Your advice for a new tech!

[creatorlars]

Hello all,
I'm new the forum and just wanted to introduce myself. I just made the career time to full time repair tech for a new music electronics shop in Austin, TX called Switched On (Switched On Music Electronics.) My primary experience is with analog synths and modular synths, designing and building for DIY purposes over the past several years. My previous field was in web/interactive programming, so this is quite an adjustment! I am enjoying it very much, and I feel confident about my skillset, but since I never had the opportunity to apprentice under an experienced tech, I'm sure there is a lot of general advice that I've missed out on. If you have any advice to give, please share it! I hope to see you all on the forum quite a lot in the coming months.

Cheers,
Lars Larsen

[Enzo]

Yes. Put down your screwdriver, stand and turn, then run...RUN... screaming into the night, never to return. Don;t look back. RUN RUN RUN.


Or not...

That is a broad question, kinda like "how does music work?"

You will find in the repair game that the great majority of repairs are pretty simple, and of the more complex repairs, a good portion were really simple until you made them complicated yourself.

Troubleshooting is troubleshooting, and it doesn't matter what you apply it to. It all boils down to this: isolate the problem. SO when you hear yourself saying something like, "I know transistors, but these tubes, I don;t know where to start," shut up and stop listening to yourself. A shorted output device is the most likely cause of blowing fuses in an amplifier - it doesn;t matter whether tube, transistor, or IC. You track it down the same way.

Be systematic. And don;t get in your own way. If you take the wires off something, make a little drawing to identify where they go. You may tell yourself, "Oh I'll remember," but sure as shit you tell yourself that just before the huge warehouse fire across the street, and you have to evacuate.

Mixers? Al those knobs? I make a color shart so I can get the right knobs on the right pots when I reassemble.

Keep track of your hardware. Pulling screws out means having a place to put them. I use those little plastic tubes like soft cream cheese comes in, or soft margarine, or even potato salad. Hummus containers might work too, but I can;t eat that stuff. And have some closable containers too. I used to use the little 35mm film cans, but where does anyone use film these days. Fortunately as I get older, I take more medications, so I keep the little pill bottles.. But envelopes or poly bags would work. Pack up the screws and keep them in the amp or whatever. Sometimes I even use multiple ones. One bottle for the lid screws, another for the screws that mounted the circuit board, maybe another for the rear panel stuff. Whatever. Why let a pile of screws take up your time, keep them organized so you can just put the work back to gether efficiently.

Keep stuff together. I always try to store loose stuff inside the equipment if possible. Or maybe in a box sitting on the equipment. WHy look on my bench somewhere for the chassis screws to an amplifier, when I can just stick them on its speaker magnet.

REmember Occam's Razor - the philosophy that the simplest explanation for something is probably the correct one. It works a lot more than it doesn;t. Another way of saying it is this:
When you see hoofprints in the dirt, think horses, not zebras.

DOn;t get in your own way.

When you think you have just found yet another design flaw in something, stop and think about why you don't understand the circuit you are looking at. There are occasional design flaws, but not many. Most flaws are in the thinking of the tech.

And if the schematic just doesn;t make sense, perhaps it has a typo on it.

And take notes. If a unit comes in without a power cord, write it down. If the customer included a footswitch, write it down. If there were missing knobs, write it down.

And my all time favorite bit of shop advice:
when you are putting sheet metal screws or wood screws back into something, drop the screw into the hole and turn it slowly backwards until you feel it drop into the old threads. THEN turn it in tight. That way you don;t cut new threads each time. That avoids stripping the holes.

[jrfrond]

Yes. Put down your screwdriver, stand and turn, then run...RUN... screaming into the night, never to return. Don;t look back. RUN RUN RUN.

I was about to say the same thing!

Or not...

That is a broad question, kinda like "how does music work?"

You will find in the repair game that the great majority of repairs are pretty simple, and of the more complex repairs, a good portion were really simple until you made them complicated yourself.

No one can screw up things more than a perfectionist.

Keep track of your hardware. Pulling screws out means having a place to put them. I use those little plastic tubes like soft cream cheese comes in, or soft margarine, or even potato salad. Hummus containers might work too, but I can;t eat that stuff. And have some closable containers too. I used to use the little 35mm film cans, but where does anyone use film these days. Fortunately as I get older, I take more medications, so I keep the little pill bottles.. But envelopes or poly bags would work. Pack up the screws and keep them in the amp or whatever. Sometimes I even use multiple ones. One bottle for the lid screws, another for the screws that mounted the circuit board, maybe another for the rear panel stuff. Whatever. Why let a pile of screws take up your time, keep them organized so you can just put the work back to gether efficiently.

