Many of my previous monthly repair articles talked about practical side in electronic repair
somehow I feel that I would like to share this topic about Saving Time In Electronic Repair
Line. Although this is not a major topic, it somehow will eventually change your mindset and
end up bringing more profit to you without you actually realizing it. Here I would like to
share out how you can save your repair time and have more time in a day to repair more
instrument and increasing your profit.
1) Not Keeping Spare Parts
If you are a seasoned electronic repairer or full time in this repair line and you do not keep
some fast going parts then you may have lost some of your precious repair time. Do you
know that it is a real time consuming to go to the supplier and buy only the parts that you
need? If you are a part timer or just doing repair as a hobby then YES i understood that you
have the choice of not keeping spare parts. However if you are a professional electronic
repairer and not keeping those fast moving parts you are actually NOT thinking big! I
actually had come across such electronic repairers and had spoken with them before and their
response was “If I want the part then I will go to the electronic supplier again”.
Don’t they ever calculate the time for them to travel, petrol, paying toll, parking and etc? All
these little tiny things actually had eaten up their precious time without they realizing it and
they should focus to spend more time in repair rather then everyday or every other day going
to the electronic shop just to get one or some particular parts. Well I’m not here to tell them
what one should or should not do in fact it is more like a good advice to them hope that they
could save some of their time.
Spend some of your time to check on the record book of yours or from your workers to see
which parts that changed the most in a week and etc. Buy some extra and keep it and I can
guarantee that you will not waste your time anymore. Only go to the supplier once or twice a
week and of course this also depends on the location of your suppliers.
2) Not Enough of Test Equipment
There is no doubt that the more test equipment you have the better chances of solving
electronic problem fast. There are many times I had replied to questions that had posted to me
where I have suggested them to check on a particular section, the problem was that they do
not have such test equipment (for example like ESR or Ring Tester) to perform the test. If it
involved of electrolytic capacitors, I would just ask them to directly replace it and retest the
set again. Yes they can actually do this but very time consuming. How nice if they
themselves have the ESR meter so that they would not have to solder out and replace all
electrolytic capacitors and retest the set again. There is certain test equipment that you can
choose not to buy it but for ESR meter-it is a must for all electronic repairers. Not long ago
there was a ERG member emailed me that he encountered horizontal lines problem across the
CRT Monitor screen. I told him to check the particular section and he told me he already
tested all components in that section and could not find out the problem. I suggested to him
that one have to use the Blue ESR meter to test on the non polar cap as digital capacitance
meter do not have the capability to perform such test. Since he did not have this meter he
directly replaced the cap and eventually it worked. Few days later he bought the Blue ESR
meter from me.
The reason I wrote this is not to deliberately promote the Blue ESR meter but to let you know
how good meter that can actually speed up the repair. Besides good meter you also need to
invest on good and reliable tools like SMD rework station, branded soldering gun like
Hakko/Goot and etc. Below is the latest laptop inverter/backlight tester that can speed up
your repair without guessing which section that is having problem.
3) Not Keeping Junk Boards
I do not throw away all electronic boards in fact I kept those that have components where I
always use. Many times I came across problematic components that I could not get parts
either from local or international electronics supplier. Trying to search for the replacement
will take up lots of your time. If possible allocate a small section in your workshop or your
house (if you work from home) to place the junk boards. You wouldn’t know someday you
might need it.
Remember to keep those boards that have components where you commonly use otherwise
your workshop or house would be full of garbage in the eyes of customers just in case if they
see it. I have a friend who is in this electronic repair field and would not throw away any of
the board or even bad electronic equipment (complete set) and this had caused his workshop
to be very messy and you can hardly move around his shop.
It is a good practice to throw away those boards where more than 50% of the components
already salvaged by you. Few days ago I passed by another shop (nearby my house) which
belongs to my repair friend and I saw
Junk electronics boards outside his shop where all these boards need to be thrown away by
the garbage collector. For your information his repair shop is quite neat and all the customers’
electronic equipment is well placed.
