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Availability of schematics is really important. I know from experience that working on something without schematics is hit or miss. If you get it fixed it's usually because you got lucky and it was something simple or obvious. One of my summer jobs back in my college days was in a TV repair shop. Sam's Photofact Library was king. Just look up the Radio or TV model number and there was a schematic for just about everything made - complete with pictures of part locations. Nowadays you're lucky to find a part number on a device. Then there's surface mount technology. That's another can of worms

Your friendly neighborhood Phil

James Steele wrote: ↑Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:16 pm

stubbsonic wrote:Hopefully your shop is up for the idea. That could be win-win-- I could imagine he'd always have more work than he needs!

Not even a shop. Just a really talented guy works out of his apartment. I literally drop stuff off in his living room. Lol

Same here. I know someone who works out of his basement, has schematics, and will make an attempt at whatever you take to him. There’s also a large outfit that rents equipment for stage productions and movie sets, and has it’s own repair shop that will work on equipment you take to them, and a music store chain that does similar work. And a company that hunts down parts for anything. No doubt such places exist in most cities.

It seems like these kinds of "rare find" techs should have as much work as they would ever want. I also think they should make a GREAT living doing what they do.

If I had a device that I wanted to try to rescue from the e-scrap-heap, I'd like to be able to ask:

A. How much will it cost for you to open it up and take a reasonable guess as to what it would cost to fix it (like a low/high range).

B. What's your reasonable guess on the odds of success within that range?

That way I can decide if it's worth the cost/risk to try. Of course, now that I'm older and perhaps wiser (?) my expectations are more realistic, and few things are cut & dry.