I like ice cube trays with all of their little compartments.

Don't get in your own way.

Famous last words.

When you think you have just found yet another design flaw in something, stop and think about why you don't understand the circuit you are looking at. There are occasional design flaws, but not many. Most flaws are in the thinking of the tech.

And when there truly IS a design flaw, remember that we are paid to REPAIR, not re-engineer.

And if the schematic just doesn't make sense, perhaps it has a typo on it.

There are more than you can imagine.

And take notes. If a unit comes in without a power cord, write it down. If the customer included a footswitch, write it down. If there were missing knobs, write it down.

This requires some training of the front counter personnel.

And my all time favorite bit of shop advice:
when you are putting sheet metal screws or wood screws back into something, drop the screw into the hole and turn it slowly backwards until you feel it drop into the old threads. THEN turn it in tight. That way you don;t cut new threads each time. That avoids stripping the holes.

Also make sure that you purchase a power screwdriver with torque setting, and use them accordingly. Everything said here goes TRIPLE for screwing into plastic.

Great post Doug!

[R.G.]

If you have any advice to give, please share it!

1. Get a deposit up front.
2. Make them sign a repair authorization which also gives you permission to sell the equipment if it's not picked up and paid in full X days after notice of completion.
3. Set your bench rate so you don't have to be homeless or rely on the kindness of strangers.
4. Think very carefully about all the implications behind the word "overhead".

[Ronsonic]

Enzo has obviously been around this block.

A few other observations.

Intermittents and no-problem-founds have better outcomes with copious client communication. Make clear that you would be perfectly happy to fix the hell out of this thing and charge a bunch of money, but it has to fail for you first. Make your policy on intermittents clear. (I will make a best effort to rule out / solve likely problems but cannot guarantee a problem won't recur if I don't see it. I do give a break or sometimes just cover it anyway, if it comes back.)

Some clients have great ears and having them play and demo the fault for you can get you on the same page. I've had phone conversations that went "does it sound broke, or just not quite what it was?"

Prefer to replace rubber key contact strips rather than clean them.

Murphy, he of the law, is an angry god and awaits opportunity. Deny him by keeping your ducks in a row.

Evaluate the unit thoroughly before giving an estimate. I hate having to call back with more bad news or for more money. Once again, client communication is the thing. "Until we fix the power supply, it will be impossible to tell you everything else that might be wrong. But, we checked the outputs and ...."

Where the client turns down recommended work, says "fix only what you need to," or "keep it cheap I just want to fix it enough to sell" make sure your invoice reflects this.

It is really easier to just do everything right than to triage and scrimp. Make sure your estimates and bill reflect this.

If it says SLME something needs resoldered.

The Peavey parts ladies are helpful and have interesting accents.

Sometimes you can solder faster than you can think. Shotgunning the problem sometimes makes sense.

It is an inanimate object therefore it must, eventually, respond to reason.

It used to work. Really.

Mechanicals (pots, switches, jacks, connectors) Capacitors, Active (transistors, tubes, ICs) resistors, etc.

You make more money with a screwdriver than a soldering iron than a scope probe and by the time you're sitting out back studying a schematic cash is draining out the drawer.

Cleanliness is important. Dirt sounds bad. Scrub dirty PCBs. It also gives you a chance to inspect in detail while you're doing something useful.

Bad replacement parts are a rarity. It happens but the overwhelming majority of the time it is the install, not the part.

Cascade Reverb pans were Manufactured by beautiful girls in Milton, Wis. under controlled atmosphere conditions.

Good luck and have fun. I got into this over ten years ago turning a former hobby into a job myself. It is work and sometimes unpleasant and frustrating. But it is good work. You won't get rich but it beats a lot of other gigs.

[imaradiostar]

Cascade Reverb pans were Manufactured by beautiful girls in Milton, Wis. under controlled atmosphere conditions.

I always loved that!

I saved a few pans out of junk amps because they said this and I thought it was awesome. I was really sad when they turned out to not sound very good in the circuit I was working on.

I've never been a full time electronics tech but I've done part time studio service and some private guitar amp work. I've also been an auto mechanic. I can't offer great specifics like the people above but I do know one thing that's really important.

You can't make 100% of people happy 100% of the time but the 5% of people that'll never be happy can waste 80% of your time if you let them. Watch out for them, learn to identify them and don't be afraid recommend they go somewhere else if you don't think you're going to be able to make them happy.

I like the thing about an agreement that you will sell their stuff if not dealt with. I just moved cross-country and I brought broken valvestate marshalls, a hybrid crate amp, broken rack mount audio gear and heaven knows what else along with me. I've since gutted/salvaged/trashed most of it and I feel like a burden has been lifted. Don't create your own burden!

