Circuit board repair

Repair of the physical board (cracked/broken, etc.) or repair/replacement of components ON the board?

Does he do the debugging (trouble-shooting, or "fault-finding" as they way on the right side of the Pond)?

Could be described as "component-level diagnosis and repair" or something similar. See similar vendors and how they describe their services.

Might be helpful to further describe specialization: power, logic, industrial controls, audio, video, RF, microwave, etc. And whether he provides repair parts, etc.

Of course, this kind of repair is likely becoming extinct since most boards are cheaper to replace than to manually repair these days.

Thanks for the reply. He can do it all. Also, his specialization covers all the areas you mentioned. He is a whiz as long as he has a schematic.

There are several ways your friend could approach this. Sticking with industrial repair would probably yield him the greatest return per board because of the limited quantities involved in manufacture and the greater initial cost of the equipment, adding value to his service. Perhaps the client for which he has successfully worked for several years could offer referrals as manufacturers often network and have contacts within the industry.

At the other end of the spectrum would be repair of consumer electronic p.c. boards. This is probably a riskier proposition as these boards have little value due to their being mass produced. As Richard Crowley wrote, manufacturers usually find it cheaper to replace rather than repair. However, if your friend could set a repair price below the replacement cost of a new board (and it is conceiveable that he could because of the large number of the same type of board for which he could build a dedicated test fixture and maintenance of spare parts inventory), I have no reason to believe that a manufacturer wouldn't give the offer some consideration.

Perhaps a place to start would be by looking through manufacturing trade journals to get a feel for industry trends. He will have to do a significant amount of networking and follow up of promising leads. He will have to figure out a way of promoting his service(s), perhaps through trade shows where he could meet people in the industry and where he could hand out literature describing his service, print advertising and creation of a website.