I have to wonder about some customers....

[km6xz]

I have to wonder about some customers. A guy brought in 3 items, a 4x12 Carvin cab, a Carvin R600 bass combo and a Kustom HV100. The first two were user error and too miswiring of the cabinet. Both of those are understandable. But the HV100 has a intermittent noise, as the only complaint. Getting into it I called to ask how long it had been acting up..."6 months". I found 6 independent problems, each one occurred intermittently so could not have become noticeable suddenly. Each was a session ending problem. He must has been playing this thing in unusable condition for a couple years before deciding it was broken. The hardest one was snits and crackles at random times, but got them all taken care of.
I can see stopping use of an item and sticking in the closet for a long time before having it serviced but how could he not notice the protection relay dropping the speak out randomly up to 5 times a minute, or a noise floor from a very noisy tube that sounded louder than the guitar, or a FET that was intermittently changing channels, sometimes every few minutes, or an input jack with no ground reference or a pot that only worked if you held it just right and did not if let go.

[gui_tarzan]

It's not just customers, shops are guilty too. I recently repaired several amps for a friend. One was in an actual repair shop for several months as they attempted to find a part (that I found online in less than two minutes thanks to Google) and they totally missed a bad filter cap with an obvious wart on the end. One had a screw stuck under a resistor and they couldn't figure out why it would drop volume after a few minutes of playing through it. It's been fine since I removed the screw. Another one had a broken pre-amp tube (a Chinese-built Vox with very tight rubber insulators in the panel the tubes went through) and yet another one that had been in the previously mentioned shop that needed a re-bias and a resistor re-soldered. The solder wasn't even connected to the lead. All visually obvious problems that went unnoticed by a "reputable" shop.

I'll do the work for him, no problem, and he keeps bringing me more stuff to work on so aside from inept "techs" taking his money the first time, we're both happy.

[Mick Bailey]

I've just got a Fender HR Deville that had come with problems from a previous 'Pro' repair shop. All of the ribbon cable connections a mixture of broken/badly repaired/damaged/about to break/bypassed with wire. Plus the 'more drive' sent the relay into LF cycling, the bias set to 104mV, plus the amp oscillating badly when turned up. The customer had been told that the relay problem would be so expensive to fix that he'd be better just using the clean channel (it actually took just a glance at the schematic and a cap costing pennies).

[olddawg]

There seems to be a rapidly vanishing skill set in general...... that set being basic soldering skills and common sense. Here is an example. My wife is a scientist in biotech. The company she works for does large scale electrophoresis. Recently their yields had dropped to below 50% and they were facing a very real possibility of going under even though they are the "gold standard" for a very important medical test. My wife told the CEO to let her husband (me) look at it. He said who's your husband? She just said he's done this before and isn't stupid...., So I looked at the facility and the process. The CEO asked me what was wrong. I said it looked like a drunk monkey wired it. Hundreds of mismatched and barely connected banana plugs, nothing soldered at all, missing attachment hardware, etc. I went through it soldering on new plugs with heat shrink stress relief, replaced wiring, soldered spliced, etc. What happened? Yields went up to 94%, the best in the history of the company. With all the Chemists, PHDs, and credentialed lab techs, nobody had ever thought to consider the electronics, much less have anyone on site that could actually and professionally fix and maintain the stuff. It was very simple stuff. There are just very few people around that actually do it anymore and I wonder if it is even taught in this disposable world we now inhabit. They lost literally millions of dollars because of it. It's not just music related, lol.

[gui_tarzan]

Which begs the question; how do some people get away with turning out crap like a certain online company that has had horrific wiring jobs posted in several forums?

I also wonder how much money could be made if a person was to start a consulting business helping outfits like the lab you mentioned get things under control and establish skills and standards?

[Tom Phillips]

bleh - double post

Note that the edit screen gives you the option to delete the entire post.
Edit Post/Delete/Delete Post No need to add delete message. Just a nice neat cleanup.

[gui_tarzan]

Thanks, I forgot about that. Another forum doesn't have that option.

