How Much Electronics Knowledge Do You Need To Start A Repair Business? What You Need To Know
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ต.ค. 2023
- So how much electronics do you need to know to make money repairing stuff? Well, that's a good question and there are probably many answers but here is my rather light-hearted opinion based on the sort of work I find coming through the workshop
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Richard
The biggest barrier to repairs is parts and schematics (or service manuals).. Companies should be under more pressure to supply both of these to repair businesses as it would help reduce the massive amount of E-waste the world is producing..
I repair most things without schematics or service manuals, and this is what I generally teach. Sure they can be useful but the lack of them does not mean things can't be fixed. Mostly all you need is datasheets and they are comonly available
That's NOT the way to do it !
You MUST have enough circuit experience from a previous job(s) to readily understand what's in front of you and how it may has failed.
Furthermore you have to be a wizzard with soldering techniques not to further destroy any circuit board.
As you move on you quickly learn the main common problem categories.
I really felt the need for datasheet as a beginner with no one to help. Boot sequence for laptops and desktop motherboards help a lot. Good for self learning.
That is by design. Planned obsolescence and all that.
They used to provide them. Now they're not happy with their profits and must cut into repair shops and consumers.
I would say just know your limits when working on other people’s stuff.
12:58 Hey Richard, when it comes to looking at disk status, it’s better to open Disk Management (right-click start menu -> disk management). There you will see it broken down by physical disk name and partitions. When you plug in the second disk, it should come up in Disk Management as well.
You need enough knowledge to stand up to cross examination by those who are trained to distort your words but who themselves haven’t and knowledge or experience I electronics. Actually, you’d want to be prepared to encounter a person like that. It’s a shame. Anyone interested in any kind of business has to be always diligent to keep ahead of the worst humans in society.
Excellent video as always, thanks
I think what you said is 'those who say it can't be done should never interrupt the one who is already doing it' 😁
Good advice i think
I love this video maybe because we're about the same age and I have a small business. I don't know much, but I end up fixing all kinds of things. I just prevented wife from replacing $600 microwave by replacing the micro switches in the door panel (one normally open, two normally closed). I had to clean the microwave well so she would settle in that it was like new again. ;-)
I can clearly see that's going on with the sparking cord. If you inspect it closely there's a small puncture hole in the jacket a couple inches up from the plug. It's clearly shorting internally, likely due to the shielding contacting one of the power wires., replace the cord.
Replacing screens on mobiles and laptops, batteries, jacks (power, USB, HDMI) or casings parts doesn't require even a bit of electronics knowledge and yet are considered as such and offer a lot of easy money. The question however is if this pleases your self and your ambitions or it's just another way to make some money.
Electronic devices will sit on the shelf and never never fail. It is when powered up and humans come in contact with it that parts get broken. I have seen this a lot, the plugs, switches, cords, hinges, brake where someone put their hand on it. Of course dirt/dust causes overheating comes in 2nd.
Thanks for your videos. They are all really great.
'My Mate Vince' does well for himself and clearly enjoys fixing stuff and he's the first to admit he knows very little 'Electronics' however he is slowly gaining confidence and learning as he goes just as the rest of us do. Like all science based subjects in electronics its ok to be wrong in fact you learn more when you are ! Science is a Win Win in my books.... I think people (including myself) would like to know what you would charge for the Denon fix, but I understand thats a bit private...cheers.
Oh the Denon, I charged him €25 and he actually gave me €30 as he was really happy it was working again, it took me about 20 minutes to fix and the bag full of drive belts was €1.70, I just bought them ages ago when I fixed a disco laser, used one and kept the others in stock.
www.aliexpress.com/item/32991623438.html?af=ler2022
Bear in mind, as I have mentioned before, what you would charge would depend on a number of factors but mostly it is down to your costs and earnings requirement, and the biggest influence affecting those is your location. Here in the Canary Islands we have a much lower cost of living (energy, fuel, internet, rent etc) than the mainland EU or the UK. As an example electricity for our three bedroom house is about €70 for two months, water is €50 for three months, the public bus service is free for all residents (anytime anywhere) and that €1.70 bag of drive belts from AliExpress automatically reduces by 21% to €1.41 at checkout just due to the location.
