newbie repair equipment advice!

While I love the repair industry, it's getting hard to make a living when units are so cheap, & poor quality! No question is dumb...how can you learn otherwise? Check these sites below, & keep looking here, as there are a number of very knowledgeable guys here, who can help you along the way. Google info like how to fix T.V., etc, etc. Google is your friend. I must lie down...it's 3 am here. Enjoy. Sky.

For a beginner........

Digital multimeter and a few VOMs (do I need special probes?).....No! Perhaps a signal generator...a sound source like a radio/cd unit with line out. Oscilloscope probes....basic ones that come with it are fine. No need to buy expensive ones. (what kind of bandwidth and sampling would be needed?) As much as you can afford 20 mhz Minimum. Soldering station...have a pencil, & chisel tip. A lot of older test equip (like almost everything made), is good quality, & really lasts.

Hope this helps you start off. Very important...be carefull around electricity...study first, watch, & learn from someone...if you can...then touch. Work on something, that if you break it...it's ok. Take care, & be safe, Sky.

To start with, get a multimeter, something with a diode check function is very handy for testing semiconductors, I love the one on my Fluke 29 as it gives a momentary beep for a good junction and solid beep for shorted as well as displaying the voltage drop but I'm sure others with a similar feature are available. A Hakko 936 is about the best deal there is for a soldering station but if you're just starting out a Radio Shack 40W iron is perfectly usable, I'd recommend their desoldering iron to go with it, the one with the rubber bulb on it. That should be enough to get going, the rest is practice, research and more practice. There's no shortage of broken junk to repair, an unlimited supply of it lurks on craigslist and elsewhere. Don't expect to make a lot of money doing this, but I've found I can make some decent change on the side fixing free equipment and selling it.

Read the faq, at

More than a faq, it's like multiple books on the repair of electronic equipment. If that's not enough, then you start buying books on the topic.

Michael

Or visit your local library... it is just sitting there... waiting for you and it cost $ 0.00.

I'd say you are more misguided than overly abitious. It is very difficult to make a buck repairing commodity items these days. Mostly, they are not designed for repair but for small size and low cost. They use printed circuit boards with surface mount components ... the desoldering/resoldering process requires special equipment and special skills. It also requires schematics and parts that are difficult or impossible to get.

You are perhaps a potential hobbyist? Again, this is not the right time to get into the electronic repair business for generating any significant income. Your equipment list should include an adjustable dc power supply, if your aim is hobbyist.

Hi wonknose,

beware that you may be on the wrong track if you think that getting decent equipment is enough to make you a successful repairman. While it definitely helps, a good understanding of general electronics and common failure modes will help you much more, even if you don't have sophisticated stuff. I have been learning electronics since 18 years, and started when I was only a child. Of course I had no money at all and had to rely on improvised equipment. A pair of pliers was a treasure. I got my first old oscilloscope when I was 18. Till then I had fixed a couple of devices, ruined many and built a few, most of which didn't work. I copied lots of circuits from books, designed and etched PCBs and drilled the holes for the components by hand with a small 1mm-screwdriver - that for improvised equipment. Now I've got a fairly good lab with decent equipment. However, when I attempt to repair a device, I have to rely on my soldering skills, experience, instinct and ability to read circuits or at least to guess important circuit functionality from the PCB layout. No equipment can give you that. It's what you learn by doing. And there are lots of tricks to know - read Sam's repair FAQ. I am not always successful with my repairs, but I don't do this for money anyway. You have to know when to stop before it drives you mad. Some things can't be repaired. And I always have to study and improve my knowledge of electronics, i.e. common circuits and ways they fail. The most important thing I've learnt: 75% of all electrical trouble is due to contact problems. A DVM and contact cleaner and sometimes resoldering is all that's required. And your eyeballing experience, of course. My advice: Start with simple, inexpensive measuring equipment. Rather invest more in tools, if you want. Don't start with TVs, monitors and tesla transformers. Respect HV. Get broken cassette recorders, radios, stereos, household appliances, switchmode power supplies and try to fix them. Get as many different component types as you can, learn their shapes and the ways they work. Buy cheap assembly kits and put them together. Try to understand how they work. This will really push your learning. Read as much as you can. Learn the concepts to understand the questions and answers in newsgroups like this. Honor Sam's repair FAQ like the Holy Bible! If something won't work, keep it on the shelf for another year. Get a decent stock of components and try to find the equipment that you feel comfortable with. Practice is everything!

Last but not least: Always use an isolation transformer when working on AC powered equipment! See for example

Best wishes, Leo

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

I'd recommend getting to know some local ham radio operators and visit hamfests and computer sidewalk sales. Plenty of old junk for sale, along with lots of advice for free. Great for parts. Also plenty of electronics hobby books, manuals, and textbooks for low prices.

When it comes to multimeters, I'd recommend getting one brand-new if at all possible. Digital multimeters can be damaged any number of ways without being immediately obvious, and if you're just getting started, it's best to use equipment that you can believe what it's telling you. Someone selling an old one at a sidewalk sale (or on eBay, for that matter) may or may not have forgotten that one of the settings got blown out long ago.

A very handy piece of equipment is a solderless breadboard. There are different kinds, but I recommend one that looks like a small console. It comes with dual-polarity power supply, and even a function generator. (A solderless breadboard is a device that lets you plug in components like a jigsaw puzzle and push in wires to connect them together, without having to solder anything. Great for experimenting.)

Also check your local library. Look in the 621 section for electronics-related books.

Everybody's got broken electronic gizmos just lying around. They probably can't bear to just throw them away, but if you ask around, they may be willing to let you look at it, or just flat-out have it.

I don't see this mentioned often, but it's a good idea: keep a notebook. Write down things that you've worked on, circuits you've put together and tried out, and ideas you want to try. You'll be amazed how handy that notebook will be in the future.