Ecotech Services blog

Television repairs

Ecotech Services administration

29 April 2021

UPDATE (November 2021): We are now offering television repairs again but there should be an expectation that in some cases the repairs may be uneconomical.

Due to the difficulties that are often encountered Ecotech Services no longer offers to repair televisions, with the exception of those that have a CRT display.

The difficulties are due to a number of factors including expensive or unavailable spare parts, delays in getting spare parts from abroad, the proliferation of cheap second hand units, and the high incidence of the commercially uneconomical repairs to units with backlight failures.

We still offer our television recycling service and still sell refurbished ones.
Too far gone

Alan Liefting

16 January 2021

I couldn’t save this calculator. It was too far gone!

The leaky battery corroded a lot of the PCB tracks.

Scrapped.

RIP.

electronics, repair
Conductive glue

Alan Liefting

16 January 2021

Some manufacturers are just not learning from past manufacturing mistakes. Or they just don’t care about how long the stuff they make will last.

One of the faults with some electronic equipment is a glue used in manufacturing that becomes conductive with age (or age and heat). I first found out about it back in the 1990s when I was repairing CRT computer monitors at Phillips Electronics. It caused all sorts of faults.

Fast forward to the 2020s and there is still problems with conductive glue. Here is the insides of a Digistar DS-612T set top box.

Glenn is testing the faulty set top box.

The unit appeared dead but it eventually produced a display but that was about all. There is conductive glue in the power supply and around a logic ic. We got readings as low as about 1.5MΩ which will cause problems in any high impedance circuits.

We had to scrap the unit. What a waste.

electronics, repair
Handy reference chart for plug pinouts

Alan Liefting

6 January 2021

<humour>

This is a reference chart for plug pinouts.

Save this image for future reference.
Image: xkcd

We can rely on xkcd to give us some good, reliable information.

</humour>

electronics, humour
A costly calculator repair

Alan Liefting

4 January 2021

This MS-7LA calculator came in for recycling last year. It did not power on.

It is the holidays at present so I thought I would do some holiday hobby work (repairing things is one of my hobbies).

I undid the three screws on the back of the calculator and the back cover come off fairly easily. The leaky battery was easy to spot. I cleaned the circuit board and put in a new battery. Still no go! On closer inspection the circuit board pad looked a bit tarnished. I then spotted the completely corroded PCB track that would have been where the interface between the anode and cathode of the leaky battery was positioned.

I removed the battery clip, cleaned the anode terminal, and added a wire link (the blue wire in the photo below) to fix the corroded track.

With the battery back in the calculator was back in operation.

That all took me about 20 minutes. At our current labour rates that would have cost a customer $26 for the labour alone and at our current minimum repair fee cost it would have been $35. The battery costs $3.25 or $5.00 for one of good quality.

You can buy a roughly equivalent calculator of a well known brand for less than $4.00. The current Casio equivalent sells for $20 but I can probably only get $5 for the one that I repaired.

repair
A waste of time

Alan Liefting

25 November 2020

These brand new mains cables came in for recycling.

Not only was it a waste of time test and tagging brand new cables but they ended up with us for recycling.

We get hundreds of these cables both new and second hand.

e-waste, electrical, safety
Electrical tape and extension cords

Alan Liefting

17 October 2020

This cable came in as part of a whole bunch of other stuff from an IT company.

Not sure why someone would want to make one of these. A mains plug to IEC connector cable is pretty easy to get hold of. We get them as new and used by the millions – well lots anyway.

The taped up joint is a bit dodgy! The Electricity (Safety) Regulations 2010 says that cables are unsafe if they “are inadequately protected against the risk of damage by the nature of their covering or their method of installation”. The AS/NZS 3760 In-service safety inspection and testing of electrical equipment standard says that tape should not be used, and I would agree on that point.

The wires were soldered and heatshrinked under the tape so it is not as bad as some of the others that I have seen.

electrical, safety
2020 International Repair Day

Ecotech Services administration

12 October 2020

As a means of promoting the repair industry Ecotech Services is offering free repairs or evaluation to a wide range of faulty electrical, electronic and computer equipment on the 2020 International Repair Day.

The event will be held at our premises on Saturday the 17th of October between 8:30am and 5:00pm at 139A Wordsworth St in Sydenham, Christchurch.

The free repair offer does not include any parts that may be needed and if time is limited the repairs may not be completed. The repairs will be carried out by experienced technicians and where needed will be carried out by registered electrical workers.

Labour price increase

Ecotech Services administration

29 July 2020

Effective immediately we are increasing our labour charge out rates since we can no longer absorb the increased costs of the numerous changes and challenges with which we are faced. Our labour prices had not changed at all since the formation of Ecotech Services in the early 2000s.

Even with the increase our prices are still comparatively low.

These new labour rates make it easier for us to continue with offering our services that reduce the impact of technology on the environment.

	Min/inspect/assess fee	per 10 minutes	per hour
Minor repairs	N/A	$15.00	N/A
Electronic and electrical repairs	$45.00	$15.00	$90.00
Computer repairs	$54.00	$18.00	$108.00
Recycling labour	$12.50	$12.50	$75.00
Consultation	$120.00	N/A	$120.00

		per item
Test and tag (workshop)		$5.00
Remote controls		$25.00	$8.00 courier if needed

Prices include GST

For a complete list of or pricing see our price list.

Rubbish manufacturing

Alan Liefting

23 April 2020

Had a no name brand battery charger come in for recycling. I set it up on the bench to test it. It powered up but after a bit it turned off. I took the thing apart. Pretty easy to do. Four screws at each end holding the slit extrusion case together and one holding a couple of TO220 packaged devices in place. The earthing was far from ideal. It was just tucked under a self tapping screw and none of the paint had been removed.

So of course the thing will not play up with the covers off! I set it up with a battery to check the charging. That all looked good.

(I’d better not mention here that I put the battery on with reverse polarity and blew the output fuse. Hey, I blame the fact that I did not have a black jumper lead. Yeah right!)

I moved it a bit to look at the front panel and there was a spark and it stopped working! “Oh s**t!” I thought to myself “what have I shorted out?”. Powered it up again and it still did not work. Better do some fault tracing. And then it sparked again. Ha! It is sparking in the Faston style connector. I was lucky that it had one of the clear insulating boots over it so I could easily see the sparking.

The connector had been crimped but the wire gauge was too small for the connector so they just soldered them. In this case there is a big solder blob that got nowhere near the wire. So it was a very loose connection.

Not only did they cut corners with thin wires but they also threw these things together really quickly. The solder hardly melted before they moved on to the next one. And there was probably no quality control or burn in testing.

Such a shame.

I did a decent job of soldering it and then added some proper earthing.

electronics, quality, repair

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