You can start at zero and fix a decent amount of stuff. Most of its just looking up a tutorial on TH-cam from one of the many god tier TH-camrs that upload tutorials. Keep learning from everything you fix. Some day you’ll be writing the tutorials
The power cable looked to spark about an inch above the flexi protector. it would suggest that the cable has flexed to often and the line or neutral cable has worn through and strands are touching every now and then.
Concur, cable damage visible 46:31.
Thanks
JBOD means “just a bunch of disks”. Which basically disables raid and presents each drive individually.
Ahh that's what it stands for 😀
No, JBOD doesn't present both drives individually, it presents them as one logical drive with the first half of storage on one drive and the second half on the second drive.
@@jeremylaidman6525 Isn't that BIG mode on this drive enclosure?
RAID 0 - Striped mode (for max speed)
RAID 1 - Files saved to both drives (for max data security)
JBOD - Independant drives
BIG - both drives appear as one large combined partition
Jeremy is wrong, unless this device is different from all other raid systems
@@skjerk indeed I was wrong.
But in my defence, the meaning of JBOD appears to be a controversial subject. The Wikipedia page on RAID has a section on JBOD with a "factual accuracy disputed" banner. The Wikipedia page treats JBOD and BIG as synonyms. Obviously on the device Richard was repairing, these are not the same.
Drive housing is set to RAID1 and funcitoning exactly as intended.
(if you haven't figured it out, it copies the contents of the top drive onto the bottom drive, and the flashing leds part is indicating how far along the process is, and/or if both drives are plugged in and good to go)
@AlexanderBurgers I set it to to JBOD 12:10 quite clearly I showed this and explained what the modes meant.. Or I think I showed it clear enough but as you got three thumbs up I ended up questioning myself and watched the video myself. Yep, I showed it in close-up. What made you think I had it in Raid 1 😵💫😵💫😵💫did I do something wrong?
@@LearnElectronicsRepairJBOD joins two (or more) drives into a single logical drive. So you will only see one USB drive even though you had two physical drives in the drive bays. Typically, JBOD is sequential so data already on the first drive will appear on the JBOD volume, and previous data on the second drive will be inaccessible because the filesystem on the first drive doesn't know about data on the second.
So I think it was working as intended.
@@jeremylaidman6525 - yup, JBOD is a sequential storage solution allowing increased storage by means of appending volumes with extra drives, the new drives just add on to the current one - JBOD = Just a Bunch Of Drives, not the safest of storage solutions..
Maybe I was the defective user not paying attention to the video and missed it. ;)
I can only guess that the defect is the switch being broken? As it appears the drive enclosure is behaving as if it's in RAID1 mode.@@LearnElectronicsRepair
@@jeremylaidman6525 You're thinking of spanned volume, and that's what the "big" position on the switch is for. You'd lose all access to the file system and files with the top disk pulled out, which contradicts what happens at 21:39. In fact, what happens right then is to me a 100% confirmation that it's in Raid1 mode, regardless of what the switch says.
On the portable drive bay, it seems like the mode selector switch is not working right .. independent mode not working as independent.
Heya, love to see differant kind of elektrical/electronical repair ( even mechanicals ones). what to charge, I think start with a fixed pay for the 1st halve hour (trouble shooting) and then see if more time and/or materials are needed to make a fair price. you still have to live from the money you make too. but yeah be fair so the costemer is happy and maybe 1 day comes back.
Hello! from minute 46:31 When you zoom in you can see a small notch on the cable (approx. 2cm beyond the kink protection)
the laptop with the arcing looked to be from a hole in the insulation of the cable 2 inch from the cable retainer you laterally put your had on it while you looked at the plug pins
46:32 its clearly visibleretaine
Good Video Richard👍👍👍👍
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know anything. man learns throughout his life.
