Chip with simple program for Toy

[N. Thornton]

Hi

OK. These days it's not uncommon to open a case
and find that item is build around 1 or 2 chips (_LARGE_ scale
integration).
Often this is a proprietary IC and has a single source;
often it is programmable logic,
so--even if you can identify the general-purpose IC--
you have to get the microcode that goes into it.

Illogical. One does not need IC code to repair things. The exceptional
item that does need that isn't going to be worth repairing, and would
be returned as 'repair uneconomical'.

Again, single-source.

Most single source stuff is best avoided, and the repair rejected.

Sure it's cheaper and easier to build stuff en mass with chips.
Repairing that stuff on a one-off basis is another thing;
even if you have access to the documents and parts,
there is often specific knowledge necessary.

That's not necessary at all. Its only necessary if you follow the
doomed business model that most small repair shops use today, that of
being determined to waste time and money quoting for jobs the customer
would never fork out for anyway.

I still remember the first time I took a TV to a repair shop, they
quoted twice what I could get a replacement set for. I told them,
something like no thanks, and became determined to fix it myself. It
took me one hour and a nut and bolt.

(Sometimes repair is as much an art as it is about technology
--believe me, I've worked in factories.)

Absolutely.

This is another myth. When my own items go wrong they are in most
cases worth replacing. What happened is businesses got inefficient
and
greedy. Repair shops have been charging 50 to 100 per hour for a
long
time here. Paying that kind of rate isn't often worthwhile, but
paying
a sensible price is. They've simply priced theselves out of the
market.

Some items aren't worth repairing, but most still are.

If that is too high, why not open your own repair shop. Then you can
charge a couple dollars an hour, then work 24/7 while paying all the
bills out of your savings. Do this till you can't afford to eat, and
show them how to do it right.

Why would you go from 100 an hour to 2? Clearly an unrealistic straw
man.

You have absolutely no idea what the overhead is for a small repair
business.

Really? Overhead is a critical issue in the repair biz.

Rent, insurance, utilities, payroll, parts, excessive costs
for service data, (if it is available) Shoddy construction, (Cheap
parts, bad solder quality, poor design).

You also need an exterminator
to spray for roaches and other bugs that come in with the equipment.

not in this country, UK. And elsewhere that cost is mostly avoidable
with a bit of knowledge.

Then add the cost of the factory training,

factory training? Your business model sounds financially inefficient.

special interfaces and
software to adjust what used to be done with a couple pots.

Only added when/if worthwhile. If it isn't worthwhile, why do it?

Spend half
your time tracking down repair parts.

Set proper appropriate time limits and behave like a business.

First you find someone who carries
the part. Then you find that it is backordered for six months.
repeat,
till you find the part, or the customer wants their equipment back,

Anyone chasing for that long shouldn't be running a repair biz.

and
then tells everyone what a crook or idiot you are. After all, how
hard
is it to find parts? They can run to town and buy repair parts for
their car, lawn mower, washer, or dryer, so you must be a liar, a
moron,
or both.

clearly that piece of business practice wasn't so hot.

Don't forget the bonus! Your "CUSTOMER" opens it up, does more
damage, then expects a discount, because they helped you by taking it
apart for you.

hehe, I know. Easily resolved.

Batch-processed manufacturing makes things much easier to produce
than to fix.
Even in the factory, where you have the _best_ information on a
product,
it can be a bitch to repair the stuff.

Some is, and some's easy. Choose.

In the 21st Century, electronics repair is only practical for _LARGE_
systems
or specialty items.

Simply not so. You folks are making too many assumptions. Most of
today's repair businesses are dead ducks. The way repair shops do
things is precisely why they're going out of business.

Much of this thread strikes me as being complaining about how
difficult the business has become - thats a classic business pattern,
and the solution has been learnt enough times before.


Regards, NT

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

"N. Thornton" wrote:

Hi

OK. These days it's not uncommon to open a case
and find that item is build around 1 or 2 chips (_LARGE_ scale
integration).
Often this is a proprietary IC and has a single source;
often it is programmable logic,
so--even if you can identify the general-purpose IC--
you have to get the microcode that goes into it.

Illogical. One does not need IC code to repair things. The exceptional
item that does need that isn't going to be worth repairing, and would
be returned as 'repair uneconomical'.

Again, single-source.

Most single source stuff is best avoided, and the repair rejected.

Sure it's cheaper and easier to build stuff en mass with chips.
Repairing that stuff on a one-off basis is another thing;
even if you have access to the documents and parts,
there is often specific knowledge necessary.

That's not necessary at all. Its only necessary if you follow the
doomed business model that most small repair shops use today, that of
being determined to waste time and money quoting for jobs the customer
would never fork out for anyway.