I have a Supro and a Super Twin Reverb in my kitchen now just begging to be forgotten by the original owner. They just find me...kinda like cars did when I was a full time mechanic. My wife and I joked that I was going to start a home for wayward German automobiles. It could just as well be amps.

Thanks to everyone for the entertaining and helpful comments above!

jamie

[Enzo]

And when it works, stop fixing it.

I am happy to plug it in and hear the problem while the customer is standing there. And I am happy to explain why the problem with the perfectly working unit is the mic cord that couldn't possibly be bad because it is brand new.

And it am more than happy to plug it in and demonstrate that it is now working before they take it home to their crappy speaker cords.

Parts are cheaper than labor. Why spend 15 minutes (at a dollar a minute in my shop)testing a 6 cent transistor. if you suspect it, just replace it. Not only that, but if there was any doubt before, now you know at least THAT part is OK.

Sometimes you can solder faster than you can think. Shotgunning the problem sometimes makes sense.

I like that, and it follows well my previous paragraph. You have some little fan control circuit or a voltage regulator circuit, or god knows what, and it isn't right. It is 6 resistors and two small transistors. I like to "solve the puzzle" as much as the next guy, but really, how long would it take to simply replace 6 resistors and two transistors? Now how long will it take to find out exactly which little part is thermally unstable?

It used to work. Really.

This is an important question, really. DID it used to work? I can assume commercial gear, as delivered, is a working thing,or was. But if someone has been inside it, or modified it, or built it themself, I can;t assume anything. If I approach something that used to work I have certain assumptions built into the process. Like the parts, good or bad, at least are in the right places, and the wiring is correct. If we never have seen it work, then we cannot count on that, and things we might take for granted, like those things, we cannot now assume.

You make more money with a screwdriver than a soldering iron than a scope probe and by the time you're sitting out back studying a schematic cash is draining out the drawer.

Amen, brother.

DOn't apologize for your labor rate. You will have people beef your rates, mostly becuase they don;t want to come out of pocket for anything anyway. "WHy that is nothng more than an input jack, you ought to be able to do that in a minute and charge me $5."

They are not paying you for how hard you worked. They are paying you to know what to to, to be able to do it, to have the facility needed for doing it, to have the materials available to do it, to know where to get the materials you don;t have to do it, to not blow it up, and to stand behind your work.

I pay rent on my shop, I have benches and shelves and storage. On the shelves are piles of little plastic drawer bins, or Plano tackle boxes. The drawers are full of most resistor values and cap values I will need. I have a selection of loose transistors to rival the local electronics parts outlet. (And mine are not NTE) I have around me speakers, connectors and cables, and amplifiers and signal sources - everything I need to put ANY piece of gear that comes in into an electronic context for it to function. I have invested in test equipment, loads, variacs, and even a computer to store and retrieve service materials. In short, I have a considerable investment in preparing the shop for the customer's repair.

And my time is spent efficiently. They are not paying my hourly rate for some kid to poke and guess at their amp.

All that and more is what they are paying for. Charge for it, no apologies.

And don;t be afraid to charge for parts. This is about what you have to charge, not about what they would like a part to cost. In my experience, most parts are A markup, meaning 100%. DOuble your cost, in other words. MAybe some large items I mark up a little less. But small things have their own prices. If I pay 6 cents for a 2N3904, I am not going to sell it for 12 cents. I charge a minimum of $4 for an IC. if it cost me $2, then $4 it is, if it cost me $1, still $4. 4558s used to cost 28 cents, they seem to have gone up, but $4 minimum for ICs. And the 6 cent transistor? At least $1. Resistors, small. A dollar for one, 50 cents if several. WHy the odd formula? I don;t know, it makes me feel good. Point is they cost a penny, but you can't charge just 2 cents.

That repair order you fill out, it costs money. The parts drawer bins cost money. EVerything in th shop costs money. That resistor cost you something just to get it there on the shelf. You have to charge for it. Some shops have their own price structure with a parts minimum on the ticket. OK, works for me.

You are not ripping the customer off, your business costs money to run. You have to price your goods and services to recover that cost AND make some profit.

SO whatever your pricing plan might be, consider the above and cover your costs.

On the other hand, I am not afraid to throw in some small part or two. Point it out to your customer - hey I threw in the resistor, no charge. Costs you little, but it is a nice gesture to the customer.

SOmetimes I have a repair bill like $74.28. The guy hands me $74 and starts looking for change. I might say, "Oh, I don;t need the 28 cents." It is amazing how much good will you can buy for 28 cents, really.

