25 Feb
2008
25 Feb
'08
2:47 p.m.
Apart from
people on this list (and it's not even universal here) and
people doing related hobbies like vintage radio repairs, component-leve=
l
repair is alas very rare now. Even TV repairs (at
least in the UK) have
become board-swapping with the advent of the plasma panel and LCD TVs (=
most
manufactuers of such sets do not supply
schematics, and don't supply th=
e
ASICs other than on the PCB).
When we had our shop (which we closed in 1992), getting good service inf=
o on=20
things even back then was a real hassle at times. What's more worrying to me is that the
ability to diagnose a fault seem=
s
to have gone as well. We've had this rant to
many times that I don't fe=
el
like starting it again...
It seems to require some detailed level of understanding of how stuff wor=
ks, =20
that level of detail being too often omitted in what info you do get. I =
have=20
something, it has an ASIC in there, fine -- just tell me how it's suppo=
sed=20
to _act_ in the circuit! But no, that's too much trouble...