Yeah you've got a few points there, but allow me to make a few comments of
my own.....
As Dan Sofie suggests, people are more inclined to expect free service if
you only look like a hobbyist, and not a professional. If you're serious
about doing electronics repair, and you have the skill and ambition, get
yourself a business name, advertising sign (s), company logo on your
vehicle, etc, etc. The more professional your business apears, the less
people will expect freebies. You'll still run into the odd Cheap Charlie,
asking "Is that your best price?", or "Is it worth that much", in which case
you should just explain that you're merely asking for compensation for the
time, effort, and perhaps money that you invested in the job.
Yes, we live in a throw-away society. Approximately half the people that
bring stuff in for estimates, to my shop, usually tell me to keep it and
they go buy something new. The industry is dying, and any tech that tells
you otherwise is either incredibly naive or has a few bats in his/her
belfry. If you live in a highly-populated area though, and you do decent
work, you'll probably get enough customers to keep you busy for at least a
few more years. If you're in a less-populated area, you may want to branch
out into other areas, such as antique radios (an industry all to itself).
The best source for spare parts are all the old sets people are throwing
away. Drive around on a day designated for pickup of large items, or
advertise that you take old TVs and VCRs, and I guarantee you'll soon have
more old sets than you'll know what to do with. Paying people a small price
for their old sets will bring even more stuff......
Best of luck, and try not to get discouraged in these difficult times.

--
*********
Reply to:
*********
"Doug Taylor" wrote in message
main...

Hi everyone...
I will start this post with a great Thank You to all who
have taken their time to post and share their knowledge
in this forum. It's been great reading your posts!

Now, I would like to share my opinion on doing repairs on
consumer electronics.
It's seems to me that as soon as someone finds out you are
into electronics, they have a light bulb goes on in their
head... POP.... Hey!... FREE electronic servicing.
Friends and so called acquaintances and co-workers dump
all kinds of broken electronic crap at your feet expecting
instant FREE service.
When you are not thrilled at the prospect, they may offer
to actually pay up to $10 for the parts.
What is it with people.
Are we all just a bunch of cheap skates,
tight-wads, and skin flints, trying to manipulate or leverage
our relationships and friendships to see how much we
can exploit others for our own benefit.
People are delusional, when it comes to servicing electronic
appliances etc.

I usually like to tell them that their article is made in the
3rd world like Indonesia, china, Taiwan or Mexico where people
work for as low as $1.20 a day. Maybe they could ship their
broken TV or VCR or stereo to China for servicing as people in
North America want at least $20-$60 a hour. (joke)

Ah! maybe I'm too cynical.....

All that aside, I still like tinkering in Electronics for fun.
But, to hell with servicing for profit, it's a non-starter.
Vendors are impossible to deal with, they hoard information,
charge ridiculous prices for their parts (if they have them),
Use non standard fittings and fasteners, anything just to foil
you up. The whole industry is set up to re-inforce the
"throw away when broken" mentality of our consumer society.

P.S. A note to Daniel Sofie....

Thanks for your great input here....
and you are right to suggest to unskilled hobbyist's to
take their gear in for professionel servicing.
People underestimate the complexity of electronic gear,
it's like they assume its about as simple as a light switch.
Ever heard this one before.."It's probably just the fuse"

Doug Taylor

--
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
D E A D O N A R R I V A L
B B S

telnet://doabbs.dynip.com http://www.dsuper.net/~techno

Chris Wrote
The industry is dying, and any tech that tells you otherwise is either
incredibly naive or has a few bats in his/her belfry

I'm not in the repair business but do my share of it for fun. The "industry"
died a long time ago.
As the OP mentioned most consumer electronics is throw away garbage now. When
you can buy a new TV, VCR etc for $50 its not worth fixing. Its common sense

The complexity of todays junk is such that there are no longer any experts or
quick easy fixes (I'm sure there are some known common problems with certain
models that are easy). You need detailed service information to make heads or
tails out of anything. Service information cost money. Even armed with the
proper info its still more time consuming than most of the stuff is worth.Years
ago if you had the schematic of a television, radio, CB Radio etc it pretty
much covered hundreds of other models.

I would not even know where to find an electronics repair outfit in my area. At
one time they were on every street corner. All disappeared. Same goes for all
the small electronic distributors where you could walk in and buy a single
tube, transistor, IC or resistor and not have someone roll their eyes or
explain about the $50 minimum purchase. Same goes for Radio Shack. Unless its a
toy its not stocked and its special order. Forget parts.