I still remember the first time I took a TV to a repair shop, they
quoted twice what I could get a replacement set for. I told them,
something like no thanks, and became determined to fix it myself. It
took me one hour and a nut and bolt.

(Sometimes repair is as much an art as it is about technology
--believe me, I've worked in factories.)

Absolutely.

This is another myth. When my own items go wrong they are in most
cases worth replacing. What happened is businesses got inefficient
and
greedy. Repair shops have been charging 50 to 100 per hour for a
long
time here. Paying that kind of rate isn't often worthwhile, but
paying
a sensible price is. They've simply priced theselves out of the
market.

Some items aren't worth repairing, but most still are.

If that is too high, why not open your own repair shop. Then you can
charge a couple dollars an hour, then work 24/7 while paying all the
bills out of your savings. Do this till you can't afford to eat, and
show them how to do it right.

Why would you go from 100 an hour to 2? Clearly an unrealistic straw
man.

You have absolutely no idea what the overhead is for a small repair
business.

Really? Overhead is a critical issue in the repair biz.

Rent, insurance, utilities, payroll, parts, excessive costs
for service data, (if it is available) Shoddy construction, (Cheap
parts, bad solder quality, poor design).

You also need an exterminator
to spray for roaches and other bugs that come in with the equipment.

not in this country, UK. And elsewhere that cost is mostly avoidable
with a bit of knowledge.

Then add the cost of the factory training,

factory training? Your business model sounds financially inefficient.

special interfaces and
software to adjust what used to be done with a couple pots.

Only added when/if worthwhile. If it isn't worthwhile, why do it?

Spend half
your time tracking down repair parts.

Set proper appropriate time limits and behave like a business.

First you find someone who carries
the part. Then you find that it is backordered for six months.
repeat,
till you find the part, or the customer wants their equipment back,

Anyone chasing for that long shouldn't be running a repair biz.

and
then tells everyone what a crook or idiot you are. After all, how
hard
is it to find parts? They can run to town and buy repair parts for
their car, lawn mower, washer, or dryer, so you must be a liar, a
moron,
or both.

clearly that piece of business practice wasn't so hot.

Don't forget the bonus! Your "CUSTOMER" opens it up, does more
damage, then expects a discount, because they helped you by taking it
apart for you.

hehe, I know. Easily resolved.

Batch-processed manufacturing makes things much easier to produce
than to fix.
Even in the factory, where you have the _best_ information on a
product,
it can be a bitch to repair the stuff.

Some is, and some's easy. Choose.

In the 21st Century, electronics repair is only practical for _LARGE_
systems
or specialty items.

Simply not so. You folks are making too many assumptions. Most of
today's repair businesses are dead ducks. The way repair shops do
things is precisely why they're going out of business.

Much of this thread strikes me as being complaining about how
difficult the business has become - thats a classic business pattern,
and the solution has been learnt enough times before.

Regards, NT

I used to be in the repair business. We had plenty of distributors
for parts. The distributors had local branches, and some others sent a
salesman on a route who took orders, and delivered the parts two days
later, with no delivery charge.

Factory manuals were cheap or free. H. W. Sams sold their Photofacts.
A single set covered about a dozen TVs and radios.

In the early '70s, it cost of $10,000 to put a van on the road to do
repair work. There were five trucks on the road. Another $35,000 worth
of parts were on the shelves at each shop. There were 12 employees,
utilities, insurance, taxes, losses due to theft and going above and
beyond what a customer should have expected, just to keep them happy.

The town (Middletown, Ohio) had a population of 50,000, and about
75,000 more within the service area. Our two shops had a great
reputation, and they survived longer than most. I heard recently that
there isn't a single repair shop left in that area, and the nearest is
an hour's drive.

Until you have been inside the repair industry, you don't know what
the hell you are talking about. Manufacturers won't sell manuals.
Distributors try to pull "Just in time" inventory to save money, and it
is almost impossible to get a single order filled without back orders.

Face it, the manufacturers don't want their low grade shit fixed. The
few remaining shops are either stubborn enough to stick it out till they
retire in a couple years, or morons who shouldn't be near tools in the
first place.

So, you hacked a single TV repair, and you are now an expert? I don't
think so. Go to news:sci.electronics.repair and tell them you know why
they are having so many problems, and that you have all the answers.
They love a good laugh.

I like the comment about not needing software to fix something. You
haven't looked inside anything built in the last 15 years, have you?
Even a cheap TV set has an EEPROM to store the channel settings and all
the other things like brightness and volume. If the part is bad you
either need the generic code for the set, or a factory pre-programmed
part.


