Louis Rossmann is doing a new type of video tutorial - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 02:17:15 pm
content: Louis Rossmann normally produces good videos on Apple motherboard repair, business related stuff and personal development..He has been accused of being a 'one trick pony' and has decided to expand his channels subject matter as an experiment. He is looking to show that a specialist repair tech does not need to focus on just one product line or service type.His comments on Dildo repair cracked me up. I am in agreement with him on that line of repair work ! No thanks. He also mentioned RC drone repair...... Is it a viable business model ?Hopefully this will be interesting viewing. I am Ex Civil Service, so running a business is foreign to me. I have learnt much from Louis over the past few months. He is a really decent guy who honestly wants to share useful information with other techs. Well worth watching a good range of his videos. Just forgive him for the odd few where he gets annoyed and rants a bitHe is often verbalising what we have often thought anyway !https://youtu.be/8DzEgAjzMwMFraser

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 02:38:18 pm
content: Quote from: Fraser on March 22, 2016, 02:17:15 pmIn all honesty, even if we entertain the idea that he is a one trick pony (which I don't think he is), who gives a fuck? He is doing something useful with his life and he does it well. His critics are classic examples of douchebags exhibiting the classic tall poppy syndrome. Screw those kinds of people.Anyway, best of luck for Louis and his new direction. I love his rants and I hope to hear more.

author: Turbon
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 02:48:20 pm
content: How do one search after any interesting part in a video? One can't - for the searchers of how to do anything - text is the best!Get rid of youtube for technical stuff exept for selling maybe...Regards

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 04:30:04 pm
content: I haven't watched too many of his videos but I do believe this is the first I've seen where he didn't call someone a shitstain.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 04:31:27 pm
content: Good luck finding decent written sources on repairing Apple motherboards. Authoring technical documents takes time and often needs photo's anyway. You can see technique in a video that cannot easily be explained in text.When watching something educational why not watch it all and soak up the information. Patience Grasshopper, Patience.Fraser

author: 3db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 04:51:28 pm
content: I like Louis Rossmann.He's a classic and I think his new videos will be interesting.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 05:54:36 pm
content: Quote from: Fraser on March 22, 2016, 02:17:15 pmThis repair is mostly just poor connections and cleaning contacts, plus a little mechanical fixing of the horrid cheap motors and resistive controllers. Just never work on any that have been used...........

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 07:00:50 pm
content: I would prefer to not work on any as a commercial concern ...... Imagine being known as the Dildo Tech !Fraser

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 07:12:13 pm
content: Quote from: Fraser on March 22, 2016, 02:17:15 pmThat's a very good description of his channel.He is having success repairing expensive Apple products.Will be difficult to replicate repairing low cost products such as the ones you mentioned.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 08:57:50 pm
content: Hi Zapta,That is exactly what he said.The references to Dildo and Drone repair is an idea that a lady iPhone repairer has mentioned to Louis.Fraser

author: Macbeth
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 09:05:55 pm
content: There is some weird super high end high price dildo manufacturer though, I think it appeals to Silicon Valley types. They are all shaped like monster dicks or something. I can't remember the name but those Reddit media types love them.ETA: bad-dragon.comYeah if someone wants me to fix her expensive vibe for £50 then I wouldn't shrug, even if it must be a fetish of hers to do that rather than replace.For some real life "Carry On..."I remember my next door neighbour in the 1970's actually had a TV repair man fix her telly, then pretended it was broken and called him back, answered the door in her bathrobe and fully exposed herself, then fucked the poor guy to death and ended up marrying him.It was great because 7 year old me was friends with her daughter and I got loads of old bags of components from them.Sadly, when I did the odd field service when I was an apprentice bench TV service engineer I only got to meet old pensioners and those cat women (who couldn't comprehend cats getting warm on the top of the TV and then pissing down the back will kill it). As a horny 18 year old I should have had clunge on tap... damn it! old pensioners and cat women!

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2016, 09:24:34 pm
content: Other gadgets you don't want to have on your repair bench for hygiene reasons:* electric shavers - full of soap slime and hair clippings* the dremel-like tools used by chiropodists - clagged up beyond belief with powdered dead skin* any set-top-box the customer's cat has peed in.* pub TVs from before the smoking ban.

