(no subject)

[Warren]

Have any Techie type people on this group had any dealings with
the AVC / Tieline company in W.A. and their apparent refusal
to supply service and repair circuit diagrams with many of their
products.
I recently requested some circuits for their 8 channel BM100 mixer
only to be told they do not give them out , and being told to trace the
circuit yourself , if not cough up at least $100 for only parts of the
diagrams.
I suspect they are scared someone will try and build the mixers
themselves.
Isn't there some state laws that manufacturers must provide service info

and support after the sale of the product ?
If that is so, do you think I should get the appropriate state
department of Fair trading on to them.
Warren....

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:09:51 +1000, Warren <wozz1au@yahoo.com.au> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

Have any Techie type people on this group had any dealings with
the AVC / Tieline company in W.A. and their apparent refusal
to supply service and repair circuit diagrams with many of their
products.
I recently requested some circuits for their 8 channel BM100 mixer
only to be told they do not give them out , and being told to trace the
circuit yourself , if not cough up at least $100 for only parts of the
diagrams.
I suspect they are scared someone will try and build the mixers
themselves.
Isn't there some state laws that manufacturers must provide service info

and support after the sale of the product ?
If that is so, do you think I should get the appropriate state
department of Fair trading on to them.
Warren....

Unfortunately there are no such laws. The unavailability of circuit
diagrams is one reason why so much repairable equipment ends up in our
land fills. If the Greenies weren't such useless tree-huggers, they
would have pushed for legislation to mandate the supply of circuit
diagrams at reasonable cost. Ideally, such data would be freely
available in paperless format as a downloadable .pdf file.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.

 

[Ross Herbert]

Mike Harding wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 07:18:35 +1000, Franc Zabkar
fzabkar@optussnet.com.au> wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:09:51 +1000, Warren <wozz1au@yahoo.com.au
I recently requested some circuits for their 8 channel BM100 mixer
only to be told they do not give them out , and being told to trace the
circuit yourself , if not cough up at least $100 for only parts of the
diagrams.

Unfortunately there are no such laws. The unavailability of circuit
diagrams is one reason why so much repairable equipment ends up in our
land fills. If the Greenies weren't such useless tree-huggers, they
would have pushed for legislation to mandate the supply of circuit
diagrams at reasonable cost. Ideally, such data would be freely
available in paperless format as a downloadable .pdf file.

It's not quite so simple.

Not too long ago I supplied a major customer with a goodly
number of 3 different items I had designed (at my own expense
and purely on spec. that said customer would buy them). The
value of this contract was considerable. Additionally if all goes
well (in a year or so) the customer will probably buy _lots_
more of my product or, possibly, the product of a competitor.

Now it just so happens that my major competitor has the
contract for servicing this type of product on behalf of my
customer. Given that in the not too distant future he and I will
be competing for sales I recently refused to release circuits
and software to enable my competitor to service my products.
I'd be pretty silly if, at this stage, I provided my main competitor
with (almost) full design details of my products. I explained the
situation to my customer; he understood and agreed with me.

Mike Harding

Mike,

I totally agree with your summation as to the good reasons which
prevents the unfettered distribution of specific information which
would/could lead to unscrupulous use of proprietary designs by
competitors. For items such as common tv's, and consumer goods there may
be some argument for making information freely available at a fair price
but when it comes to the equipment such as designed by Tieline
Technology http://www.tieline.com/ then it should be understood that
they would have to protect their products from copying.

This thread also brings to mind the success which has been enjoyed by ex
Telstra employees, described in some well known posts to this group as;

"Telstra emloyed the unemployable elsewhere - the most inept of the
inept..."

and similar.

For the information of the group Rod Henderson who runs Tieline is an ex
Telstra tech whom I went through TAFE with in 1978 and he is currently
in the US tieing up licensing deals with companies such as Lucent.
Similarly, another of our Perth ex Telstra techs, Brendon Woods, runs
RadHaz http://www.radhaz.com.au/ out of Melbourne.

No doubt there are many other similar success stories attributable to ex
Telstra employees in this NG and throughout Australia so there must have
been a reasonable number of them who were far more than just
"employable". They started their businesses which are now up with the
world leaders in their field.

Ross Herbert

 

[Phil Allison]

"Warren" <wozz1au@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:3F13FD1F.3DCA73D8@yahoo.com.au...

Have any Techie type people on this group had any dealings with
the AVC / Tieline company in W.A. and their apparent refusal
to supply service and repair circuit diagrams with many of their
products.

** The place is run by some arsehole ex Telstra guy - what do you
expect.

I recently requested some circuits for their 8 channel BM100 mixer
only to be told they do not give them out , and being told to trace the
circuit yourself , if not cough up at least $100 for only parts of the
diagrams.

** Then you had better start tracing ......

Make you effort available on the net - then tell Tieline to
check it for errors !!!

I suspect they are scared someone will try and build the mixers
themselves.

** How big headed of them. Anyone who really wanted to clone one would
not be stopped by lack of a supplied schematic.

Isn't there some state laws that manufacturers must provide service info
and support after the sale of the product ?

** Yes, but not to anyone who asks.

They just need to have it available for themselves or authorised
repairers.



.............. Phil.

 

[Phil Allison]

"Martin, VK2UMJ" <vk2umj@REMOVEyahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:bf2sj0$j9k$1@austar-news.austar.net.au...

Whilst I also find it extremely frustrating at times that I can't get hold
of some schematics, I guess there is also the 'safety' side to consider.
After all, the manufacturer has no way of knowing for sure that you are
'qualified' to service electronic equipment and, especially if there are
high voltages or dangerous rf levels involved, it is conceivable that one
day they could be held liable if someone unqualified zapped themselves
trying to fix something that they provided the schematic for!

** There is no way a maker can be liable for merely making a schematic
available.

DSE etc sell soldering irons, multimeters, and screwdrivers to
anyone don't they ?????

By restricting service info to their authorised service agents only, they
at
least cover their own backs and reinforce that statement "no user
serviceable parts inside".

** The latter is all they need do.



.............. Phil

 

[Franc Zabkar]

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 16:54:12 +1000, "Martin, VK2UMJ"
<vk2umj@REMOVEyahoo.com.au> put finger to keyboard and composed:

Whilst I also find it extremely frustrating at times that I can't get hold
of some schematics, I guess there is also the 'safety' side to consider.
After all, the manufacturer has no way of knowing for sure that you are
'qualified' to service electronic equipment and, especially if there are
high voltages or dangerous rf levels involved, it is conceivable that one
day they could be held liable if someone unqualified zapped themselves
trying to fix something that they provided the schematic for!

At the very least that's a patronising argument. You may as well argue
that a manufacturer of firearms should be held liable for felonious
use of his product (FWIW, I'm for total gun prohibition and I'd like
to see firearm manufacturers put to the sword).

In any case, the OP was invited to reverse engineer the subject unit.
Presumably if he can do it, then so can Tieline's competitors. The big
difference is that the OP needs to invest an uneconomical amount of
time in repairing just the one unit, while Tieline's competition could
amortise the labour cost over thousands (?) of copies. Or they could
just *buy* the circuits, albeit at Tieline's exhorbitant prices. The
end result could be that one genuine unit ends up in the trash, while
thousands of copies hit the market anyway.


- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 's' from my address when replying by email.