At my last job I worked on $80,000 Telemetry receiving systems at
Microdyne's Ocala factory. I spent a good part of the work day
programming boards, tuners, and whole systems to test and align them. I
had about $5,000 worth of programming equipment on my bench, as well as
two separate ports to the corporate engineering server to download the
NT operating system and GUI software. One of the guys in final test had
a repair shop at his house where he repaired equipment the company no
longer supported, and he thought he could "dig up" everything, including
over 500 different programs to service them, too.
--


Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[John Fields]

On 20 Aug 2003 15:08:28 -0700, No_Fate@comcast.net (Kevin) wrote:

Hello, I took basic electronics in high school some 20 odd years ago,
much of which has been forgotten (maybe just suppressed), and I would
like to get back into it. I have some renewed interest in this field
and others, such as robotics. As this will only be a hobby I don't
want to go back to school or anything, but I would like to freshen up
on ic chip usage, learn about photo sensors, stuff like that. I have
been in the auto electronics biz for nearly 20 yrs, so I do know a lot
about electrical stuff in general, but most of what I did was 12
volts, things like car alarms, stereos, remote starters, amps,
etc..but I do miss the circuitry at it's basic level. I remember in
10th grade we spent what seemed like a whole year on resistors, and
when we finally built a circuit that made an led come on, it was
exciting! Something happened, a change had been made and we could see
the results immediately. Building something from scrap parts.. a
timer, a clock, anything was a lot of fun. Basically, I would like to
know of anyone has any good links to some fun stuff I could build
while (re)learning how it all works. Also, any info on where I might
find a list of chips, along with what they do would be great, too.
Anyone interested in helping and old dog learn some new tricks? Thanks
and have a great day!

---
Welcome back!-) Three of the best resources you'll find anywhere are
this group, sci.electronics.design, and
alt.binaries.schematics.electronics.

There are some world-class minds on these groups, and help is available
just for the asking.

As far as a first project goes, you might want to re-familiarize
yourself with the 555 and its CMOS variants and the seemingly infinite
variety of things that can be done with it. Perhaps an interesting
exercise/project would be to build a working model of it using logic
gates, comparators, and active and passive discretes?

If that sounds interesting to you you might want to check the lower left
hand corner of page 7 of:

http://pdfserv.maxim-ic.com/en/ds/ICM7555-ICM7556.pdf


--
John Fields

 

[Dimitrij Klingbeil]

R. Steve Walz wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 09:12:09 -0500, Nick Funk
nfunk@NOSPAM.rtconline.com> wrote:
[]
Why has our Congress ignored the spam issue? Could this be due to
political pressures from merchandiser's industry, from PAC committees,
trade associations, and possibly political funding from these groups.

I propose that ALL SPAM email you recieve is forwarded to your Senator
and Congressman.

Attached are two links to email addresses of our Senators and
Congressman.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html

Please pass the message on!

I used to be of a mind that spam legislation would help, but the more
I investigated the more I changed my mind. Here's what I recently
wrote to a legislator in Arizona who thinks he can write a good spam
bill:

Your bill fits perfectly into a Pollyanna world. Unfortunately the
origin of most spam is obfuscated and the servers are located in
foreign countries. So your bill will do absolutely nothing.
------------------------------
It is entirely do-able to destroy all foreign contact with any ISP
which will not fall into line and stop spam eminating from its domain.
Assembling and examining all packets before they are resent into the USA
at our borders lately is trivial.

Further it is even easier to send UNBELIEVABLE volumes of our own
punishment SPAM to any foreign ISP and also stop cooperating with any
nation that won't stop it, and cut off telecom and trade to and
from them.

You don't have to clog the courts with this shit or anything like
Opt-In requires, and it ends it by govt mandating that for all ports
of entry for telephonic data into the USA.

For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus writers/disseminators.

This would stop all this bullshit. We don't have to listen to people
cutting in on our telephone conversations, so why should we have to
receive ANY kind of this telephonic terrorism!????!!

Opt-In is fine for junk snail-mail, but punish the perp with death.
-Steve

I realize, what you just wrote has a lot of sarcasm in it, but there seem to
be many to share your thoughts about a 'national defense' being the
preferred solution. You are talking about the USA just like it were the
only important country in the world and even more like it were the only one
to handle tons of spam. This way we'll get nowhere. Spam is certainly a
world-wide problem, so it should be natural to seek a world-wide solution
preferably without following Bush's policy of a 'war on terrorism'.
Flooding ISPs will make a bloody hell of the whole Internet (unless it
already is one) and cutting oneself off the rest of the world is just what
Hitler did a couple of years before he started WWII. Besides, most other
countries will be cooperative anyway if offered workable conditions for
cooperation. Spam legislation will do no good because it cannot be enforced
efficiently, it is just a fact we have to admit because legislation is
inherently a national affair. The only thing that can be done locally
(apart from technical solutions) is to ignore all companies advertizing
through spam consequently and without exceptions, I know, it's a defensive
approach, but otherwise they will continue as long as they can envisage
profits and no law shall stop them. Technical solutions like a change of
protocols to require valid addresses and/or digital signatures provided by
ISPs for trusted clients, registered and uniquely identifiable throughout
the world may also help things, but such standards must be world-wide or at
least very widely accepted. However restrictive standards might give the
CIA a chance to extract from e-mails more than it is already getting by
now, so some means to ensure privacy of electronic communications must be
also included and perhaps standardized. In any case, the chechs should be
performed by the ISPs themselves in a decentralized way since most of us
certainly wouldn't like to see all packets reaching the borders of the USA
(or any country) disassembled and looked into by the CIA (or any 'Ministry
Of Truth') since this shall affect our e-mail as well. And how is it done
to verify everything in a centralized way and simultaneously avoid the
government sticking its nose into it especially if there is a law helping
the govt to do this. Indeed all authorities tend to do more than they are
for, so after all I think it is still better to delete some (MB of) spam
manually without having a peephole-government looking at confidential
information just as easily as it does at this post.

