Circuit board repair

I have a friend who is an electrical engineer by training and is very
competent at circuit board repair. He has a customer who makes
industrial equipment that sends their boards to him to repair.
Apparently they are pleased with his work and have been sending him
boards for 8-10 years. He needs additional income and would like to
add to his business but doesn't know how to advertize his services.

Can you offer any ideas about how he can go about this?

 

[Richard Crowley]

<jkolhagen@sbcglobal.net> wrote ...

I have a friend who is an electrical engineer by training and is very
competent at circuit board repair. He has a customer who makes
industrial equipment that sends their boards to him to repair.
Apparently they are pleased with his work and have been sending him
boards for 8-10 years. He needs additional income and would like to
add to his business but doesn't know how to advertize his services.

Can you offer any ideas about how he can go about this?

Repair of the physical board (cracked/broken, etc.)
or repair/replacement of components ON the board?

Does he do the debugging (trouble-shooting, or "fault-finding"
as they way on the right side of the Pond)?

Could be described as "component-level diagnosis and repair"
or something similar. See similar vendors and how they describe
their services.

Might be helpful to further describe specialization: power,
logic, industrial controls, audio, video, RF, microwave, etc.
And whether he provides repair parts, etc.

Of course, this kind of repair is likely becoming extinct since
most boards are cheaper to replace than to manually repair
these days.

 

Thanks for the reply. He can do it all. Also, his specialization
covers all the areas you mentioned. He is a whiz as long as he has a
schematic.


On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 18:49:59 -0800, "Richard Crowley"
<rcrowley7@xprt.net> wrote:

jkolhagen@sbcglobal.net> wrote ...
I have a friend who is an electrical engineer by training and is very
competent at circuit board repair. He has a customer who makes
industrial equipment that sends their boards to him to repair.
Apparently they are pleased with his work and have been sending him
boards for 8-10 years. He needs additional income and would like to
add to his business but doesn't know how to advertize his services.

Can you offer any ideas about how he can go about this?

Repair of the physical board (cracked/broken, etc.)
or repair/replacement of components ON the board?

Does he do the debugging (trouble-shooting, or "fault-finding"
as they way on the right side of the Pond)?

Could be described as "component-level diagnosis and repair"
or something similar. See similar vendors and how they describe
their services.

Might be helpful to further describe specialization: power,
logic, industrial controls, audio, video, RF, microwave, etc.
And whether he provides repair parts, etc.

Of course, this kind of repair is likely becoming extinct since
most boards are cheaper to replace than to manually repair
these days.

 

[Baphomet]

<jkolhagen@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:ncb9vvk98fcoogf2hivij887i8mbv0temo@4ax.com...

I have a friend who is an electrical engineer by training and is very
competent at circuit board repair. He has a customer who makes
industrial equipment that sends their boards to him to repair.
Apparently they are pleased with his work and have been sending him
boards for 8-10 years. He needs additional income and would like to
add to his business but doesn't know how to advertize his services.

Can you offer any ideas about how he can go about this?

There are several ways your friend could approach this. Sticking with
industrial repair would probably yield him the greatest return per board
because of the limited quantities involved in manufacture and the greater
initial cost of the equipment, adding value to his service. Perhaps the
client for which he has successfully worked for several years could offer
referrals as manufacturers often network and have contacts within the
industry.

At the other end of the spectrum would be repair of consumer electronic p.c.
boards. This is probably a riskier proposition as these boards have little
value due to their being mass produced. As Richard Crowley wrote,
manufacturers usually find it cheaper to replace rather than repair.
However, if your friend could set a repair price below the replacement cost
of a new board (and it is conceiveable that he could because of the large
number of the same type of board for which he could build a dedicated test
fixture and maintenance of spare parts inventory), I have no reason to
believe that a manufacturer wouldn't give the offer some consideration.

Perhaps a place to start would be by looking through manufacturing trade
journals to get a feel for industry trends. He will have to do a significant
amount of networking and follow up of promising leads. He will have to
figure out a way of promoting his service(s), perhaps through trade shows
where he could meet people in the industry and where he could hand out
literature describing his service, print advertising and creation of a
website.