The Neighbourhood Technician.

I do lots of repairs for the neighbors. Had a rash of garage door opener adjustments/ reprogrammings this summer. I never charge money. If I like the neighbor and think I can do the job with minimal risk and fallout, I just do it for free. Otherwise I say that I only work on industrial equipment.

I've stopped telling neighbors I'm an electrical engineer. Telling them I "design chips" seems to keep them from asking for repairs.

Some even think "chips" are potato chips ;-)

In years past I was plagued with repair requests.

...Jim Thompson

Ugh. That's why I always charge an estimate fee. And try to give them some idea of the range of what it may cost before they even give me the estimate fee, so they don't think the estimate fee is all it will cost.

How good a friend? Do you feel like working for peanuts? Can he -find- a new VHS recorder?

I used to give estimates for free, and I was deluged with everyone's $1 garage sale find. A TV they'd have happily paid $50 for working, they won't pay $25 to fix because it "only cost me a dollar!"

So for a while I bought those dollar TVs at garage sales, fixed them, and sold them for $50 to $100. This was a few years ago, so think in

Now I'm back to unemployed with no degree or certifications. All the one man TV shops are gone, and the HR departments in big companies know snot about the job, so all they believe are pieces of paper. Time to go to school...

Steve Greenfield

I agree. I ONLY do that kind of thing for free. Like the friend who brought a walkie-talkie type gadget by the night before he was leaving early AM to travel all over the African continent. I fixed up the (badly designed) control that had a lifted pad, reinforced it with epoxy and off he went.

Recently there was the Rowenta steamer that quit for SWMBO.. The $#%(%$*% French "engineers" had put a 5:1 plastic (polycarbonate) cantilevered post attached to a rocker handle to operate a (quite nice) microswitch. Naturally the thing breaks off after a few hundred operations... after I found the appropriate tamper-free bits (the hardest part) I pulled it out, drilled a 1.5mm hole at the right angle, put a cut-off finishing nail in there, and filled the back of the rocker with expoxy (hmm.. a theme here- epoxy the duct tape of electronics). Better than new now.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I decline all repair requests, except those from the old couple across the street who won't live long enough to see the coming environmental total-collapse (overpopulation, overconsumption, you know). But some people dump their junk on me anyway so I just put it aside until the cheapskate has the guts to come and ask for it back. I never get second requests. That's what the psychologists call single-trial learning.

-- Joe

I envy all of you, that you even have time to consider fixing someone else's stuff.

Sure, I take the occasional request (hey, I can fix anything !!) But generally, only from close friends, or people down on their luck, etc...

What I need to do though it put some of my own stuff towards the front of the line now and then. Let's see: 1 Nikon Speedlight, a pair of Kenwood two-way radios, the

...that last one is the most annoying.

-mpm

Someone should design/build an 8-track to MP3 converter, just for the nolvelty of it. It could even sport one of those 7-way memory card slots (SD, XD, CompactFlash, etc...)

-mpm

Rowenta used to be an old German company founded in the late 1800's, not French. Actually now it's American because Sunbeam bought them in 1963. The irons are AFAIK now all made in China.

Well, they do have a French subsidiary. And another one in Austria. And ...

IMHO German plastics parts aren't always up to snuff while the rest of the merchandise may be quite good. Same issue here with our Kettler ping pong table. The domestic one lasted about one season and then collapsed (!). The Kettler cost 2.5 times but is now in year eight and the playing surface is nearly indestructible. However, various plastic parts have popped, the wheels are lousy etc. Not crucially important stuff but they could have done better.

This product was purchased in the US, made in FRANCE, only 1-2 years ago. However if I should be cursing German or American engineers, so be it.

Too bad there was such an obvious design flaw, the rest of the unit seems solid. On the web I find that other people have had similar problems, in some cases returning it under warranty several times (obviously they just replaced the same poorly designed part with a new one).

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Which might be considered improper design, in some consumer product circles - "if it doesn't break, they won't buy a new one". Then the design becomes a matter of estimating how many times it will be used while still in warrantee, adding whatever fudge factor, but not too much fudge factor, and hope that the customer is dumb enough to buy the same brand the next time (or a different "Brand" owned by the same "faceless corporate giant".) Reliability is not a selling point, though a past reputation for reliability may be trotted out for advertising - but it won't be maintained, in most companies these days.

While it's simpler to blame incompetence, some of the crap I see in products these days really does seem deliberate. It could still be incompetence, or malfeasance (consider the recent discussion of bad capacitors, which commonly result in "buy a new computer" as the solution - since the failures happen out of warrantee, mostly, it certainly functions like planned obsolescence).

Which is how I stopped my so called friends of flea markets and tag sale finders from bringing over the junk that no one else wanted. After, charging them a bench fee and then giving them the death price of repair. That normally stopped the majority that didn't know what they were picking up. I also got various units on my bench that made visits there before from new proud owners just to tell them what I wanted for diagnostic fee's and tell them to throw it out. This was common when CB's and illegal equipment for CB's were all over the place. I had more amplifiers, CB's, ham radios used as CB's come in for the same repairs many times.

Moldmakers, yes. Plastics quality is a mixed bag. The stuff on our ping pong table was plain inferior. Top of the line brand but poor material choices by their engineers. Why is it that a Mercedes bumper or turn signal bezel lasts many decades and this stuff crumbles after 2-3 years?

Seriously, I'd write an email to them and if no answer another to the CEO. That has nearly always netted attention in my case. Once it unfortunately went a bit too far (a guy got fired because of it).

Have to disagree with you there. IME Germans are the best moldmakers in the world.

Anyway, the problem was not the mold nor was it the material (I know quite well how do diagnose faulty polycarbonate moldings-- there was no splay or other telltale signs of improper processing or contaminated material). The part was as perfect as they come. It was a design flaw. They properly radiused the projection, and it didn't break at the corners, rather just beyond. I think someone just took a FEA and didn't add proper safety factors to it, and it wasn't properly tested. If the part was 50% thicker or had some little ribs added to it, it probably would never have broken.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

That is short-sighted of a company, only feasible if the big brass plans to high-tail it in a few years and is reckless.

There are certain cars brands and other product brands I simply will not consider anymore for the rest of my live. Such are big bucks decisions and hardcore lost sales. How many times have you heard someone giving advice like "Don't ever buy ..."? People listen to the advice of friends a lot more than companies realize, so there is a serious multiplier effect. Then there is the multiplier*multiplier effect: "Oh, don't do that! George advised me a couple weeks ago never to buy ..."

I'd charge $20.00 just to put it in the trash bin. :P

D from BC

In the past, I suspect most of the junk I've fixed, people didn't keep it...They don't trust the repair or lose confidence in the product. So they sell it and then buy new stuff.

By the way.. Aside from charging $20.00 to put their junk in your trash bin....You could also charge an additional $20.00 consultation fee on why it shouldn't be fixed and how the money can be better put to use on a new and better product. :)

D from BC

I accept it for repair only if they are going to throw it out. That whittles it down to stuff they really don't care about. I don't charge.

Ed

Do you need a drive? I have PLENTY right now.