Dimitrij

P.S. A rethorical question to the CIA: Is my address already listed?

 

[Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun]

In article <a7076635.0309230531.1097f910@posting.google.com>,
bigcat@meeow.co.uk mentioned...

JeffM wrote:

The repairability of things is such that, again,
it's the rare item which you can get repaired cheaper than you can
replace.

This is another myth. When my own items go wrong they are in most
cases worth replacing. What happened is businesses got inefficient and
greedy. Repair shops have been charging 50 to 100 per hour for a long
time here. Paying that kind of rate isn't often worthwhile, but paying
a sensible price is. They've simply priced theselves out of the
market.

When I was a youngster, a TV cost several hundred dollars, a much,
much larger chunk of a month's pay for the average worker than it is
today. Then, the cost of repairing a TV wasn't any cheaper than it is
today, it took, for example, an average of an hour or two to repair at
the then _prevailing_ wage rate plus overhead, just as it does today.
What has changed now is that the cost of the TV has dropped
drastically in relation to a month's pay. The repairmen haven't
priced themselves out of the market, they've just tried to keep in
business and from starving to death. The dropping cost of consumer
electronics has been putting them out of business.

This dropping cost has been brought about by the cheaper manufacturing
costs of plants overseas and maquiladoras in Mexico.

Some items aren't worth repairing, but most still are.

Regards, NT

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

 

[Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun]

In article <a7076635.0309240437.26df3a36@posting.google.com>,
bigcat@meeow.co.uk mentioned...
[snip]

In the 21st Century, electronics repair is only practical for _LARGE_
systems
or specialty items.

Simply not so. You folks are making too many assumptions. Most of
today's repair businesses are dead ducks. The way repair shops do
things is precisely why they're going out of business.

Much of this thread strikes me as being complaining about how
difficult the business has become - thats a classic business pattern,
and the solution has been learnt enough times before.

I think you're making assumptions and are unrealistic. A repair shop
can't automate by installing robots to do the work. Nor can they
afford to keep a zillion parts in stock. Yes, it _is_ difficult, but
that's not the fault of the repair business. When earning an honest
living requires a business to charge a given amount per hour, and the
cost of the equipment is less than that hourly rate, then there's no
way for the business to survive.

A piece of electronics manufactured today just isn't as repairable as
it used to be. If it is a module, then the repairperson usually has
only one option, send it back to the company for replacement. We have
thousands of Dells, most are still under warranty. One of our techs
sits on the phone a lot waiting to get hold of a customer service rep,
so he can get a return authorization and swap a hard disk for example
and then ship the old one back. Some repair business(!)

Regards, NT

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

 

[Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun]

In article <3F727FD7.AC7234C2@earthlink.net>,
mike.terrell@earthlink.net mentioned...

"N. Thornton" wrote:
[snip]

Batch-processed manufacturing makes things much easier to produce
than to fix.
Even in the factory, where you have the _best_ information on a
product,
it can be a bitch to repair the stuff.

Some is, and some's easy. Choose.

In the 21st Century, electronics repair is only practical for _LARGE_
systems
or specialty items.

Simply not so. You folks are making too many assumptions. Most of
today's repair businesses are dead ducks. The way repair shops do
things is precisely why they're going out of business.

Much of this thread strikes me as being complaining about how
difficult the business has become - thats a classic business pattern,
and the solution has been learnt enough times before.

Regards, NT
[sbip]

Until you have been inside the repair industry, you don't know what
the hell you are talking about. Manufacturers won't sell manuals.
Distributors try to pull "Just in time" inventory to save money, and it
is almost impossible to get a single order filled without back orders.

Face it, the manufacturers don't want their low grade shit fixed. The
few remaining shops are either stubborn enough to stick it out till they
retire in a couple years, or morons who shouldn't be near tools in the
first place.

So, you hacked a single TV repair, and you are now an expert? I don't
think so. Go to news:sci.electronics.repair and tell them you know why
they are having so many problems, and that you have all the answers.
They love a good laugh.