4) Not Asking Questions
If you are in doubt of solving a particular electronic problem or you totally do not know
where to start then I suggest that you get help from the professionals as this is the fastest way
to help you to understand a particular circuit and eventually solve the problem. Join any
electronic repair forum (free or paid forum) that is related to your field of repair. If you are in
the Television repair business then join the TV repair forum. Post your question correctly and
tell them what you have checked. Please do not post such question like “I have a Samsung
Television-no power and what is the solution”. I can guarantee that you will not get any
reply from them and you may be reminded to post a more details of the problem.
One cannot expect to get a direct answer without much work. That means, you must tell them
that you have checked a particular circuit and have tested such and such components and the
power still did not functioning. Sometimes with a single reply from the forum member can
instantly solve the Television problem where you have wasted a day trying to find out the
problem. Getting help from your repair friends by calling them or email is also one of the fast
way to solve electronic problem fast.
5) Not Enough Of Reading
Be it in reading of technical books or Electronic magazine you are just too lazy to read them
but have time for other things. By just doing practical work would not be enough to make you
good in the electronic repair line. Sometimes you need guidance from technical books written
by good authors. I always tell my students that I have learnt a lot from many different
electronic repair Guru’s by reading their book.
You will have the advantage of knowing and learning many repair tricks to solve electronic
problems compares to other that wholly relies only on their experiences. Solving electronic
problem fast means you are saving your time for another repair. Reading electronic
magazines could help to update you in many different area like letting you know what are the
latest test equipment been developed, what are the newest form of components been created,
venue of electronic exhibitions, circuit ideas to improve your design and many more.
Do you know that searching the internet for information is one kind of reading too? Yes if
you found a good website and with good contents you are actually reading. There are many
good repair websites that are yet to be discovered. So spend some of your time to search for
all these good contents website. Actually there is lots of good websites/forum that was
written in Spanish language and you can use Google translation to translate those websites.
One more thing, even getting the latest semiconductor databook or joining a program that can
provides you with many latest semiconductor data could save you time. You can easily find
an equivalent part number to use within minutes!
6) Not Doing Enough Research
If you want to be very good in the type of electronic equipment you are repairing then I
suggest that you concentrate and do your own research on that particular equipment. Truly
understand all its circuit functions with the help from schematic diagrams/books/websites and
etc could turn you into a professional in a very less time.
Now my question here is not just to ask you about understanding of the equipment, in fact
I’m encouraging you to come out with a way or rather a procedure that can help you to solve
the problem fast. In order to be at that level you have to sacrifice your time to do many test
on the equipment so that whenever customers complaint about a problem you can
immediately pin point the exact location thus solving the problem fast and making you more
money in a day.
7) Not Friendly To Others
Among all the above I could say that this is the greatest barrier and they will surely lose
their time without they knowing it. These are the people that do not know what the meaning
of manners and etc is. They do not bother about your feeling and prefer to offend you
whenever they could. They are proud of themselves, ego and etc. Now I don’t say this for the
sake of saying it in fact I have personally came across repairers that being rude, arrogant
toward me. I knew this from the emails that I got from them. They were harsh, not friendly
and no manners in asking question as though that I owe them my life to them and some of
them even using the abusive word (four letters word). No matter what kind of good advices
you gave to them their respond was still provocative and the funny thing was they were
happy to provoke you.
From the first few conversations through emails you could easily feels the negative side of
them and normally I would end the conversation because I don’t want my mind to be
bombarded with such negative word to start off with my day in the early morning.
If they could practice hatred, jealousy and all kind of negative thought toward other (fellow
electronic repairers) do you think they have time to make good friends with others? Our life
on earth is not long and why not uses this precious time to be friendlier to others so we
could achieve what out heart desire-to be a professional electronic repairer and be able to
repair many electronic equipment and make more money from this great repair field. All the
best to you and keep up the good work
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