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Electronics Repair (sci.electronics.repair) Discussion of repairing electronic equipment. Topics include requests for assistance, where to obtain servicing information and parts, techniques for diagnosis and repair, and annecdotes about success, failures and problems. |
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#1
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What is with the postings for help lately from complete idiots?
And I quote:
"Tried lots of things and then took it to the workbench, I turned several knobs now not even a line. What can be done?" "Can someone give me a step by step way to fix the problem? I will gladly appreciate it if you could. (And just so you know i have no idea any of the tchnical names of the Tv parts so you will have to bear with me. Thanxs alot!! " "Apparently, my SNES is out of sync with my Sony big screen. Whenever I move my characters, these weird picture waves go down the screen. How do I fix this?" It is like people think repairing stuff is magic and we all have a crystal ball and can see into both the tv set they are looking at and into the minds of the people who are trying to fix it and have no clue what a resistor or vertical ic is or what they look like. Y'all regulars know what I am talking about lately. Seems like an increasing number of postings from people who have no clue and are not willing to learn a little bit before asking for help. |
#2
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#3
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It reminds me of many years ago when my ten year old
son said he would like to learn electronics. When I started with the math and electrical laws, he soon lost interest I don't mean this as a cut, but as constructive criticism. Perhaps you didn't put it the right way. Attention spans aren't what they used to be. There is more to it than this but when I have to explain Ohm's law to the electronically ignorant I use headlights. Standard headlights were 36 watts. When you use two of them what do you pull ? Of course you pull 72 watts. Why ? Because the lights are 4 ohms. You have 12 volts from the battery, and each one of these lights pulls 3 amps. Volts are a potential between two conductors, it is a measurement of something physical. Yes man invented the volt, but not what it measures. An amp is a current flow, also physical and measurable. The Ohm is a different thing, it expresses a ratio between volts and amps. If you have a 4 ohm headlight, it pulls 3 amps off of 12 volts because 12 divided by 4 is 3, when you simply hook two of these together they pull 6 amps. Watts is` the product of volts and amps. At 12 volt and 6 amps (3X2) you are pulling 72 watts from the battery. With em hooked together, they must total 2 ohms. That means they pull 6 amps from the 12 volt source, and 12 volts X 6 amps is 72 watts. Watts means heat, and as a switch in the wall, you need both to have watts. If the switch is on there is current (amps) but no voltage. Therefore there are no watts making heat. If the switch is off there is voltage, but no current. It takes both. Therefore the switch is kinda inert, if it is working properly. When a switch that's off starts passing current, or a switch that's on allows a voltage drop there is a problem. Bulbs, motors and whatever else have voltage and current at the same time, not switches. I get the beginning right first, before I go on. I have to hammer it into the heads of men in their 40s. I guess it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but what about the new dogs, they're even denser. Most of the time spent sporting my simplified ohm's law was decades ago. The subject hasn't even come up lately. Last time anyone asked it was someone who makes more than me. I am starting to enjoy the bit of solitude I get, and my time on the internet. Can we all have a brain party sometime or what ? JURB |
#4
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wrote in message oups.com... It reminds me of many years ago when my ten year old son said he would like to learn electronics. When I started with the math and electrical laws, he soon lost interest I don't mean this as a cut, but as constructive criticism. Perhaps you didn't put it the right way. Attention spans aren't what they used to be. There is more to it than this but when I have to explain Ohm's law to the electronically ignorant I use headlights. Standard headlights were 36 watts. When you use two of them what do you pull ? Of course you pull 72 watts. Why ? Because the lights are 4 ohms. You have 12 volts from the battery, and each one of these lights pulls 3 amps. Volts are a potential between two conductors, it is a measurement of something physical. Yes man invented the volt, but not what it measures. An amp is a current flow, also physical and measurable. The Ohm is a different thing, it expresses a ratio between volts and amps. If you have a 4 ohm headlight, it pulls 3 amps off of 12 volts because 12 divided by 4 is 3, when you simply hook two of these together they pull 6 amps. Watts is` the product of volts and amps. At 12 volt and 6 amps (3X2) you are pulling 72 watts from the battery. With em hooked together, they must total 