I like the comment about not needing software to fix something. You
haven't looked inside anything built in the last 15 years, have you?
[snip]

I agree with Mike. This isn't a matter of cutthroat competition.
It's a matter of a fundamental change in the industry that has put
almost all repair companies out of business. It used to be you could
pick up a part without a tweezers. And all you needed was a soldering
iron. Now the boards are so integrated that if the problem isn't with
the mechanical parts, the whole board has to be swapped or replaced.
And the boards are not available from everywhere, only the maker
handles them. But what he said, about the biz, is true. If you want
to starve to death by charging what consumers would pay rather than
buy new, then you'd be foolish. And dead, too.

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

 

[N. Thornton]

Hi


From: Michael A. Terrell (mike.terrell@earthlink.net)

I used to be in the repair business. We had plenty of distributors
for parts. The distributors had local branches, and some others sent
a
salesman on a route who took orders, and delivered the parts two days
later, with no delivery charge.

Factory manuals were cheap or free. H. W. Sams sold their Photofacts.
A single set covered about a dozen TVs and radios.

In the early '70s, it cost of $10,000 to put a van on the road to do
repair work. There were five trucks on the road. Another $35,000
worth
of parts were on the shelves at each shop. There were 12 employees,
utilities, insurance, taxes, losses due to theft and going above and
beyond what a customer should have expected, just to keep them happy.

And most repair shops still behave like they're in the 70s, even tho
the business world has moved on.

Until you have been inside the repair industry, you don't know what
the hell you are talking about.

indeed.

Manufacturers won't sell manuals.

Even when they do they're frequently not worth buying.

Face it, the manufacturers don't want their low grade shit fixed.

indeed.

So, you hacked a single TV repair, and you are now an expert? I don't
think so.

I think you just made that up.

I like the comment about not needing software to fix something. You
haven't looked inside anything built in the last 15 years, have you?

yes.

Even a cheap TV set has an EEPROM to store the channel settings and
all
the other things like brightness and volume. If the part is bad you
either need the generic code for the set, or a factory pre-programmed
part.

No no, only someone lacking basic business skills would think that. If
you have to put that much into repairing a set, it normally isn't
worth it. A viable busines does not spend lots of time on jobs that
will be priced so high that no customer would pay for it. One rejects
the repair as 'repair uneconomic'.

At my last job I worked on $80,000 Telemetry receiving systems at
Microdyne's Ocala factory. I spent a good part of the work day
programming boards, tuners, and whole systems to test and align them.
I
had about $5,000 worth of programming equipment on my bench, as well
as
two separate ports to the corporate engineering server to download
the
NT operating system and GUI software. One of the guys in final test
had
a repair shop at his house where he repaired equipment the company no
longer supported, and he thought he could "dig up" everything,
including
over 500 different programs to service them, too.

lol. The repair industry is very lacking in business skill.


From: Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun" (alondra101@hotmail.com)

I agree with Mike. This isn't a matter of cutthroat competition.
It's a matter of a fundamental change in the industry that has put
almost all repair companies out of business.

This has happened in many industries since the 70s. Some industries
have responded effectively to this, some haven't. The repair industry
has failed to change to meet this challenge. So there are 2 factors,
not one.

Now the boards are so integrated that if the problem isn't with
the mechanical parts, the whole board has to be swapped or replaced.

no, no job 'has' to be done. I dont know why people seem to think it
does.

And the boards are not available from everywhere, only the maker
handles them.

wrong. More importantly, change your business practices.

In the 21st Century, electronics repair is only practical for
_LARGE_ systems
or specialty items.

Simply not so. You folks are making too many assumptions. Most of
today's repair businesses are dead ducks. The way repair shops do
things is precisely why they're going out of business.
Much of this thread strikes me as being complaining about how
difficult the business has become - thats a classic business
pattern,
and the solution has been learnt enough times before.

I think you're making assumptions and are unrealistic.

A repair shop
can't automate by installing robots to do the work. Nor can they
afford to keep a zillion parts in stock.

of course

When earning an honest
living requires a business to charge a given amount per hour, and the
cost of the equipment is less than that hourly rate, then there's no
way for the business to survive.

In fact many businesses have survived this. They have done so by
remodelling.

A piece of electronics manufactured today just isn't as repairable as
it used to be.

absolutely.

If it is a module, then the repairperson usually has
only one option, send it back to the company for replacement.

nonsense, why would you think that? That's the one option I would rule
out, in most cases.

We have
thousands of Dells, most are still under warranty. One of our techs
sits on the phone a lot waiting to get hold of a customer service
rep,
so he can get a return authorization and swap a hard disk for example
and then ship the old one back. Some repair business(!)

Foolish and easily solved.

The repairability of things is such that, again,
it's the rare item which you can get repaired cheaper than you can
replace.

