"Leonard Martin" wrote in message
...
Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

(I bet this is old hat here. If so, please tell me a thread to look for
and where.)

Leonard

--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor


Most repairs are done without schematics, or if they are used, they're
available in service manuals from the manufactures but plenty of products
have no schematics available. Specialized parts also come from the
manufacture, though digi-key, Mouser, and other companies stock a fair
selection of other parts. I get virtually all the parts I use from various
companies advertising online.

Subject: Where do prof. repairers get parts?
From: Leonard Martin
Date: 9/18/2004 10:23 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

(I bet this is old hat here. If so, please tell me a thread to look for
and where.)

Leonard

Hi, Leonard. One possible source for repair, hobbyist, and engineering
prototype parts is NTE. They've bailed me out many times. If you live in or
near one of their retail distributors (electronics stores, TV repair shops, &c)
you can frequently get your repair part _today_. And you know it's a top
quality part, instead of a brokered or somehow unpleasant part, like you'll
sometimes find at other sources.

http://www.nteinc.com/

Their house-branded ICs and components (just re-marked) can be cross-referenced
to the part you want at

http://nte01.nteinc.com/nte/NTExRefSemiProd.nsf/$$Search?OpenForm

Try it. You'll like it.

Chris

Leonard,

Your question is why the repair shop is disappearing form the
landscape. There are some good general suppliers. Digikey and Mouser
were mentioned in another reply, I also like MCM Electronics
(www.MCMelectronics.com). Some items must come from the manufacturer of
the product. Service manuals and schematics are often not available for
inexpensive products, or not affordable for some unless you are working
on a lot of the same item. (Spending $35 to $50 for a manual to fix 1
or 2 $69 VCR's is not economical.) Many more experienced technicians
can do many repairs without them.

Some manufacturers don't want to support products for very long. I
contacted one company about a schematic last week for a preamp/tuner
combo and was told that it was too old. When I asked how their factory
center could repair these, I was told that they won't service products
over 5 years old, and that they don't have parts either. Rather
disappointing for a $700 item. Some of the parts in this unit are
common, but if one of the custom IC's (like a microprocessor that has
programming built into it) has failed, then the unit is scrap. Welcome
to the disposable society.

Regards
Tim Schwartz
Bristol Electronics


Leonard Martin wrote:

Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

(I bet this is old hat here. If so, please tell me a thread to look for
and where.)

Leonard

--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor

"Leonard Martin" wrote in message
...
Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

the markup on parts from most manufactures is unbelevable however the time
involved in tracking down less costly sources may cost the customer more.


Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

the short answer is anywhere we can. i no longer service consumer stuff, at
least not for the general public, therefore i have no qualms about using
salvage, surplus, hardware store items, in short whatever it takes to get
old equipment functioning again. (i have a unit from 1946 that has to be
working by tomorrow. a tube blower motor fried. no luck at Grainger but a GE
supplier had something close)

hamfests are another source for components, connectors, and misc that would
be much more costly elsewhere. in particular http://hamvention.org/

in addition to all the fine sources listed in previous posts, and the few
remaining electronic supply stores in my area i have obtained desperately
needed items from http://www.fairradio.com/ or http://www.meci.com/

for the west coasters http://www.frys.com/ is a handy place to go

if you are near sun valley, CA try http://www.apexelectronic.com/index3.htm
http://www.apexelectronic.com for surplus parts

Thanks to all of you.

I can see getting ICs and even semiconductors from Mouser and Digikey,
but where do you look up the generic equivalents to order? Are there
books published, or do you have to do it online?


Try www.nteinc.com, they have a good online cross reference. What sort of
generic equivilants are you looking for? If it's something like a resistor,
potentiometer, capacitor, etc you can get that stuff anywhere. If it's a
special form factor (size, shape, etc) you might be forced to get it from
the manufacture of the equipment or modify something to make a generic part
fit. Transistors, diodes, and other simple semiconductors you can often
substitute something similar if you have specs for it. I'm not aware of any
books, they'd be obsolete before they hit the shelves, there are catalogs
from all the various companies but these days I just use the online catalogs
since they're always up to date. Nobody local sells most of the stuff and if
they do it's more expensive than placing an order online for a bunch of
parts.