2 ohms. That means they pull 6 amps from the 12 volt source, and 12 volts X 6 amps is 72 watts. Watts means heat, and as a switch in the wall, you need both to have watts. If the switch is on there is current (amps) but no voltage. Therefore there are no watts making heat. If the switch is off there is voltage, but no current. It takes both. Therefore the switch is kinda inert, if it is working properly. When a switch that's off starts passing current, or a switch that's on allows a voltage drop there is a problem. Bulbs, motors and whatever else have voltage and current at the same time, not switches. I always thought the math was boring, if someone had started me off like that I'd have likely lost interest too. Instead I was given a pile of bulbs, batteries, wires, switches and went from there experimenting. Later I had the green electronics book from Radio Shack and learned more basic stuff there and experimented further with parts salvaged from broken equipment. It wasn't until fairly recently that I started reading up on all the math, at which point I can already apply it and it's a lot more interesting. |
#5
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wrote in message oups.com... And I quote: .... It is like people think repairing stuff is magic and we all have a crystal ball and can see into both the tv set they are looking at and into the minds of the people who are trying to fix it and have no clue what a resistor or vertical ic is or what they look like. It's the same with computers. I blame push button phones myself. Think about it. N |
#6
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wrote in message oups.com... And I quote: "Tried lots of things and then took it to the workbench, I turned several knobs now not even a line. What can be done?" "Can someone give me a step by step way to fix the problem? I will gladly appreciate it if you could. (And just so you know i have no idea any of the tchnical names of the Tv parts so you will have to bear with me. Thanxs alot!! " "Apparently, my SNES is out of sync with my Sony big screen. Whenever I move my characters, these weird picture waves go down the screen. How do I fix this?" It is like people think repairing stuff is magic and we all have a crystal ball and can see into both the tv set they are looking at and into the minds of the people who are trying to fix it and have no clue what a resistor or vertical ic is or what they look like. Y'all regulars know what I am talking about lately. Seems like an increasing number of postings from people who have no clue and are not willing to learn a little bit before asking for help. I don't think it's gone up lately, it's always been that way on the repair groups. Hard to blame someone for trying I suppose, at least they found the group and asked a question rather than just throwing the thing away. |
#7
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no clue and are not
willing to learn a little bit before asking for help. You can say that again. What's more is that these people fall into two categories. We got the cheapsters, for whichever reason. They could be exceedingly greedy or really not that well of and trying to save a buck. They could be bank executives so full of themselves that they think they can handle any job us menials do, or be a burger flipper who can't afford the repair bill. Either way, they don't want to learn, just get it done. Perhaps they expect a magic key sequence to put the TV into self-repair mode. Y'know a buddy o mine had a contracting company a few years back and he told me about when people asked why something was so expensive he replied with, how much do YOU make ? People will sit there and collect $80,000 a year for doing pretty much nothing and begrudge you your $30/hour or whatever. And they NEED YOU to do it BECAUSE THEY CAN'T. HA ! I love knowledge. JURB |
#8
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wrote in message oups.com... Y'know a buddy o mine had a contracting company a few years back and he told me about when people asked why something was so expensive he replied with, how much do YOU make ? People will sit there and collect $80,000 a year for doing pretty much nothing and begrudge you your $30/hour or whatever. And they NEED YOU to do it BECAUSE THEY CAN'T. "Why something is so expensive": because we are fixing 21st Century electronics using 18th Century methods. N |
#9
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NSM wrote: wrote in message oups.com... Y'know a buddy o mine had a contracting company a few years back and he told me about when people asked why something was so expensive he replied with, how much do YOU make ? People will sit there and collect $80,000 a year for doing pretty much nothing and begrudge you your $30/hour or whatever. And they NEED YOU to do it BECAUSE THEY CAN'T. "Why something is so expensive": because we are fixing 21st Century electronics using 18th Century methods. Hi... When I studied many many years ago I was told the definition of what something was worth was exactly what a reasonable person will and can pay for it. Today, I think it's more accurately described as the most that the market will bear. Ken |
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