This is another myth. When my own items go wrong they are in most
cases worth replacing. What happened is businesses got inefficient
and
greedy. Repair shops have been charging 50 to 100 per hour for a
long
time here. Paying that kind of rate isn't often worthwhile, but
paying
a sensible price is. They've simply priced theselves out of the
market.

When I was a youngster, a TV cost several hundred dollars, a much,
much larger chunk of a month's pay for the average worker than it is
today. Then, the cost of repairing a TV wasn't any cheaper than it
is
today, it took, for example, an average of an hour or two to repair
at
the then _prevailing_ wage rate plus overhead, just as it does today.
What has changed now is that the cost of the TV has dropped
drastically in relation to a month's pay.

Right.

The repairmen haven't
priced themselves out of the market, they've just tried to keep in
business and from starving to death. The dropping cost of consumer
electronics has been putting them out of business.

Yes, but... they are failing to address the issues that could bring
them back into the market. They need to remodel their bizzes, and they
seem to have little idea that they need to, or how to.



Regards, NT

 

[Fred Abse]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 07:50:39 +0100, N. Thornton wrote:

And most repair shops still behave like they're in the 70s, even tho the
business world has moved on.


...........................<snip>................................

No no, only someone lacking basic business skills would think that. If
you have to put that much into repairing a set, it normally isn't worth
it. A viable busines does not spend lots of time on jobs that will be
priced so high that no customer would pay for it. One rejects the repair
as 'repair uneconomic'.


...............................<snip>...............................

lol. The repair industry is very lacking in business skill.


.......................................<snip<........................

This has happened in many industries since the 70s. Some industries have
responded effectively to this, some haven't. The repair industry has
failed to change to meet this challenge. So there are 2 factors, not
one.

..........................................<snip>........................

wrong. More importantly, change your business practices.


..............................<snip>.............................
In fact many businesses have survived this. They have done so by
remodelling.

..............................<snip>...............................
Yes, but... they are failing to address the issues that could bring them
back into the market. They need to remodel their bizzes, and they seem
to have little idea that they need to, or how to.

Are you an MBA, by any chance ?

--
Then there's duct tape ...
(Garrison Keillor)
nofr@sbhevre.pbzchyvax.pb.hx

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Fred Abse wrote:

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 07:50:39 +0100, N. Thornton wrote:

And most repair shops still behave like they're in the 70s, even tho the
business world has moved on.


..........................<snip>................................

No no, only someone lacking basic business skills would think that. If
you have to put that much into repairing a set, it normally isn't worth
it. A viable busines does not spend lots of time on jobs that will be
priced so high that no customer would pay for it. One rejects the repair
as 'repair uneconomic'.


..............................<snip>...............................

lol. The repair industry is very lacking in business skill.


......................................<snip<........................

This has happened in many industries since the 70s. Some industries have
responded effectively to this, some haven't. The repair industry has
failed to change to meet this challenge. So there are 2 factors, not
one.

.........................................<snip>........................

wrong. More importantly, change your business practices.


.............................<snip>.............................
In fact many businesses have survived this. They have done so by
remodelling.

.............................<snip>...............................
Yes, but... they are failing to address the issues that could bring them
back into the market. They need to remodel their bizzes, and they seem
to have little idea that they need to, or how to.

Are you an MBA, by any chance ?

--
Then there's duct tape ...
(Garrison Keillor)
nofr@sbhevre.pbzchyvax.pb.hx

More likely a BMI! ;-)
--


Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Tom MacIntyre]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 20:37:06 +0100, Fred Abse
<excretatauris@cerebrumconfus.it> wrote:

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 07:50:39 +0100, N. Thornton wrote:


And most repair shops still behave like they're in the 70s, even tho the
business world has moved on.


..........................<snip>................................

No no, only someone lacking basic business skills would think that. If
you have to put that much into repairing a set, it normally isn't worth
it. A viable busines does not spend lots of time on jobs that will be
priced so high that no customer would pay for it. One rejects the repair
as 'repair uneconomic'.


..............................<snip>...............................


lol. The repair industry is very lacking in business skill.


......................................<snip<........................

This has happened in many industries since the 70s. Some industries have
responded effectively to this, some haven't. The repair industry has
failed to change to meet this challenge. So there are 2 factors, not
one.

.........................................<snip>........................

wrong. More importantly, change your business practices.


.............................<snip>.............................
In fact many businesses have survived this. They have done so by
remodelling.

.............................<snip>...............................
Yes, but... they are failing to address the issues that could bring them
back into the market. They need to remodel their bizzes, and they seem
to have little idea that they need to, or how to.


Are you an MBA, by any chance ?

Possibly an "efficiency expert".

Tom

 

[CFoley1064]

Is it possible to run a led off 220V mains supply without using a
transformer?

