Its so hard to learn without equipments - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / repair

author: ActiveRegion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 09:39:08 pm
content: I've been dying to learn how to repair electronics. Phone. laptop. appliances. anything!I watched gazillion videos. read books and blogs.Theoretical learning is one thing, but doing it in-practice is a different game on its own.i love electronics, but theres no way i can afford any equipments in my financial situation and economy.All i have is a cheapskate $2 soldering iron and solder lead.It just so sad to be forever watching youtube videos of you know u can do but cant just because.Where did you guys start?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 09:55:06 pm
content: Cheapest soldering stations are in the $50 range. Something like thishttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/3256804035121632.htmlIt is not great, but absolutely workable, especially if you have more time than money.But the biggest issue here would be components. If you are going to repair stuff, soldering equipment is the least of the issues. Almost all spare parts would cost more than the soldering station above.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 09:58:00 pm
content: Are you a student, any jobs you can do?Access to electronics recycler or junk yard that you can get stuff for free or very low cost?Maybe check on facebook marketplace, if anyone in your region is using that to get rid of electronics.I started with non-temp controlled weller and dollar store screwdrivers. You could get a much better iron for $20 these days.There should still be a decent amount of equipment you can fix with a cheap iron (eg old audio equipment, appliances, etc.)

author: tunk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:10:55 pm
content: If you don't have a multimeter, a 4-5$ DT-830B is far better than no multimeter.

author: ActiveRegion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:19:10 pm
content: im a student from the far end of the globe sir.Dumpster diving is not too common here. Our regular waste is not managed well much more the electronics. E-waste recycling is pretty much inexistent here. Regular garbage and electronics goes together, worse it ends in our water (we are one of the worse ocean polluter)forgot to mention i have managed to collect screwdrivers from my father hand me downs.So theres that.$20 iron sounds good, but i only have $5.. and i have other things to prioritize (food, water, rent).Thats how financially incapable i am, its just frustrating that i posted here maybe ill learn how to get started from nothing.From your experience, how long till you get a decent equipment.

author: xrunner
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:22:46 pm
content: Quote from: ActiveRegion on June 30, 2022, 09:39:08 pmWhere did I start? I dunno maybe when I was 12. I remember getting some of the old Radio Shack P-Box kits and putting them together. I don't think I even had an analog multimeter. I just tried to get the things working which wasn't always guaranteed. I especially remember the shortwave radio kit. By today's standards an absolutely atrocious horrible little thing, but I did manage to receive WWV and radio Netherlands. I had no clue what the components actually did at first, so I tried removing them to see what the radio did or didn't do. Then I started trying to understand what the components did in a circuit. Back then there was no smartphones or internet to distract you, so I managed to learn a lot on my own in my room.https://hackaday.com/2018/12/14/retrotechtacular-remembering-radio-shack-p-box-kits/

author: ActiveRegion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:24:02 pm
content: thanks for the suggestion. But im eyeing for "Boston Home XL830L" which is $3 in my country. Even cheaper!Maybe when i get an extra. Ill surely buy that first!

author: ActiveRegion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:28:19 pm
content: $50 is like a week of food budget already.sorry but is way beyond my means.id like to have that. Someday.I always keep the pcb of any electronics waste we could generate. So i have a few basic components.Did you start with these cheap stations too? How long did you able to upgrade to a decent one? love to hear your story.

author: blackdog
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:34:22 pm
content: Hi,I think it's different for every country, especially differences occur in how rich a country is.It's not so important how I started, that doesn't help you.Much more important is what you are going to do to make sure you get electronic parts, ask people around you if you can have their out of order stuff.Ask for money for the repairs you do, be reasonable especially if you are working with used parts.Do your best, explain what you have repaired and if necessary explain to your customer how to use the equipment so it doesn't break down so quickly.Your customers need to start trusting you, so that way you will get word of mouth.Keep in mind that it will take a lot of time, but if you like the work, you will not find that a big problem.Make sure that in the beginning you also earn money in other ways, like you said, you will have to eat and drink and electricity for your soldering iron!Kind regards,Bram

author: ActiveRegion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:35:03 pm
content: Awesome. You really started at a really young age.I wish i started sooner too.I also noticed that most of the story from america always start from a radio kit.

