What are the TAFE electronics courses like? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: bigfoot22
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2023, 10:52:51 am
content: deleted

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2023, 03:43:56 pm
content: Would it be a full time course or would you work part time to fund the course?$13,000 is a steep fee (in my opinion), since you've been repairing technology in the past, have you considered 'interning' or part time work at say somewhere that does repair things?It might be a minimum wage job or close to that but you would learn a hell of a lot and it actually gives you direct income whereas the course cost is significant and makes no guarantee that it will result in you finishing as a competent technician. If you intention is to work as an engineer (designing things) then a degree is helpful, especially in getting the first job. But it sounds like you don't want to do that, so I would question the need for a degree, especially if you intend to be self employed.One thing to consider about electronics repair is that, especially at the mobile level, it can be incredibly fiddly. You want to do it until you are retired, but will you be able to swap an 0402 with shaky hands at 65? That needs to be considered, as an engineer as long as your brain is sharp you can typically still do your job, but if you work primarily in the physical world, it will be more of a challenge.Your concerns over liability are resolved by both having professional indemnity insurance and by giving your customer appropriate written disclaimers that repairs are attempted on an as-is basis (perhaps fee free if you can't do the job, but you don't accept liability for that.)

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2023, 04:03:28 pm
content: Quote from: bigfoot22 on January 10, 2023, 03:58:04 pmI think you are setting up an artificial barrier, 38 is still young enough! But you need to make connections. If you want to work in electronics repair have you asked any of the local places if they are hiring? You could explain what you know and your current skill set. And the job could be for just a few days a week initially then as you gain confidence and experience you can try to go full time. These jobs don't always get advertised but they do exist. Minimum wage for a job where you are learning is better than no job for $0 where you don't learn anything.As far as I know outside of certain sectors (say aviation or medical equipment) there are no legal requirements to be qualified to repair electronic devices like phones. No one is going to die if your phone repair doesn't work (well, hopefully not!!) but I guess a mechanic not fitting brakes right is more of an issue.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 10, 2023, 07:14:52 pm
content: Quote from: bigfoot22 on January 10, 2023, 03:58:04 pmWhy not? Just don't promise to fix things but say you give it your best effort. Investigate the difficulty of a problem before making an actual repair attempt. Don't expect to get rich but it can get you a decent income. Back when I was studying EE I had a PC repair service that got me some money. I put advertisements in local newspapers and ads at supermarkets. That got me a steady stream of (repeat) customers and money.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 11, 2023, 09:00:37 am
content: Quote from: bigfoot22 on January 11, 2023, 05:57:22 amThere are a few Australian members on here, but hoping to meet a repair-shop owner who's looking for an intern is maybe a little optimistic. I would recommend you take a walk around your local town centre and speak to some of the people at these shops. It was talking to people - and a little bit of luck - that got me my first internship.Edit: I put "phone repair Newcastle NSW" into Google Maps and got 20 hits - there are probably even more than that - in my small town of <30000 people there are 4 shops that repair phones.Quote from: bigfoot22 on January 11, 2023, 05:57:22 amYou don't need to be self-defeatist. There is no particular reason you should be unable to do electronics repair. Practice makes perfect.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 11, 2023, 01:13:54 pm
content: Welcome Ben,I can't speak about the TAFE courses but no education is wasted, particularly if you're just starting out in an industry.I work in Cyber security/Digital Forensics and part of that involves board-level repair and even some chip-off stuff. I'm no expert but even the basics require some decent gear to do properly.It sounds like you are wanting to work across quite a wide breadth of the industry. If you're wanting to make a business out of this however, consider your services and who else is offering those same services in your area. What can you offer that others can't/don't? Quite often you find people in shopping centres who can do screen or battery swaps in phones in 10 minutes. Probably using the cheapest, nastiest crap they can find on ebay, but nonetheless, consumers are stupid or don't care, they just look at the price (yes, I'm generalising).

author: Saronni
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 12, 2023, 07:46:36 am
content: Hi Ben, you might like to checkout the fee-free courses that TAFE NSW is currently offering:https://www.tafensw.edu.au/fee-free-short-courses#engineering-electrotechnology