Something that you might keep in mind -- LEDs do have breakdown voltages. If
you're doing this, you might want to use a "light pipe" or other method to
ensure the end user is kept away from the LED.

 

[Rein Wiehler]

GAT wrote:

This is an IR Reciever test circuit i got with a project kit,
could anyone tell me how i connect just one LED at a time, do the 2 10k
resistors stay connected to pins 12 and 13 regardless to what pinout i'm
testing LED on.?/

Thanks for any help





The infrared decoder is a AT89C2051 micro (atmel). The 10k resistors on

pin 12 and 13 are pull-ups for the analog port connected to these pins.
leave them in place. just plce a led at a time on the board, however I
suspect you will loose out on the display.
rw

 

[GAT]

Can i use a 9volt battery to power this circuit ?




"GAT" <gathome@shaw.ca> wrote in message news:CIHeb.1533$9l5.435@pd7tw2no...

This is an IR Reciever test circuit i got with a project kit,
could anyone tell me how i connect just one LED at a time, do the 2 10k
resistors stay connected to pins 12 and 13 regardless to what pinout i'm
testing LED on.?/

Thanks for any help

 

[Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun]

In article <a7076635.0309262250.237f487b@posting.google.com>,
bigcat@meeow.co.uk mentioned...
[snip]

Even a cheap TV set has an EEPROM to store the channel settings and
all
the other things like brightness and volume. If the part is bad you
either need the generic code for the set, or a factory pre-programmed
part.

No no, only someone lacking basic business skills would think that. If
you have to put that much into repairing a set, it normally isn't
worth it. A viable busines does not spend lots of time on jobs that
will be priced so high that no customer would pay for it. One rejects
the repair as 'repair uneconomic'.

Right. Problem is, almost every repair job is that way. Reminds me
of those fishermen who are required to throw the critters back in when
they're below a certain size. But the area they're in is so
overfished that almost all their catch is undersized. So they come
back with almost no catch. So the old adage, "Teach a man to fish.. "
and he ends up starving to death! You can't run a business where
almost everything is "repair uneconomic"!!

Regards, NT

--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

 

[Glenn Gundlach]

bigcat@meeow.co.uk (N. Thornton) wrote in message news:<a7076635.0309221136.694ce9e7@posting.google.com>...

Someone wrote:
"R. Steve Walz" <rstevew@armory.com> wrote:

The repairability of things is such that, again,
it's the rare item which you can get repaired cheaper than you can replace.
---------------
snip
Yup, I think it comes primarily from advertising tho, and an education
system that fails to address the real issues in peple's lives - such
as advertising bull.

Here in England the throwaway culture is mind boggling. People
literally buy items, throw them away for no reason, go buy another,
another... its remarkable. They've bought into the advertising
nonsense in a huge way, basic common sense has gone right out the
window.

We're way worse than America like that.

When I say no reason I mean ask them for reasons and they can come out
with nothing valid, in most cases.


The knowledge needed to use junked parts is so
trivial as to be unbelievable that anyone would avoid learning it,
once you know it.

Its odd that no-one teaches this stuff. Why would a hobbyist order
stuff, and have to pay and wait days for it, when they have what they
need already? Bonkers. IMHO One of the basics of electronics is how to
identify and use what you've already got.

Daft notions of fashion are being put ahead of medical care,
retirement income, house ownership, vets bills, decent food... the
list goes on. This society is losing the plot methinks.

/rant

Regards, NT

Yeah, but say your $59.95 VCR needs a new upper drum. An hour of my
time is worth more than the VCR and even if it DID break even, its
still an old machine with other potential problems. They sent me to
Lutheran school for 8 years and that 'sinful to be wasteful' message
took a LONG time to get over. I still try not to waste but I don't get
upset about tossing stuff out (wouldn't convince you after seeing my
garage though). If it appears serviceable, the Goodwill and Salvation
Army is a possibility.
GG

 

[Fred Abse]

On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 22:28:19 -0700, Glenn Gundlach wrote:

They sent me to Lutheran school for
8 years and that 'sinful to be wasteful' message took a LONG time to get
over.

Lake Wobegon, MN?



--
Then there's duct tape ...
(Garrison Keillor)
nofr@sbhevre.pbzchyvax.pb.hx

 

[N. Thornton]

stratus46@yahoo.com (Glenn Gundlach) wrote in message news:<acb22b57.0310042128.5d44d5d0@posting.google.com>...

bigcat@meeow.co.uk (N. Thornton) wrote in message news:<a7076635.0309221136.694ce9e7@posting.google.com>...

Here in England the throwaway culture is mind boggling. People
literally buy items, throw them away for no reason, go buy another,
another... its remarkable. They've bought into the advertising
nonsense in a huge way, basic common sense has gone right out the
window.

We're way worse than America like that.

