you can tell it was done by a machine, because if anyone, they should know this.

There are a few other things I do that enhance reliability here and there. Or did actually. At Electrasound which was authorized for just about anything, even GM car computers and radios, they said "Do you want to take their name off of it and put yours on ?".

In some cases - yes. If I have to fix it if it breaks again I will do whatever I deem necessary to prevent that callback. The customer will blame me no matter how bad of a piece of **** they built.

And you can't tell them ****. Like different problems. I fix a convergence problem then it has a totally different problem and it is my fault. I try, "If I put brakes on your car and the radiator goes, do I have to change that for free ?". Falls on deaf ears. Ignorant ears actually. Like if i fix the right channel in an map and the left channel goes, that's me ? Bull****.

Stupid people wrecked that business. They told me a long time ago that you get enough money out of them the first time to cover such things. I didn't like that but over the years I learned that's the only way to really keep good customer relations. Just fix the damn thing.

And then when it comes to the complaint, "It was working fine and just went out". You get it alive and find out it has a weak CRT, convergence issues, noisy digital board, needs caps all over the place with retrace lines. Working fine eh ?

I am glad to be out of it. I argued with the boss, a customer was tired of waiting, we had ordered parts. Under Ohio law there are some strict guideline about estimates, but still, once the customer OKs the estimate that is a contract. So I said "OK, tell them to pay the bill and they can have it unfixed". Hey, we ordered expensive parts for that thing and now they are going to sit on the shelf ? I would even let them come and pick up the parts when they come in. But they CAN'T take it to a bunch of shops that might be hacks and expect the estimate to hold. So it is back to that. If nothing happened the price is still good, if something happened then we'll see.

I was sick of getting ****ed up the ass without lube.

One time we lost a TV. (not my shop, I worked there) It was not economically fixable so it wasn't worth much but they sued for $ 800. The thing MIGHT be worth that in like new condition. Well we found the set. They said OK and the boss and them agreed to just forget about court. So he didn't go, but this prick did and got a default judgement.

Towards the end of my days owning a shop I got to the point where I would not work on anything I hadn't sold. That did not cause me to get out of business, I got partners because we had the space and wanted to go into appliances. These kids wee not old enough. Quite frankly neither was I. If I knew then what I know now I would have never let them into the business. Maybe hire them and they could work for me, but that is it. No more partners ever again.

Enough of my rambling. I seem to have hijacked my own thread. LOL