Didn't Paul Weller say something like that?
@@LearnElectronicsRepair ähhhmm🤔 I have no idea, I noticed it myself but I'm definitely not the first. or🤔🤔🤔🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@Lightrunner. We see, it's a frightening thing when it dawns upon you
That I know as much as the day I was born
Paul Weller (Style Council ) Shout To The Top 🙂 Give it a listen
I'll Stick to Breaking my Own Stuff..lol
Richard I had that problem it was the belt...:)
I think repair is 95% experience and 5% theoretical knowledge.
Exactly
IMHO it's a mixture of good electronics knowledge, experience and voodoo. The first you can learn, the second you will gain in time but the third is something to do with being able to recognize complex patterns amongst the spurious 'noise' in the tests/measurements and then determine the significance of what that means in respect to the fault. More basically it is a particular way of thinking problems through and it seems you either have the voodoo or you don't, I'm not sure it is something that can be taught or will automatically be gained with time. A good repair tech will have both the first and second factor and can be very successful. Those who also have third factor tend to stand out.
The sparking power lead is pretty easy, there is a break in the wire and a pinhole trough the jacket of the cable just where this is, it is a pretty common result when a wire breaks inside and start to spark it heats up and melts the isolation and when this happen they shoot out like this.
It appeared to me that the spark came out of the cable, not the plug. I would guess that the cable has a nick in it, not far away from the plug.
I thought the short was in the cable, close to the plug, probably a break in one of the wires, causing a spark gap. I would expect to see a burn on the insulation
On those rubber bands, I use dishwashing liquid to clean, and they usually work again
The old saying "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is valid but, when fixing stuff, experience in problem solving is often key. One thing that needs to be considered when doing repairs for a living is the need to provide a warranty on your work (in keeping with local law/regulations).
At 44:00, it looks the cable sheathing has a hole in it and that's where the spark emanated -- not the plug itself. If you have a bench fee per half hour or whatever, charge that and supply a new cable as parts.
My favorite for electronic components that might be bad is " If the smoke got let out"
I mean there are repair shops that don't own a multimeter. One for example where electronics repair school gets some jobs from.
I am the best repair man ever, always have a few screws left out and parts misplaced and the thing always works fine.
Sometimes it works better than before 😂😂
So if you take something apart enough times, you end up with two of them.😅😅😅
I'm the same , I like to call them "spares"
Sparks sometimes indicate an arc fault. Possibly a loose connection to the phase.
what chemicals was you using to clean the board with your brush? thanks
it depends.the more analog,the more theoretical knowledge it needs imho.Most repair shops just make a living by swapping hdd to ssd,formating computers,cleaning dusted heatsinks,and replace batteries and screens on phones.The pcb work,they outsource it.
I thought I saw a nick in the power cable where the spark came from.
Surely an agreed diagnosis fee of E50 up front, then rebate some if it takes no time + cost of part or repair quote. Some here will discount £25 off repair if going ahead.
I absolutely love how every electronics teaching TH-camr says "YEAH" alot
Yeah, I agree😊
Sometimes hd wont show use usb mini tool it shows up in there
Great video. Faulty customer's a good one. How does costing work ? Do you have a video on that ?
I tend to play it by ear, but IMHO there is no specific method for costing that works for all. It will depend on a number of factors including (but not exclusively)
your fixed costs - do you rent or own your workshop, etc?
utility costs - electricity, travel to/from work etc etc
cost of living in your part of the world
how much of your total business is repair based (full time, part time, or a sideline for example,)
how much you want or need to earn from repair
amount of repair jobs available
what charge the local market (your customers) will accept
These factors will vary greatly for numerous reasons but the basic method would be to divide the total outgoings by the number of jobs you can expect to complete in a week or month, and that should be the average charge per job or per hour.
