What is the level of repairability of these equipements ?

[CapLeaker]

Re: What is the level of repairability of these equipements ?

Unfortunately, you can use this to argue that very FEW things are "worth the time" to repair. Guesstimate the number of hours, start to finish; multiply by your hourly rate; inflate to cover the potential for a REPEAT failure within the (nonexistent!) warranty period you'll provide yourself. Anything costing less than that to replace is a losing proposition.

However, the fallacy in this is the assumption that there is someone always waiting to PAY you your hourly rate. If not, your time is (in a bookkeeping sense) "worth nothing" for that calculus!

There's also the value of learning from those repairs -- as well as learning HOW things likely fail (esp if you are a designer trying to produce reliable products).

From the strict "time accounting" outlined in my first paragraph, there are very few "consumer" items that are worth my time to repair. OTOH, there is a certain therapeutic value in fixing OTHER folks' design problems -- instead of perpetually tweaking your own designs. E.g., I can repair a monitor while I'm watching a movie so there's no "lost" time and, thus, no "cost" for that time.

I repaired a (cheap) rescued electronic stopwatch, yesterday -- a $30 (retail) item. How much of my time was THAT worth? (And, I really have no need for the damn thing but it was fun to tinker with it!)

OTOH, data recovery is very tedious -- esp if you are trying to be thorough. You never know if some file isn't "hiding" someplace that you've not yet bothered to check.

And, it's psychologically distressing; I don't want to see folks' photos, tax returns, email correspondence, porn collection, etc. "Too much information"!

[I had to recover a female friend's computer some years ago. I wasn't pleased to see the naked dude sporting a substantial erection as her "wallpaper"! How do I wipe that from my mind when I speak with her, thereafter? :< ]

Been there, done all that too. I know exactly what you are saying and I agree with it to a certain degree. But at the end of the day, I have to meet the expectations, to put food on the table and pay the bills. If there is time or $$$ that's gravy.
I don't really want to get into details and answer each paragraph, because things change when you get a bit older. For example: There is no F*cking way, I am going to lift even a finger, while my butt is on the couch watching a movie, once a week. Other than that, I am always at work, including weekends and holidays. Right now I am just doing too many things at the same time.

[Curious.George]

Re: What is the level of repairability of these equipements ?

Been there, done all that too. I know exactly what you are saying and I agree with it to a certain degree. But at the end of the day, I have to meet the expectations, to put food on the table and pay the bills. If there is time or $$$ that's gravy.

Of course! A colleague used to rationalize NOT doing certain things because "his time was worth more than that". I pointed out that "no one is paying you, right now, to chat with me -- so, your time is worth NOTHING, right now!" He never "bought" the argument. Then, got fired. Now, his TIME hadn't changed -- still 24 hours in each day -- yet suddenly it was worth $0!

For example: There is no F*cking way, I am going to lift even a finger, while my butt is on the couch watching a movie, once a week.

Ah. I usually can't sit through a movie "uninterrupted". Few seem to hold my interest as I've gotten older (though RED and Flushed Away are good at making me forget the other things that need to be done). But, then again, I only watch DVD movies and there's always the PAUSE button! The same is true of novels.

Other than that, I am always at work, including weekends and holidays. Right now I am just doing too many things at the same time.

When I worked for The Man, I was always called on to put in long hours (deadlines). So, there's no difference doing it for myself. Except I can control the "when" and "what" -- prefering to do most of my work in the evenings/overnite and using daylight hours for other things.

E.g., tomorrow, 4 hours of pro bono in the morning (instead of sleeping late).

I'm always amused by folks who "don't have anything to do" (bored)... REALLY??

[dicky96]

Re: What is the level of repairability of these equipements ?

Interestingly not mentioned by anyone else.... but the buy -> repair -> sell market can be very financially rewarding. Plus you don't have the stress of getting repairs completed to a deadline nor do you have any customer to dissapoint if you couldn't repair an item. This is something you can do in your spare time or full time.

Just find some product that holds a good second value and demand in the area you live and has a readily available supply of 'scrap / spares or repair' items to purchase cheap. What you can't fix either helps to build up a good stock of useful spare parts, or you can always sell it again spares or repair.

I've done this sort of work in various fields, but when I was living in the UK, Mobile DJ and disco lighting (lasers, mixers, amplifiers/speakers, smoke machines etc) proved to be a very profitable market. Especially if you could find job lots of similar equipment to purchase.

Look for local industrial/commercial/bankruptcy/customer returns/insurance claim auctions, recycling companies and online auctions to find stuff to fix.

I am sure there are plenty of other similar niches out there.

Rich

[SistMaticZ]

Re: What is the level of repairability of these equipements ?

Interestingly not mentioned by anyone else.... but the buy -> repair -> sell market can be very financially rewarding. Plus you don't have the stress of getting repairs completed to a deadline nor do you have any customer to dissapoint if you couldn't repair an item. This is something you can do in your spare time or full time.

Just find some product that holds a good second value and demand in the area you live and has a readily available supply of 'scrap / spares or repair' items to purchase cheap. What you can't fix either helps to build up a good stock of useful spare parts, or you can always sell it again spares or repair.
.

Rich

Thanks for your words. I have started to follow this approach not too long ago and its better than the stress of getting things repaired no matter how .

What am doing is repairing things that are rapidly repairable without being lazy about it , if some spare needs to be searched for i can do it no problem , but if things get too unlucky then i switch to your approach buy-repair-sell.