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 12:03:05 am
content: I never even had the thought that Louis was a 'one trick pony' ever cross my mind. To me, at least, his style of presentation just doesn't even suggest a limited outlook. I can only imagine the origin of such criticisms come from people who are simply jealous and/or feel threatened by someone who understands more than they do. Knock him down so they can feel good about themselves. It's a sad reflection on society made ugly by the internet, especially with the anonymity it can offer.As for his decision to venture into a broader range of topics, I welcome it. All too often, I get asked for help in some technology assessment/decision making process and I have to let people know that while I understand a range of material from fundamental physics to circuit parameters and can compare spec. sheets - I do NOT know the ins and outs of the implementation in commercially available products.I see Louis' new arena as a means to pick up clear hints and tips on reasoning and product choice. I look forward to absorbing the extra knowledge and experience that will help frame my understanding into a more useful real-world skill. Whatever the topic, I'm sure it will be interesting - and when one comes up that's particularly relevant, I'll be glued to my screen.I look forward to the next video...

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 12:26:35 am
content: Wow, Louis has been a busy bunny today. He is up to video number 21 on VOIP telephony !I am no great follower of telephony related videos so I will likely sample a few and then wait for the next repair video.When you cannot sleep and the wife is in the land of nod, there is nothing like sitting at the breakfast bar relaxing with a beer/wine/tea in hand and watching a Louis Rossmann video on my iPadAnd no he does not send me to sleep !Fraser

author: RobertBG
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 03:18:15 am
content: I initially thought he was a tool who just liked to hear himself talk and was a second away from clicking to the next video.But something he said made sense and after giving him a chance he really has a lot to offer and seems to do it for the right reasons.I dont always agree with him but I usually learn something.He's carved a nice little niche and has worked hard to get there and its no surprise some lazy hater considers him a one trick pony lol.The funny part is if they took some of his advice and worked hard they would be too busy making money to be bothered calling him names

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 03:36:51 am
content: Quote from: RobertBG on March 23, 2016, 03:18:15 amI wonder how easy it is to replicated his success in the the repair business. He seems to have the knack for both running a business and diagnosing boards which many wannabes don't have.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 03:39:30 am
content: Quote from: Fraser on March 23, 2016, 12:26:35 amNot surprising, it takes a while to assemble that whole mess!

author: vze1lryy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 03:55:57 am
content: Quote from: zapta on March 23, 2016, 03:36:51 amI do decent not because I am some genius. I think it's because the people with more business sense than I have have no technical sense, the people with more technical sense than I have no customer service skills, the people with more customer service skills than I have no business sense OR technical sense. So there are tons of people far better than I in each individual area. I wouldn't call myself an expert in any of the above categories, but being "good enough" at all of them gives me the perspective needed to not go back to modell's sporting goods putting pricetags on basketballs. Oh man that was a shitty jobpolyester uniform in the summer, metal roof, poor A/C.I was a solid 70 student in high school. I kinda feel the same way in my professional life. Am I a design engineer... no. Am I an IPC certified soldering whiz that can repeatedly do microBGA jumper wires with ease, absolutely not. Can I read lines off a script so I can work in retail with people screaming at me without losing it, no. Am I a programmer or certified IT technician, no. Can I look at numbers for a business and figure out if it is a good investment at a glance, no. How socially graceful one is means nothing if they are bankrupt and no amount of business savvy will tell someone where to put the wire to make something work again, and no amount of troubleshooting knowledge will get people to want to do business with you if you're an awkward, grumpy, unrelatable asshole.So just being decent enough in every category works well for me.I can just see enough sides of the coin to do well. I am definitely not as talented as that engineer who spent almost 20 years of his life designing an auto-time-release circuit on an audio compressor, nearly everything I solder will be crooked, I am not going to write a book on getting all your customers to love you... but I can make people happy by appealing to how I'd feel in their situation, and being on the same page as them. I'm good at making these really basic analogies on how electronics fail to common sense and logical storylines, whether it's TVs from the 50s, EQs/compressors/consoles from the 70s, laptop boards from the 2000s to the real world so I don't have to be a PhD in physics to come up with why RTC being pulled down affects the series 9 PCH power sequence, and I am always open to applying that same logic to solving a new problem.I think combining some basic common sense, with ethics, with reality of the world makes for good business sense, and if I'm put in a room of broken stuff, whether it's a bunch of audio gear from 50s-70s, old TVs, laptop motherboards, I'll find a way to make it work again.I have been trolled for a very long time by professional engineers. This video playlist is an exciting new beginning, a chance to get trolled by grouchy old sysadmins and the people I grew up reading vitriol from on slashdot.It should be fun. I am no expert on phone systems, I have not taken any classes, I have not contributed code to asterisk, I have not created any standards... but I know how to read, and someone asked me after a recent video on call recording how I did it, so I figured I'd show how it worked. Five years ago I thought this was total rocket science and wizardry. Someone else probably thinks that as well, gotta break the myth for them too.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 04:00:10 am
content: Quote from: Fraser on March 23, 2016, 12:26:35 amHe runs the risk of diluting content on his channel with that many videos on the one obscure topic.That's a lot of email notifications on a very niche topic, nicher than his already niche audience. Some people might not like that and unsub.Not channel destroying of course, but most likely not channel building IMO. But ultimately, if he enjoys it, then bugger what anything thinks