For a lot of parts, I just punch the number into Google and see what comes
up, for example when I needed an STK-4277 convergence IC, Google found a
whole slew of places offering it. For consumer electronic repair specific
places there's Electronix Online, MCM, MAT Electronics, Parts Express, and a
few others I've used occasionally.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 22:23:54 -0500, Leonard Martin
wrote:

Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

Yamaha is one of the most pleasant companies to deal with when it
comes to service literature and replacement parts. If you're an
authorized service center, they are fantastic. I order from their
professional audio division parts department several times a month and
I imagine that their consumer electronic and musical instrument
divisions are no different.



In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

In my experience, the manufactures parts departments only want to deal
with you if you are one of their authorized service centers (you have
an account with them and know the part number of what you want).

If you're an authorized dealer, they will grudgingly sell you
replacement parts (you have an account with them but they have to look
up the part numbers based on your description of the part).

If you're a consumer or independent repairman you're probably outta
luck. The manufacture will refer you to a dealer or service center.
The dealer or service center will then decide if they want to be
bothered ordering you the parts or service literature you need.


Dave

Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

(I bet this is old hat here. If so, please tell me a thread to look for
and where.)

Leonard



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http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
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Leonard,

Again, some situations have changed. The practice of 'House' numbering
of transistors and IC's is much less common today, the marked numbers
usually are the generic numbers. I personally prefer original
manufacturer diagrams to Sam's publication, as I've found that Sam's
have more errors, and are harder to read. Electrolytic caps are much
more standard now, and any of the vendors mentioned will have a good
selection.

Transformers, switches and controls are a different story. They
tend to be made for a specific product, often have internal thermal
fuses, and are unique to not only a specific manufacturer, but to a
specific model. Pots (volume, tone, balance etc.) tend to be custom
made because shaft lengths and mounting vary so much from product to
product. Not a problem if you want to buy 10,000 of them, but if you
need only 1 or 2.... As to the cross reference books from parts
vendors, the models change so often, and the prices of the equipment is
so inexpensive that I'm not aware of anyone who does this except for
semiconductors. I've personally had bad luck with universal
replacements (NTE, ECG, etc.), both from a specification and quality
standpoint. I prefer to make my own selection from the specs/datasheet
when I can. A discontinued specialized IC can mean the end of a
product, or a major re-enginerring that the customer is not willing to
pay for.

Regards,
Tim Schwartz
Bristol Electronics


Leonard Martin wrote:

In article ,
"Tim Perry" wrote:

"Leonard Martin" wrote in message
...
Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

the markup on parts from most manufactures is unbelevable however the time
involved in tracking down less costly sources may cost the customer more.


Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

the short answer is anywhere we can. i no longer service consumer stuff, at
least not for the general public, therefore i have no qualms about using
salvage, surplus, hardware store items, in short whatever it takes to get
old equipment functioning again. (i have a unit from 1946 that has to be
working by tomorrow. a tube blower motor fried. no luck at Grainger but a GE
supplier had something close)

hamfests are another source for components, connectors, and misc that would
be much more costly elsewhere. in particular http://hamvention.org/

in addition to all the fine sources listed in previous posts, and the few
remaining electronic supply stores in my area i have obtained desperately
needed items from http://www.fairradio.com/ or http://www.meci.com/

for the west coasters http://www.frys.com/ is a handy place to go

if you are near sun valley, CA try http://www.apexelectronic.com/index3.htm
http://www.apexelectronic.com for surplus parts



Thanks to all of you.

I can see getting ICs and even semiconductors from Mouser and Digikey,
but where do you look up the generic equivalents to order? Are there
books published, or do you have to do it online?

And what about volume and tone controls, IF cans, power supply
electrolytic caps, and transformers? These used to be quite
ideosyncratic to the individual radio or TV manufacturer, but
fortunately there also used to be makers of "lines" of these for
replacement use--e.g., Centralab, J. W. Miller, Mallory, and Thordarson.
They published nice books listing all radios and TVs and telling you
which of their part numbers to use to replace each covered part in the
unit under service. Are the "lines" and the books gone?