Its all downhill from here. The human thirst for products with mostly useless
complex bells and whistles for the sole purpose of showing them off to their
friends will never die.

Technologically we are really good at all the wrong things. Like spending
millions on product testing to insure that it only lasts a short time or a
specified amount of time for warranty purposes. Now theres an exact science.

Why repair something thats really nothing more than a toy, incredibly complex
and designed to fail?

Tony

Hi Doug. I start out tinkering with electronics in my fathers shop back in
the early 1960s, and have been doing it ever since. I am lucky in the fact
that I am also a musician, and I started playing piano at age 6, and I get
to enjoy both professions, and they compliment each other.

My father sold the first TV in the town I grew up in over in Iowa. Like Dan,
I was heavy into Ham radio as a kid, and building anything and everything I
could afford to buy the part for. I worked with my father, while going to
college. After he retired, I took an offer to run one of the largest shops
in the midwest. I did this for several years, and finally decided to open my
own shop, which I did, and have been running it 25 years now. While working
in electronics, I also started playing piano in a country band back in the
80s, and we recorded a single that made it in into the top 40s on the
country charts. I found myself traveling all over the country to promote the
album, which never went any further However, it did give me the chance to
work as a session musician for many different artist, and to play with many
famous artist of the time, such as Merle Hagard, the Statler Brothers, and
Crystal Gale. So for a few years, I had a detour from electronics, until I
opened my own shop. So for the past 25 years, I have ran a shop during the
day, and played keyboards with several local bands on the weekends. I am now
getting ready to retire, because I have a degenerative desease that is
destroying the nerves in my lower back, and I have to use a walker to get
around now. My sons help me lift sets, but they have lives of their own to
live. While it hurts to have to close the shop, I will still stay active in
the electronics field, and I will now devote more time to music, because I
built a small studio in my house, and I want to go back to composing and
recording my own music. That was probably more than anybody wanted to hear,
but since my electronic profession is nearing an end after 40 years, what
the hell

As far as electronic repair goes nowadays, by all means, it has changed. We
use to have 3 electronic parts suppliers in the town I live in, now we have
none. The days of grabbing a couple of caddies and fixing most sets in the
home is over for many techs, especially independent ones. It seems obvious
that the day of the crt is nearing the end, since so much time and money is
being put into research for a better alternative. When they do away with the
HV stage in most sets, that will greatly increase the reliability of TVs.
Less heat, lower voltage and current requirements, and a lower number of
components will be the main reasons. I do feel sorry for those just coming
into the business, because it has changed so much, that even though it is
still fun to a degree, it's nothing like it use to be, at least not for me.
And since many homes will probably have huge widescreen HDTVs in them in the
near future, those will not be something fun to haul into the shop, so I
have no idea what direction that will take the serviceman. You better have a
lot of parts/boards/schematics and test equipment on hand is all I can guess


As far as relatives and friends wanting free or discount service, it goes
with the job. I don't mind doing repairs for my relatives, because most of
them offer to pay something for my time. I usually say no, except when the
parts are expensive. As far as friends go, it depends on how good a friend
they are Everybodys your friend when they need something from you. I just
usually tell them they are getting a good deal, whether they are or not

One big problem anymore is that fact that people are starting to have the
frame of mind that nothing they buy is going to last more than a few years.
So this makes them think about tossing many items that could be fixed. At
the same time, who can blame them though, when the cost of repair can be not
much different then buying new. Even when it's not, many people will think
their money is wasted on repair, since the unit will not run long enough to
make it worth the expense.

What I really miss about electronics, is all the electronic publications
that are no more. I always enjoyed building and experimenting with
electronics. It was a great hobby to have along side with repairing. I have
a lot of test equipment that I built over the years, that I still use today.
I have amps and preamps and effect units that I built, that I still use in
my music.

Shops are going to have to make some hard calls in the next few years about
what test equipment and parts to carry to service the newer sets. It's not
going to be cheap, and it's going to be hard for the independent techs to
compete with the factory authorized dealerships.

Anyway, that's it for me. Thanks for your input and asking for others
opinions.



"Doug Taylor" wrote in message
main...

Hi everyone...
I will start this post with a great Thank You to all who
have taken their time to post and share their knowledge
in this forum. It's been great reading your posts!