❤
To answer your question: Zero. What you need is knowledge how to do business.
Then you will employ a cheap electronics guy, then 10, then 100, then you will buy
bitcoin and during two months of passive income you will be a billionair.
The real problem is which brand of yacht to purchase and which yacht club to buy into.
The real question is how much to charge in this day an age to keep a repair business going, give value for money to the customer but not short yourself and skills and keep the lights on and yourself in a job. Do you charge a flat hourly rate or judge it on a job by job basis as some jobs need more specialised tools than others ?
Mostly I play it by ear 😉
I work fixing High End audio here in my country, I earn a decent money working in my house 4 or 5 hours per day only.
I am the ARC service here in my country.
I fix treadmill motor controllers inclusive.
Best Regards.
@@treadmillrepair754 That's not much help at all as it doesn't answer anything I asked ? Regards
They only way to know is to try .. getting experience .. like the chicken or egg thing .. acquiring knowledge and experience, and see if this is your nature. Also, it would sometimes seem you’re better to be lucky than good .. sometimes.
Quick question….is an oscilloscope ‘essential’ for electronics repair or is it more a ‘luxury’ that speeds up troubleshooting? P.S. love your vids 👍🏻
Oscilloscopes are one of those tools that you think you don’t need until you really need one. Expect it to collect dust…but you’ll be glad you had one quite a few times.
exactly, you can do most repairs without one, but it's the only tool that'll find some of the more sneaky problems caused by things operating (or not quite operating) at the edge of their limits due to damaged but not outright failed components.
Really depending on what you want to repair, but some time you gain time as using one even for some simple repair
I think if you watch all my repair videos and count how many times I have to use a 'scope to fix something, then that would answer the question. Fortunately scopes are also available very cheaply these days and even a basic entry level one is good enough for *most repair work (*this is somehat dependent on whether you specialise in certin types of repair)
@@LearnElectronicsRepair
I’m slowly making my way through your videos but there are so many! I’ll start keeping a tally 👍🏻
Flex Connector J4681 doesn't look great?
I once found a vcr at the side of the road many years ago.the flap on the front was missing and when I opened the top there was a dead mouse inside.must be a common occurrence 😂😂
A longplay road mouse🤣🤣
oh the irony in the section on the soundboard being user error and having a user error removing the microphone from OBS. 🤣
Richard, put your videos into CDs or DVDs so you will be able to avoid the copyright when testing stuff. Love your videos
Electronics repairs in the beginning is often a comedy of errors until you develop the skills to get yourself out of the 💩👈😅
Sometimes the live wire get broken near the plug
I have repair this in the past.
To Start A Repair Business you need much more than some electronic knowledge, you need business knowledge too, how to price a repair (do not forget to price a diagnostic), how to deal with taxes/laws, you need to know how to communicate with your costumers (you would like them to return, and even tell about your business to all their friends), you need to remember to bill your customers, and to pay your own bills at the right time.
Of course. But dont' expect me to publish a video on how much business knowledge you need to start. I'm pretty hopeless at that stuff so leave it to my wife 😂
Lol !@@LearnElectronicsRepair
@@LearnElectronicsRepair My comment was intended as a call to aspiring self-employed people to get an understanding on the administrative and financial side of running a business.
Far too many with desire and good professional skills throw themselves into running a business without having a clue on administrative side of things and break their necks over incorrect (missing) bookkeeping and/or payment of tax.
It's sad to see otherwise talented and enterprising people working their ass out of their pants only to be closed by the bank because they didn't manage to send out invoices and get the money in the box, and if you forget to pay tax/vat, yes, then the authorities will close your shop.
It is important that there are new self-employed people, we need them a lot.