I realize in many commercial shops you can;t really do that, your till has to match your billings. But small gestures can go a long way towards building a loyal customer base.

And the other side of that coin is that in many cases that customer would have handed me $75 and said "keep the change." OK, I will.

TAKE TIPS!!! FOlks don;t offer tips out of guilt. They are generally genuinely happy to get their thing back working. it is a pat on your back. Don't shove their gesture back in their face, accept the tip graciously and with a "thank you."

[Enzo]

And learn how to say, "no."

[zero cool]

And learn how to say, "no."

AMEN!!!!! amen in fact to all of this!

And I want to reiterate a few things that are important to me.

1- there are a LOT of BAD repair techs out there. don't YOU be one of THOSE guys! Doing it right doesn't take any more time then doing wrong and in fact will end up costing you LESS time in the end as you wont have to do it all over again!

2- a screw came out, a screw goes back in! period! do whatever it takes to keep track of ALL the screws, nuts, washers, fiddly bits. I have seen techs use pieces of styrofoam or cardboard and they will screw the screw into the cardboard and then write with a sharpie where that group of screws came from etc. make little maps showing how the screws went back in etc.
and Amen to Enzo for the screw trick i have always done. donest matter if its wood, plastic, metal, sheet, pan, flathead, machine screw, drywall whatever. put the screw in the hole, turn backwards until you feel the screw rise up then drop, THEN turn forward! AND***** leave the damn screw gun at home! i HATE those damn things! as there lowest torque setting is always too high and you strip out the screws. and if its not the threads, its the heads! and nothing says hack more then getting your gear back and all the screw heads are all mangled! Screw guns and any sort of electric screwdriver is not allowed in my shop. I do every screw by hand so i have a feel for whats happening and if that screw is going in right, binding, etc.

Reminds me of a story...i will keep it short. took my moms car to a tire shop. watched the tech through the window. guy gets out the air gun....and i knew exactly what was going to happen....and i am waiting for it....moms car has plastic hub caps that LOOK like aluminum rims. sort of. these are factory hub caps. and the hub caps have what look like plastic lug nuts molded into the plastic....are ya with me? tech grabs air gun, puts socket on hubcap and BRAAAPPPP rips a hole in the hub cap and then stands there bewildered when he see's the hole....I went to the desk. told them to take my car off the lift. i was going elsewhere and i would send them the bill for the hubcap...Incompetence is incompetence.

3- aluminum foil is NOT a fuse!

4- no a short piece of wire is not a fuse either!

5- Tools. having good / The Correct tools can make or break a job. invest in quality tools. a little at a time if you have to. it makes a difference. and once you have had good tools, you will understand that difference.

6- Don't be afraid to charge what your worth.

7- Know your value! and charge accordingly. IE research the market and find out what the other guys are charging and then price accordingly.

8- LEARN, read, research, dig, do, build. not just at work, but always. It's not just a job but a lifestyle!

9- do NOT use Generic parts. NTE, ECG, type generic parts should NEVER be used in anything this side short of a pinball machine!

10- COMMUNICATION!!! this is the most important thing. TALK to your clients. oftentimes it's user error. also qualify those clients ahead of time. talk to them and tell them what your hourly rates are up front, what your minimum is. find out if that client is really ready to have there item fixed. and give them an honest timeline of how long it will take. if it will be 2-3 weeks before you can even look at it. tell them that!


In the end. taking care of your customers makes the difference. a Happy customer will tell A friend. and unhappy customer will tell 10!


may the force be with you, go in peace!

[jrfrond]

Good points from Doug. One of the overwhelming issues is that many good TECHS are lousy BUSINESSMEN (or women). While there are always the "free-pass courtesy" things you must do in the name of customer service, you just CANNOT undersell yourself or feel guilty for charging people. At the end of the month, when the rent is due (and the insurance, quarterly taxes, health benefits payments, etc., ad nauseum), the ONLY one who will feel sorry for you is YOU!

I don't go for wholesale shotgunning, e.g. just flagrantly ordering pricey PC boards or modules, unless of course, this is the way the manufacturer operates (remember Ensoniq my brothers?). However, I learned from some seriously good techs, and the ONLY way to find out if you have a suspected bad component is to swap it out. FAR too many components look good under static checks, and we've all been bitten by this. This goes TRIPLE for power amps, where a borderline semiconductor that gives up when power and load are applied can take down the rest of the work you already did. Here in NYC especially, parts are FAR cheaper than our $125/hr. labor fees, which is why I maintain a HUGE stock of parts and supplies (which accounts for about 33% of our real estate). ALWAYS reinit, resolder and check all of the STUPID stuff before troubleshooting, and like Doug said, know when to stop and know when to say "no". There truly ARE some things that are NOT repairable.