If so, must you contact the manufacturer of a radio to get a simple
volume control for it?

And what about your friendly local electronic parts house, once located
in all but the smallest communities, that used to sell the above items
to local repairmen? Are they gone? If so, it must be hard to achieve
reasonable turnaround times in many repairs.

Thanks for the your time,
Leonard Martin again

on 9/19/04 7:46 AM, Tim Schwartz at wrote:

Leonard,

Your question is why the repair shop is disappearing form the
landscape. There are some good general suppliers. Digikey and Mouser
were mentioned in another reply, I also like MCM Electronics
(www.MCMelectronics.com). Some items must come from the manufacturer of
the product. Service manuals and schematics are often not available for
inexpensive products, or not affordable for some unless you are working
on a lot of the same item. (Spending $35 to $50 for a manual to fix 1
or 2 $69 VCR's is not economical.) Many more experienced technicians
can do many repairs without them.

Some manufacturers don't want to support products for very long. I
contacted one company about a schematic last week for a preamp/tuner
combo and was told that it was too old. When I asked how their factory
center could repair these, I was told that they won't service products
over 5 years old, and that they don't have parts either. Rather
disappointing for a $700 item. Some of the parts in this unit are
common, but if one of the custom IC's (like a microprocessor that has
programming built into it) has failed, then the unit is scrap. Welcome
to the disposable society.

Regards
Tim Schwartz
Bristol Electronics


Leonard Martin wrote:

Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

(I bet this is old hat here. If so, please tell me a thread to look for
and where.)

Leonard

--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor


--
"Everything that rises must converge"
--Flannery O'Connor

tons of parts each year.

In my experience, the manufactures parts departments only want to deal
with you if you are one of their authorized service centers (you have
an account with them and know the part number of what you want).

If you're an authorized dealer, they will grudgingly sell you
replacement parts (you have an account with them but they have to look
up the part numbers based on your description of the part).

If you're a consumer or independent repairman you're probably outta
luck. The manufacture will refer you to a dealer or service center.
The dealer or service center will then decide if they want to be
bothered ordering you the parts or service literature you need.



Sony and Pioneer don't seem to have this problem, I've ordered parts from
both companies without issue.

snip

If you're a consumer or independent repairman you're probably outta
luck. The manufacture will refer you to a dealer or service center.
The dealer or service center will then decide if they want to be
bothered ordering you the parts or service literature you need.



Sony and Pioneer don't seem to have this problem, I've ordered parts from
both companies without issue.



Larger companies for the most part either sell parts direct or through
distributors whose numbers they are happy to give out. Pioneer sells direct,
Sony has distributors. Philips / Magnavox is a stinker in my opinion. The
internet is a blessing here. Distributors and contact numbers for most
companies are just a click or 2 away.

Mark Z.

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 22:23:54 -0500, Leonard Martin
wrote:

Hello All,

I recently took my Yamaha tuner in for repair to a guy from another
country. He could (or would) not clearly answer this question, so I ask
it here.

In the old days of my youth there were Photofacts to provide schematics
for radios and TVs, and lines of replacement parts, like Mallory, for
the relatively few brands of radios and models there were. There were
also books to look in and parts suppliers to go to in order to pick out
your part from the limited universe of replacement parts and then go get
it.

But NOW...my goodness, there are thousands and thousands of brands and
lines of electronic equipment made in every country in the world!! How
do repairers of electronic equipment speedily get schmatics and parts
for all that stuff, when there are no Photofacts, and no local parts
house to go to? You may say, contact the manufacturer, but it's hard for
me to believe all the electronics manufacturers are eager to ship out
tons of parts each year.

Please put me out of my misery and answer my question. The curiosity is
killing me. :-)

(I bet this is old hat here. If so, please tell me a thread to look for
and where.)

Leonard

You can try Herman Electronics of Miami for most parts.
http://www.hermanelectronics.com/

All they need is a model # and part description and they can cross it.
I've gotten alot of vcr and stereo parts from them in the past.