@@LearnElectronicsRepair Perhaps she'd willing to do a feature episode if she aren't up to run a channel of her own? :)
Hi Richard, I am also an electronics engineer, I also think we use our 5 senses more than others because we know the sounds, smells, feel etc, of electronic stuff, I think me and you (and others) new what the problem was before the cover was removed! no doubt a drive belt or a gear misplaced, the same as with the old crt tv's, you could do a primitive diagnosis (hissing, humming, clicking etc from the speaker, listren for the field or line time base running, eht being produced, does it have a rasta or what does it look like, smell of ozone, dielectric. I think in some cases we diagnose a lot of stuff just from our senses before we remove covers.
Like you I heard the Denon and said 'Belt' then said 'teeth missing from gears' I could hear it as well.
Are you sure it does not still think it's in a RAID config?
I'm pretty sure that's the case, RAID 1, so when the lights were flashing it was copying the top drive to the bottom one. If he left it long enough it they would have had the same contents. It all looked pretty flimsy though, possibly a dodgy switch too.
@@chrishartley1210 It also seemed to show the same folder on both drives, I think but I lost track in my head of which drive was which. I then lost the will to live.
@@grahambambrook313 Yes, I think Richard also thought he got confused and didn't notice that both drives showed the same, in other words the duplication had taken place. The the door lost the will to live. 😆
I changed to to JBOD at 12:10 and showed this in closeup. Possibly the switch contacts had a problem though so you could be right
@@grahambambrook313 You lost the will to live LOL I was the one having to try fix the stupid thing. 😆 It could have been a dodgy switch but not me setting it wrong. I'm not sure about the drives having the same folder due to one overwrote the other, as later the one with the OS on still had the original contents. It's all a moot point now anyway 😂
The biggest problem is the amount of repair shops out there now cutting each others throats. giving the industry a bad name by doing poor quality repairs then blaming any returns on a different issue so they dont need to refund and can possibly make even more money from customers...It's just not very profitable anymore.
Ths title asks how much knowldge is required... the anwer seems to be: try it and find out.
You don't need to know a lot, but your brain needs to be able to apply it, for example I know a lot of things including in electronic, but my brain instantly crash as soon as the electronic contain some form of logic transistor or tube give the same results. It's not fault to not knowing how it works.
User error , otherwise known as a 'chair to keyboard interface error '.
Ah, you mean Pebcak... (Problem exists between chair and keyboard). On my first job, I rigged the screen-saver on somebody's computer of whom I knew that they could take the joke: It displayed a fake BSOD with the text: "Fatal error ED at 1756:4D3C, Incompetent User, please replace User and press any key to continue". In the code I had disabled the common switch combo Alt+F4 to something obtuse. He squinted a bit when he saw the message and shortly after burst into laughter. Later he complimented me on the effort I had taken to write this simple program.
How much do you charge? You should have a minimum charge just for initial, simple diagnosis (up to half an hour). If it is a repair that progresses from there then this charge is absorbed as part of the final bill. If it's as simple as user error or a broken plug then that's what they get charged. My minimum charge was £30 when I retired a couple of years ago. Funnily enough that's what a heating engineer charged my brother when he made a user error about a month ago, he was there about 2 minutes.
Some people might say include the replacement cord in that charge but then you have to ask at what point does hardware replacement become extra? The simple fact is that they could have replaced that cord for themselves so your minimum charge is for your time and the cost of the cord is extra.
i have a freind who has almost no electronc knolage but about 4 years ago hestarted to change phone screens now he repairs game cosuls with a 70 % fix rate .
another person near me fixes amps by changing every cap and used to bring them to me when cap change failed to fix problem .he no longer comes to me after i started to chare him £20 per hour £20 was also the minimum charge.
Ktf lol👍
I think you should have some common sense, some knowledge off how electronic components work, how to follow the path of electricity, how to read a schematic and finally how to use your tools to find faults.
Spinrite! TEST YOUR DRIVES! Excersize and Certify them on ATA connection. not via USB so you can go over 127GB..
In my case I fix audio and treadmill motor controllers only, I earn a decent money working 4 or 5 hours per day only.
Hello sir can I get you email address 😅