Tech work is more common sense than brains, calculations and Ohms Law. Too many NEW techs want to exercise their new-found knowledge skills, when in fact, they'd be more successful if they dumbed it down and not overthink it.

[Ronsonic]

And learn how to say, "no."

Yes.

There are what we call "arts and crafts projects" also known as "Arps and crafts projects" tie up your bench and your time at your peril. They are generally speculative and unrewarding. Beware mods that fall into this category.

Same for R&D work. It's good to stretch your boundaries and learn new things, maybe take on new product types. But can you really fix that Guitorgan in a profitable manner? Or is it sucking up time, space and mental capacity that would serve more people better if used elsewhere. Once you've mastered the Polaris Chroma will you see another soon enough to take advantage of the learning curve you've just climbed.

One of the best ones I've heard, from a tech on another forum: "The customer is always right. "Customer" being defined as someone whom you wish to do business with who brings you profitable work."

[jrfrond]

Hey Ron, do you work for a shop in Tampa by some chance? I have friends who own a shop in that nice, sunny area.

We are lucky enough in our shop to have a diverse range of techs with varying areas of expertise. I have one particular tech who will sit FOREVER on a restoration piece and he's great at it. But, until I figured out that he would need DOUBLE the estimated time that he told me he would to repair, for instance, that CS80 or that OB8, it was a problem. Like Ron said, "ARP's & crafts" (I like that one)! In our case, it's not an ARP in here right now that's the albatross, but an original modular Moog. Yikes!!! And that Polaris Chroma??? Well, let's just say I am verry happy that we haven't seen one since about '96.

[Enzo]

NO Chromas in here. And I do not take in old Moogs. More modern synths like a DX7 or something (wow, calling the DX7 modern...) sit there and work or not and you can fix them by changing parts. The old Moog circuits are SO value specific. Matched transistors, high precision resistors, fine tuning all these voltages, etc. No thanks. I used to be pretty good with the Oberheims, but have not seen one in 20 years - OB8 OBxa whatever. DOn;t see many synths at all really anymore. used to be a steady stream of Sequentials, ARPs, etc.

I used to maintain that anyone wanting to play a synth should be required to have some hours on a Poly6. All the functions had their own knobs and you could adjust them in real time and learn how the damned thing worked. Then they came out with the Poly61, which was basically the same thing except now all the adjustments were parameters and values on a screen. Not as intuitive for the player.

I once had a Poly6 come through belonging to some guy who played middle eastern music. Western music scaled are built on half steps. Mid-eastern music has quarter tones. Notes halfway between ours. At some point this guy had had his synth modified so he could play the quarter tones. Over by the mod wheel was a row of little momentary toggles. One for each note of the scale that needed a quarter tone. ANy time you needed a note to be the extra quarter tone down, you could push the switch.

Point of the story is that while I am sure I have the ability to invent such a thing, if someone came to me wanting such a mod, I would decline.

And Ensoniq? What a nightmare that company was to deal with. Dear god in heaven. Board swaps, nothing but board swaps. Got a shorted diode on the power supply board? Swap out the power supply. Broken jack on the main board? Swap out the main board. seriously. And it all had a flat rate. I forget the particulars, but a typical main board cost $600. You need a board, they send it, with an invoice. You send back the bad board, you get a credit. warranty, full credit, but non warranty, the credit was $100. They provided a suggested retail for the repairs. The board swap cost me $100, but I was supposed to charge the customer $150 for it. For a bad filter IC? For a bad jack? And they would NOT sell parts. OH other than keys and sliders. Their service manuals had guides that went only so far as to ID the bad board. The list of tools needed was a hoot. They said we needed phillips screwdriver, a voltmeter, some allen wrench, a couple other basic hand tools, and a 100MHz scope. Never in any of the procedures was a scope called for. We always thought it funny that a company who would not abide component level repairs would expect a scope. Best we could figure was it was a testament to your experience level more than anything.


And keep your NTE crap out of my pinball machines too.

[pecorporation]

Take my advice...

pull down your pants and slide on the ice.

[jrfrond]

For us, vintage synths just seem to come out of the woodwork, but the customers know AHEAD of time that there is a princely sum involved. If they want it, they can have it. We did a SUPER restoration recently on a CS80, and I mean recapping, old IC's out-of-spec parts. Came out beautiful, and the customer didn't mind the almost $5K bill. You folks, you read that right, and no, we did NOT gouge him. It was a fair price for the MANY hours of labor and parts involved.