When I say no reason I mean ask them for reasons and they can come out
with nothing valid, in most cases.


The knowledge needed to use junked parts is so
trivial as to be unbelievable that anyone would avoid learning it,
once you know it.

Its odd that no-one teaches this stuff. Why would a hobbyist order
stuff, and have to pay and wait days for it, when they have what they
need already? Bonkers. IMHO One of the basics of electronics is how to
identify and use what you've already got.

Daft notions of fashion are being put ahead of medical care,
retirement income, house ownership, vets bills, decent food... the
list goes on. This society is losing the plot methinks.

/rant

Regards, NT

Yeah, but say your $59.95 VCR needs a new upper drum.

Then it gets junked. I've no problem with that at all. What I thnik is
nutty is when people junk a table lamp because the fuse blew, or a
sound modern TV just because they dont want it any more. Properly
working stereos here are going for the asking, in large numbers. Even
cars, a mid-range medium size car in sound condition, 15 years old,
all the legal paperwork, etc, will fetch.... nothing.

Regards, NT

An hour of my
time is worth more than the VCR and even if it DID break even, its
still an old machine with other potential problems. They sent me to
Lutheran school for 8 years and that 'sinful to be wasteful' message
took a LONG time to get over. I still try not to waste but I don't get
upset about tossing stuff out (wouldn't convince you after seeing my
garage though). If it appears serviceable, the Goodwill and Salvation
Army is a possibility.
GG

 

[Fred Bloggs]

Jonathan Bromley wrote:

"zaf" <hsultan@utnet.utoledo.edu> wrote in message
news:3aaabe6b.0310051158.5dd1f1b@posting.google.com...


Hello members...i need urgent help with a digital design problem


It amuses me that student problems are invariably "urgent". By
contrast, we who work in the commercial world of course have
infinitely long timescales for our projects


can some please help me expand the following function using shannon's
expansion theorem


Not being an academic I have never heard of Shannon's expansion
theorem, but Shannon was a pretty bright guy and I have no reason
to doubt that he invented such a thing.


F = (A.B.C)'
= C' + A'C + AB'C


It's useful to remember that you can write a multiplexer as
a Boolean expression:

Mux = in0.Sel' + in1.Sel

represents a 2:1 mux selected by Sel, with inputs in0 and in1.
To help with this Mux description, let's define that as a
function M(in0,in1,Sel).

So we can re-think your expression as multiplexers...

F = C' + (A' + A.B').C
= C' + C.M(1, B', A)
= M(1, M(1, B', A), C)

One more little observation:
B' = 1.B' + 0.B
= M(1, 0, B)

Hey, I got one over on your prof! I don't need that OR gate at all!

F = M(1, M(1, B', A), C)
= M(1, M(1, M(1, 0, B), A), C)


|\
|\ 1-| |
|\ 1-| | | |----F
1-| | | |------| |
| |------| | |/
0-| | |/ |
|/ | C
| A
B

ASCII-schematic with thanks, as usual, to Andy Weber's wonderful
AACircuit program (www.tech-chat.de).

--
Jonathan Bromley, Consultant

DOULOS - Developing Design Know-how
VHDL * Verilog * SystemC * Perl * Tcl/Tk * Verification * Project Services

Doulos Ltd. Church Hatch, 22 Market Place, Ringwood, Hampshire, BH24 1AW, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1425 471223 mail: jonathan.bromley@doulos.com
Fax: +44 (0)1425 471573 Web: http://www.doulos.com

The contents of this message may contain personal views which
are not the views of Doulos Ltd., unless specifically stated.

The OP is referring to ACTEL's legacy ACT 1 FPGA family, their very
first but still supported. The basic Logic Module (LM) looks like so:

Please view in a fixed-width font such as Courier.



--
| \
A1 ---|1 \
| |
| |------+
| | |
A0 ---|0 / | --
| / | | \
-- | +--|1 \
| | |
SA --------+ | |-> F
| |
+--|0 /
-- | | /
| \ | -- |
B1 ---|1 \ | |
| | | |
| |------+ |
| | |
B0 ---|0 / |
| / |
-- | |
| |
SB --------+ |
|
|
__ |
S0 ---\ \ |
| >----------------+
S1 ---/__/


Shannon's theorem refers to the MUX expansion as you already explained,
but goes deeper into unique minterm expansion claims. Now try it- but
wait a week so the OP cannot claim extra credit on his assignment.

 

Todd Walker <twalker294@hotmail.com> wrote:

Well Steve, the troll is back. Since you were the one keeping him away,
what did you do to bring him back? Do we have you alone to blame for
this? After all, you insisted that you were the one keeping him away,
right?

"i don't think so. I'm why he's not ripping us to shreds right now"

and

"he listens to what I ask of him
then he decides what to do
so far, we've both been reasonable people."

Steve is the troll