AMIGA REPAIR
16 messages in this thread
Heh! We should go get a beer together. I used to work on the nasty things too.
Sony was the pits for parts, Zenith eliminated major labor <grin>.
Did you work on commission? I wonder how many people even understand it. Say
the typical office worker – "Here, you need to go to the desk on the other side
of the room, and make some phone calls. Uh, _that_ desk is supported by company
XYZ, so we will cut your salary in half while you're over there". 🙂
Ah, the good 'ole days.
Mark
Commission? I may be crazy, but I AIN'T stupid! (Welllll… not THAT stupid!
8)
No, I was salaried. The shop I worked with started out taking anything and
everything years ago, then slowly dropped stuff like GoldStar and Korean sets,
then dropped hard-to-get-parts-for stuff like Sony, then finally stopped taking
anything but the brand they sell, which was RCA. Last time I talked to the
folks there, I believe they told me that their policy is now "we only service
what we sell". In other words, they try to make life reasonable for the
customers (why take a set for repair if you KNOW it's going to take two months
to get schematics and parts, if the shop across town sells that brand and
probably has parts on hand) AND the techs (give them half a chance to turn
repair work around in a reasonable amount of time). Maybe not the best
approach to the problem, but they've built a loyal customer following over the
years.
As for the brew, well, next time you're in Virginia, look me up.
Rick
What part of Virginia, Rick? I'm flying into Salem this Friday for a meeting.
— Mike
Richmond, Mike. The capital.
Rick
Ahhh, Richmond. I have relatives there.
Oh, really? What names? <I won't call them, I promise. 8) >
Rick
Their last name is Childress. I've not seen any of them in years, but I keep
in touch with cards, particularly to my ailing aunt. I hope I can squeeze in a
visit to see her sometime this year.
Okay. I know some Childresses in my original home town down the road, but none
here in Richmond. Gimme a yell if you come down to visit sometime, maybe we
can get together for lunch or something.
Rick
I used to prefer to be commissioned, as I could make a fortune if there was
enough work. Then I opened up my own shop for about 4 years.
I can understand why they did that. With limited resources your customer does
have to come first. And getting schematics etc from a company you don't sell
for can be a bi***.
I never refused any sets, but I didn't do much warranty either! 🙂
You sure learn a lot working on a jillion different brands of sets!
Mark
"You sure learn a lit working on a jillion different brands of set!"
Boy howdy, you've got that right. I shudder to think how much the technology
has changed since I got out of the industry, though. I understand that RCA,
among others, is regularly using SMT now in their consumer sets. Imagine
trying to replace one of THOSE chips with the old Weller irons. 8D
Rick
Ya, I understand that a lot of shops are screaming about SMT. It's the wave of
the future though.
Computers are simple compared to TVs, aren't they? I'm glad I don't have to
fix horizontal shutdown problems anymore!
Mark
Oh lordy yes. Can you imagine a comparable situation in computers?
"Well, the system isn't getting any power, but it might not be a power supply
problem, because the power supply is a switcher that operates off the memory
refresh line, so it might be a memory problem, or there's this kick circuit
over here that pulses the transformer to get it started, so that might be the
problem, OR there's also an auto-shutdown system in case you get a disk error,
so it might be a bad floppy… 8)
To those outside the TV industry: I am NOT kidding. There are sets out there
which rely on the horizontal circuit to supply power to the set, and have a
little "tickler" circuit that nudges the whole ball of wax to get it started.
If the tickler OR the horizontal circuitr OR the deflection yoke OR the power
supply OR the HV regulator goes bad, the set is 100% completely dead: no power.
Trying to noodle out where the problem is in one of those can be a major pain.
Can you say "dog"? I thought you could… 8)
Rick
You've got it! Computers are (usually) a breeze by comparison, but TV service
is normally seen as trivial.
I had one set that would go into shutdown every two or three months. It was
terrible, I always dreaded that call. If I tried to measure _anything_ in the
horizontal circuits the capacitance of the probe would start it up. Then no
matter what I could not get it to go into shutdown.
Three months or so later I would get a call. Maybe I should have put a "reset"
button on the thing. I did finally figure it out, by luck.
Ok, ok, I promise not to go into "shop horror stories"!
Mark
Umm, well, there is this story about a hifi amplifier that, once the
original complaint was fixed, hummed like a banshee in the shop and
couldn't be tracked down; it just seemed to "pop into existance" in one of
the preamp stages. Frustrated and beaten, the tech called a friend's shop
across town, then drove over with the unit to see if HE could fix it. Upon
arriving, it was clean as a whistle; drive back to home base, hum like a
banshee, back across town, quiet again.
The tech finally found it by leaning over the amp to get a good look in a
nook he hadn't examined before and noticing that the hum level went way
down. Turns out that there wasn't enough black die in the epoxy casing of
one of the preamp transistors, and as we all know, silicon junctions are
sensitive to light. The reason it only acted up at the home shop? His
shop had fluorescent lights, his friend had incandescents. Why hadn't the
customer complained about it? BECAUSE HE NEVER OPERATED IT WITH THE COVERS
OFF!
Life is strange. Service and maintenance careers are stranger.
Rick
Ah, so this hi-fi had a problem that could be cured with a wave of the hand?
I've been known to fix things by a "laying of hands." 🙂
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