author: ActiveRegion
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:49:09 pm
content: Quote from: blackdog on June 30, 2022, 10:34:22 pmi couldnt agree more. I dont know if i just fail to put context but i noticed the replies im getting presume that i can easily get ~$10. The minimum wage in my place is $11 per day. Its an easy decision to just spend my days work in food,water,rent to survive than to buy a $10 iron. Much more a $50 one. How i wish!Just a little story, i fixed my aunts TV. Backlight is broken. I checked all the LED backlights using 9V battery. Replaced the LED using an LED from a busted light bulb. It took me years to swap the LED cos they are surface mounts and im using an iron. 2 hours and a crappy soldering job later the TV is fixed. And didnt ask for any price. That time, the satisfaction of making something work again is enough payment. But now i regret not asking for money. Missed chance.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 30, 2022, 10:55:32 pm
content: Quote from: ActiveRegion on June 30, 2022, 09:39:08 pm5) $300 dso, $50 multimeter, etc etc tools that will move you farther...4) money to buy all above. the more you have, the further you can go... the better..3) hence a real job to get good income (you have extra for the above, after deducting from food, rent, other liabilities etc..)2) hence a qualification to get a real job above1) hence knowledge. the cheapest is when you go to school enforced by government.if you hate government or your parents for asking you to go to school that you hate so much, then try to break-in the 3-4-5 cycle and prove them wrong. today the number 1 killer for the (1) are the youtube wankers. cheers.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 12:29:07 am
content: Quote from: ActiveRegion on June 30, 2022, 10:28:19 pmMy story is that I started with a plain 60W soldering iron (not a "station") and when soldering DIP ICs I wrapped a few turns of a thick copper wire around the soldering iron massive tip. The end of the wire was given chisel shape with a file. Cant remember how many hundreds of IC pins and connecting wires were soldered that way.As to how long it took me to get an "adult" soldering station, I won't tell you to not disappoint you,but I started when I was 12.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 01, 2022, 02:23:28 am
content: Find a job and learn with other's people equipment, A low pay entry-level job, you get some money, and play with low-end company money, a lot of companies looking for motivated employees, If is hard to you to find a job, is also hard for they to find a good employe

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2022, 08:41:34 pm
content: I'm noting 13 replies, that's pretty good, because rock-bottom is when nobody cares. (Plus I generally LOVE the Philippines).For doing repair stuff, get yourself a good, big hand magnifying glass, and bright flashlight, for tiny areas, like reading part labels.How you doing, for Internet ? Are smartphones cheap or do you have to borrow / share, and are your minutes limited ? Do you have a bunch of unpaid 'chores' taking up majority of your time ? I have to care for 3 puppies, lots of cuteness, fun, but that eats into 'constructive time'. Still, there are folks that pay very good, for that animal care, and they need an honest / responsible person, even more than the detailed care.Maybe you could do a bit of that, on the side, hoping some 'clients' will notice you aren't going to create other problems.Sounds like, also, maybe the city org can use somebody to help with local 'waste' mess, maybe even just writing up proposals, etc.Main question is, what kind of internet do you have and costs of that, as you progress.Can always send PM, to me, with any technical questions, I did chip level repair on Microprocessor PC boards, plus various PC board defect tracing, such as using a Milliohmeter, finding shorts.- - Rick in Hayward. CA

author: EHT
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2022, 11:02:50 pm
content: Quote from: ebclr on July 01, 2022, 02:23:28 amYes, I agree with this, and the point about education. I started off with cheap equipment when I was a kid, but then the type of junk I could try fixing was quite different to what you'll find now. So learning is the best thing you can do, and since you have internet access, you can do this free of charge. You do need to understand basics such as Ohms law, power & heat dissipation, behaviour of reactive components and how various semiconductors work. Long term, do you want to be a technician or an engineer?Are there common types of household electrical / electronic stuff in your area that could be fixed? If you can make yourself useful by doing that, maybe it gives you an inroad. Ideally you can find a repair store of some kind where they can give you some work. Maybe you can then use their facilities to fix other stuff. Cheap multimeter and soldering iron will go a long way, but of course not if you're trying to fix a phone!Warning - be very careful if you try to fix anything which plugs into line AC.I know it's not what you asked about, but what about software or sysadmin? You should be able to make yourself useful by helping others with technology one way or another and you have plenty of resources to hand on the internet

