Short Answer is NO – Repair is dead
Wait who killed it? – YOU DID
What did I do? – YOU DEMANDED CHEAP
The first thing to go is the expensive engineer in Japan who creates the Product and Publishes a detailed Service Manual, that an Electronics Service Technician can Follow and Possibly Replace a $3.00 part at Component Level.
Most Audio Video Electronics Service Manuals today are Very Small and Not Detailed. For Example it could say – If you get one of these certain problems you might want to try replacing a certain board and if that doesn’t work try the next board. So now skilled technicians are replacing boards and modules instead of un-soldering and replacing parts at component level on the board.
If you have an electrical issue – our third party service center can use there skills to back-trace the issue, but if they run into a burned up resistor – the service manual probably doesn’t tell what the value is and then they are stuck. So then your back to replacing boards, which gets expensive.
Another problem is that most Microprocessors (The Brain) are soldered on by a robot (or other technique) that is almost impossible for a human to replace (since most have 50 legs that are about the size of a hair). So at that point – You probably need to order a new board.
The amount of different electronics have sky rocketed – In the past my Dad’s technicians could become experts on most machines because every brand had a hand full of products. Now his technician is lucky to see the same model from 2 different customers. Unless they have the same business or school district with a lot of the same machines, than it is hard to become an expert.
Google has helped narrow the gap and can be the answer to some fixes. Search your make, model and problem (maybe trying to say it different ways). There is a possibility someone else has found that problem and made a video or wrote an article. Then you can possibly fix your own problem or know what part to tell your repair tech needs to be replaced.
You can also go back to the supposed experts – The manufacturer and ask them if you can send to their factory repair facility. Since this facility repairs hundreds of the same models a year and has a plethora of parts available this is your best bet for an expert repair. If they give you an option of using there local authorized facility, yes it saves on shipping but double check that they repair these on a monthly basis. Sometimes even the local authorized facility are not the experts, because they don’t see enough of them.
After you know all of this – it still might get too expensive to repair. If its more than 7 years old, there is normally no more support from the manufacturer. Not to mention if you fix one part of the item for half price lets say and then something else breaks because all the other parts are 7 years old – The repair technician only warranties the part he replaced not everything else. So then you would have been better off putting that money into a new product with a full warranty.
You might want to do a little bit of research or tinkering, I have seen stereo receivers that the dog walked by – tail hit the speaker on/ off button and that is all it was. Sometimes the Microprocessor (a computer) gets confused and if you reset or power off for 30 seconds and power back on it fixes itself.
Or we can come out and take a look at it for you and determine if it really has a problem and give you your options on repair or replacement.
FYI – Jonathan at Audio Visual Up grew up in an Electronics repair shop (that is still in business). We are really good a diagnosing issues and determining if you really need repair or replacement, but we do not do any on site repair and would have to take the equipment a third party repair shop.
http://audiovisualup.com/contact-us/