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 11:10:42 am
content: The other downside to producing more generalised content, as I know painfully well, is that it's much harder to keep your audience happy. Impossible in fact.The more you do it, and the more diverse content you do, the harder it gets.My channel has one of the biggest ratios of thumbs down across all the engineering channels. Party tall-poppy syndrome, but also partly (mostly?) inability to produce enough content across all the categories people actually subscribed for.The up side of that is appealing to a wider audience, and also increasing your Google/Youtube SEO (and thumbs downs count as engagement)From a channel growth perspective, for niche channels in our field, more generalisation is the best (and probably only) way to ultimately really grow a channel.For other niche but very broad public appeal channels like say the science Youtubers, staying very narrow focused and sticking to the same type of formulaic video every time is the most important thing.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 02:46:49 pm
content: Having watched Louis repair many APPLE motherboards, I am minded of one challenge that he has not explored, yet it is a VERY common problem in the electronics & computer repair industry.......Repairing equipment for which there are NO schematics or service documents available, either legitimate or 'stolen'. Louis is fortunate enough to have sourced 'stolen' APPLE schematics and I truly envy him as he flies around the diagrams and board layout images. How I wish I had the same sort of data when repairing many devices and computers. Of course there are some well known sources of equipment schematics on the Internet, but sadly sods law ensures that they do not have the one that I need. I end up using chip datasheets, chip application notes and any other data I can harvest to build a picture of how a unit is built and operating. Then it is the hard graft of reverse engineering the board, or a suspect area of it.This approach is sadly very time consuming and likely not economic for most repair houses as the customer is unlikely to want to pay the labour costs involved. I have spent up to 3 months reverse engineering highly complex devices in order to repair them. They were worth a lot of money though so it was worth the effort.Where computers are concerned, a repair tech can approach the board without a schematic and check for the more obvious failures.First and foremost a visual check for evidence of damage or destruction.... that can tell a tech much about what happened. Analysis of the fault symptoms can also aid the locating of a specific section of the board that may be responsible. Followed by.......1. Power Supplies2. Clocks3. RESET line states4. Address Buses for stuck lines5. Data Buses for stuck lines6. Error states on CPU pinsand so on.Sometimes these checks can lead the tech to the source of the problemThis is my life most of the time...... no schematics or easy paths to repair. Economic in a commercial world ?..... I very much doubt it. This may be why Louis has not covered such approaches. He does not waste his time on GPU replacement for the same reason. Fitting a suspect part, from some part recovery vendor, in place of a failed one is a waste of his time and effort.I was pleased to see that Louis is fighting for the release of repair data by manufacturers. It is the Green thing to do to prevent disposal of repairable electronics to Landfill or whatever recycling is in place. I truly believe in the right to repair.Fraser

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 04:02:56 pm
content: Quote from: vze1lryy on March 23, 2016, 03:55:57 amThat's the power of being a good generalist, you can handle anything the universe throws at you.

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2016, 04:19:35 pm
content: +1 on the comment from Zapta.I was trained as a Generalist and then chose to specialise in several interesting areas of electronics and technical security. I have always had my generalist repair skills to fall back on when needed.I was trained a Maritime College but others take engineering apprenticeships. Both provide an excellent grounding in electronics and mechanics.Fraser