Now, I would like to share my opinion on doing repairs on
consumer electronics.
It's seems to me that as soon as someone finds out you are
into electronics, they have a light bulb goes on in their
head... POP.... Hey!... FREE electronic servicing.
Friends and so called acquaintances and co-workers dump
all kinds of broken electronic crap at your feet expecting
instant FREE service.
When you are not thrilled at the prospect, they may offer
to actually pay up to $10 for the parts.
What is it with people.
Are we all just a bunch of cheap skates,
tight-wads, and skin flints, trying to manipulate or leverage
our relationships and friendships to see how much we
can exploit others for our own benefit.
People are delusional, when it comes to servicing electronic
appliances etc.

I usually like to tell them that their article is made in the
3rd world like Indonesia, china, Taiwan or Mexico where people
work for as low as $1.20 a day. Maybe they could ship their
broken TV or VCR or stereo to China for servicing as people in
North America want at least $20-$60 a hour. (joke)

Ah! maybe I'm too cynical.....

All that aside, I still like tinkering in Electronics for fun.
But, to hell with servicing for profit, it's a non-starter.
Vendors are impossible to deal with, they hoard information,
charge ridiculous prices for their parts (if they have them),
Use non standard fittings and fasteners, anything just to foil
you up. The whole industry is set up to re-inforce the
"throw away when broken" mentality of our consumer society.

P.S. A note to Daniel Sofie....

Thanks for your great input here....
and you are right to suggest to unskilled hobbyist's to
take their gear in for professionel servicing.
People underestimate the complexity of electronic gear,
it's like they assume its about as simple as a light switch.
Ever heard this one before.."It's probably just the fuse"

Doug Taylor

--
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
D E A D O N A R R I V A L
B B S

telnet://doabbs.dynip.com http://www.dsuper.net/~techno

"Chris F." wrote in message ...
Best of luck, and try not to get discouraged in these difficult times.

(snippage)

One good thing the EU and/or UK govt. could do is to pass a law to
*require* all electronic equipment to be recycled down to the nuts and
bolts . All new equipment sold has a 10% sales tax added to pay for
proper recycling facilities , *with the tax cut to 2% if it is
specifically designed to be repairable and recyclable* .

In addition, any company that repairs consumer equipment should be
able to apply for a grant to cover running costs etc . Should keep
things ticking over .

-Andre

geeeze...... not another tax or government fee, they never go away or go
down, they just keep being enacted and increased..... there are other ways
to do this...... look at the automobile junk yard business, the recyclers
actually pay for the junk. Soon there will be a tax on breathing, or on
eating or on sex because of all the community resources that are involved.
--
Best Regards,
Daniel Sofie
Electronics Supply & Repair
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


"Andre" wrote in message
om...
"Chris F." wrote in message
...
Best of luck, and try not to get discouraged in these difficult times.

(snippage)

One good thing the EU and/or UK govt. could do is to pass a law to
*require* all electronic equipment to be recycled down to the nuts and
bolts . All new equipment sold has a 10% sales tax added to pay for
proper recycling facilities , *with the tax cut to 2% if it is
specifically designed to be repairable and recyclable* .

In addition, any company that repairs consumer equipment should be
able to apply for a grant to cover running costs etc . Should keep
things ticking over .

-Andre

Well I definitely give up eating and breathing then.


"Sofie" wrote in message
...
geeeze...... not another tax or government fee, they never go away or go
down, they just keep being enacted and increased..... there are other ways
to do this...... look at the automobile junk yard business, the recyclers
actually pay for the junk. Soon there will be a tax on breathing, or on
eating or on sex because of all the community resources that are involved.
--
Best Regards,
Daniel Sofie
Electronics Supply & Repair
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


"Andre" wrote in message
om...
"Chris F." wrote in message
...
Best of luck, and try not to get discouraged in these difficult
times.

(snippage)

One good thing the EU and/or UK govt. could do is to pass a law to
*require* all electronic equipment to be recycled down to the nuts and
bolts . All new equipment sold has a 10% sales tax added to pay for
proper recycling facilities , *with the tax cut to 2% if it is
specifically designed to be repairable and recyclable* .

In addition, any company that repairs consumer equipment should be
able to apply for a grant to cover running costs etc . Should keep
things ticking over .

-Andre

stuff deleted

I was in the business for 50 years. Used to fix stuff for friends
and neighbors. Too many ingrates, etc. Now I tell them my liability
insurance doesn't cover it and I have too much to lose to take a
chance playing Mister Niceguy. I've been screwed doing it.

Grumpy OM

"Andre" wrote in message
om...
"Chris F." wrote in message
...
Best of luck, and try not to get discouraged in these difficult times.