[tedmich]

There seems to be a rapidly vanishing skill set in general...... that set being basic soldering skills and common sense. Here is an example. My wife is a scientist in biotech. The company she works for does large scale electrophoresis. Recently their yields had dropped to below 50% and they were facing a very real possibility of going under even though they are the "gold standard" for a very important medical test. My wife told the CEO to let her husband (me) look at it. He said who's your husband? She just said he's done this before and isn't stupid...., So I looked at the facility and the process. The CEO asked me what was wrong. I said it looked like a drunk monkey wired it. Hundreds of mismatched and barely connected banana plugs, nothing soldered at all, missing attachment hardware, etc. I went through it soldering on new plugs with heat shrink stress relief, replaced wiring, soldered spliced, etc. What happened? Yields went up to 94%, the best in the history of the company. With all the Chemists, PHDs, and credentialed lab techs, nobody had ever thought to consider the electronics, much less have anyone on site that could actually and professionally fix and maintain the stuff. It was very simple stuff. There are just very few people around that actually do it anymore and I wonder if it is even taught in this disposable world we now inhabit. They lost literally millions of dollars because of it. It's not just music related, lol.

Whoa this is my field! My guess its just an extension of a view of modern technology; its a device that you don't really understand, we push a button and are grateful when something good happens. Computers are the most pervasive of these "black boxes" few people understand their most basic workings. I can better understand how a more complex piece of biotech equipment would become a "black box" like a mass spec or a CE unit but an electrophoresis unit gives you voltage and current readout (typically) so when efficiency is down you have numbers to show you were the problem is. The companies root cause analysis seems poor! But if they had a competent tech their wouldn't be much to analyze... pay now and benefit later its pretty simple math. Did they drop a bunch of stock on your wife for saving their bacon?

[olddawg]

Whoa this is my field! My guess its just an extension of a view of modern technology; its a device that you don't really understand, we push a button and are grateful when something good happens. Computers are the most pervasive of these "black boxes" few people understand their most basic workings. I can better understand how a more complex piece of biotech equipment would become a "black box" like a mass spec or a CE unit but an electrophoresis unit gives you voltage and current readout (typically) so when efficiency is down you have numbers to show you were the problem is. The companies root cause analysis seems poor! But if they had a competent tech their wouldn't be much to analyze... pay now and benefit later its pretty simple math. Did they drop a bunch of stock on your wife for saving their bacon?

I'm employee of the year without even working there. One of the biggest problems is internal connections in the top assemblies for transfer units. It's a simple wire soldered to a plate, but it is cast in plastic. Replacements are not available. I can simply tell the condition of the connection with an ohm meter. There are no longer replacements available so I drill them out, solder a new wire to the plate, and fill the hole with epoxy. They argue with me about the current/voltage readings on the power supplies. I tell them that just tells them they have a circuit, not where the current path is. (Murphy's Law and unintended consequences) I've seen several that looked fine while running but measured open with an ohm meter. My guess is that the connection is so oxidized that it can be biased to conduct, not a reliable situation in the least. I have also had to rebuild EF units with new plugs and platinum wire. The wire is expensive, but much cheaper than new units. They have a very nice lab spec Fluke meter, but I can't seem to be able to teach anyone there how to use it, lol. It's also auto ranging which confuses the hell out of them even more. I brought in a $25 meter that has a continuity test that beeps with less than 15 ohms. "Beep" I'm hoping they will understand that.

[tedmich]

are we talking a few hundred volts, like typical SDS-PAGE? At least its not the big old sequencing gels at 3kV, it used to get the student workers attention when I told them it would kill them...

Yeah lots of corrosive chemicals are hell with electronics, I once stripped a lead back 3-4 inches and it was just oxidized dust kind-of-sort-of conducting. The electronic potting silicone helps a lot and is easier to remove than epoxy if a second fix is required; don't use the acetoxy (vinegar) smelling stuff though! Also the inner melt shrink tube if its not too stiff is useful.