(snippage)

One good thing the EU and/or UK govt. could do is to pass a law to
*require* all electronic equipment to be recycled down to the nuts and
bolts . All new equipment sold has a 10% sales tax added to pay for
proper recycling facilities , *with the tax cut to 2% if it is
specifically designed to be repairable and recyclable* .

In addition, any company that repairs consumer equipment should be
able to apply for a grant to cover running costs etc . Should keep
things ticking over .

-Andre

How do you decide if something is recyclable?
Mike.



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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"Sofie" wrote in message
...
geeeze...... not another tax or government fee, they never go away or go
down, they just keep being enacted and increased..... there are other ways
to do this...... look at the automobile junk yard business, the recyclers
actually pay for the junk. Soon there will be a tax on breathing, or on
eating or on sex because of all the community resources that are involved.
--
Best Regards,
Daniel Sofie
Electronics Supply & Repair
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I know that they would like to tax all the nice weather we've been getting.
Mike.



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(Andre) wrote in message . com...
One good thing the EU and/or UK govt. could do is to pass a law to
*require* all electronic equipment to be recycled down to the nuts and
bolts .

Sadly, that does sound just like the kind of moronic law that the EU
would pass, and that the UK government would be stupid enough to vote
into law.

All new equipment sold has a 10% sales tax added to pay for
proper recycling facilities , *with the tax cut to 2% if it is
specifically designed to be repairable and recyclable* .

Ah, just what we need, to pay even more of our income to the EU in
another stupid "green" tax... and the extra cost of making hardware
"repairable" is likely to more than eat up any 8% saving on tax.

How exactly are you going to "recycle" that 8086 PC? Who is going to
want any component from it, except maybe NASA trying to keep some
twenty year old spacecraft flying? How are you going to repair it if
it fails? Intel aren't going to build more chips just to keep
"repairable" PCs running.

Problematic as it is in many respects, as more and more discrete
components are replaced by custom ICs, electronics has become
increasingly difficult to repair: a chip either works or it doesn't,
and if it doesn't you either replace it, if they're still manufactured
and still available, or throw away the hardware. Telling people that
they must greatly increase the cost of their hardware and probably
greatly reduce the reliability by building it from discrete components
that can be replaced is just silly.

Mark

I love to fix VCR's, 2-way radios, TV's, CD Players, ham radios, CB radios,
etc. I fix the stuff for free because I love the challenge of fixing exotic
equipment. I learn so much more and get a chance to use all of my scopes,
sig. gen.'s, etc. I only charge for parts and since I have dozens of old
dud chassis' I get a lot of the parts for free, too. It is so much fun I
can't tell you how happy it makes me to see the results of my repair and the
very happy person who receives the fruits of my labor.

Oh, yes, I am retired and don't need to make a living at it. It is just a
hobby to me.

"Mike CJ" wrote in message ...
"Andre" wrote in message
om...
"Chris F." wrote in message
...
Best of luck, and try not to get discouraged in these difficult times.

(snippage)

One good thing the EU and/or UK govt. could do is to pass a law to
*require* all electronic equipment to be recycled down to the nuts and
bolts . All new equipment sold has a 10% sales tax added to pay for
proper recycling facilities , *with the tax cut to 2% if it is
specifically designed to be repairable and recyclable* .

In addition, any company that repairs consumer equipment should be
able to apply for a grant to cover running costs etc . Should keep
things ticking over .

-Andre

How do you decide if something is recyclable?

Most things are .

For example :-

1) Use reconfigureable chips . Rather than paying $$$ for the latest
HDTV with some must-have feature, the engineer comes round and plugs
in the hardware tool, upgrading the firmware to the new features .

2) Use Flash chips more . OK that phone is now a $300 paperweight due
to a failed component, but those chips can be reused on another phone
..

3) Solder with a low melting point , to allow chips to be removed more
easily without damage .



-A

Mike.



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How exactly are you going to "recycle" that 8086 PC? Who is going to
want any component from it, except maybe NASA trying to keep some
twenty year old spacecraft flying? How are you going to repair it if
it fails? Intel aren't going to build more chips just to keep
"repairable" PCs running.

Actually many of the parts from those old PC/XT's are quite useful and
getting more and more scarce. The RAM chips for example will work in any
classic Williams arcade machine, the power supply will work in many of them
as well, and Gottlieb used 8088 CPU chips in their games, lots of other
assorted parts can be used in various projects, there's stepper motors and
drive electronics in the disc drives, high voltage components in the
monitor, just an example of how useful something "worthless" can really be.