author: Shock
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2022, 04:43:44 pm
content: Tell everyone you know, you are interested in learning electronics repair. Tell them to keep broken items and contact you for collection. Ask if they can tell there friends the same.You can offer to attempt a repair for them but it's better to just get the device and practice disassembly and troubleshoot at first (with no pressure). People also don't easily appreciate the skill it takes to work on electronics so it's often under-rewarded.What is rewarding is accumulating a few parts and taking something that was beyond an economical repair time wise and then selling it. Just owning a multimeter and soldering iron is a start and as you learn electronics you can expand equipment out of necessity. A power supply is handy also, but you can get by with old PC power supplies or laptop or router power supplies etc.The best pickings for surplus electronics are wealthy areas and business offices. These can be problematic going without invitation though so instead drop a pamphlet or business card in their mail with your contact details. It's not unheard of for people to throw out working electronics, and in most cases you just need to get to it before it's damaged further or picked up by ewaste scrappers.I got started in electronics with a book telling me what components did and how to read color codes. I got gifted a cheap multimeter and I built a fm transmitter, a crystal radio receiver from instructions and then modified it. I added a volume control to my alarm clock and headphone jack to my old tv. A few devices that just ran on batteries I modified to run on power supplies. Repaired gaming joysticks and added a reset to my computer (was really careful on that one).Just simple stuff and kept pulling things to pieces until I had something broken I wanted to repair and by that time I could measure circuits, components and had some mechanical skills in disassembly/reassembly.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2022, 05:20:49 pm
content: Have you seen the Falstad circuit simulator? It's not quite as good as real hardware but it's a lot better than the plain old dry book study.https://www.falstad.com/circuit/

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2022, 05:42:08 pm
content: I did most of the late 70s and early 80s with absolutely no money or equipment. I mostly used stuff people had dumped on the side of the road like televisions and radios from the 50s-60s. Most of the wire I had was dumped on the ground outside phone junction boxes by lazy engineers. My soldering iron, an Antex, was from a jumble sale and cost me 20p and tip was knackered. Tools came from the local junk shop and jumble sales. Multimeter was a Micronta turd I got for Christmas. That was a glorious time of plenty.I think people are probably screwed now because most of the consumer electronics stuff out there has very few salvageable parts and electronic waste recycling is pretty strict. No one has basic tools these days so they aren't really discarded any more and if they are it's because they are completely dead. Difficult times. This means the entry cost to anything is quite significant.But at the same time you clearly have access to a computer which is a massively powerful tool! I would learn LTspice

author: EHT
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2022, 09:53:04 pm
content: Quote from: Shock on July 08, 2022, 04:43:44 pmThis is great advice. I also got started as a kid with scrap stuff. First I took apart old radios, made a few circuits and kits but got lots of experience from junk.As Shock says, proposing to fix things for people often doesnt work out - especially for you to start with where you don't have the equipment, spare parts, or money to buy replacements. They also might expect you to do it as a favour. This is not a reliable way to make money. Best to collect scrap and see what you can do with it

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2022, 10:32:43 pm
content: Quote from: Shock on July 08, 2022, 04:43:44 pmThis. The best way to start learning is to begin with discarded items that are not working, and try to figure out what is wrong with them. Discarded items you should be able to get for free, and the very first diagnostic tool is a magnifier to inspect for bad joints or broken connections. Maybe after that is a soldering iron to repair any broken or bad connections you may find.It is surprising how often a dry solder joint has been the problem when I have successfully repaired things.I need to emphasize this approach is only going to be successful with bigger items with simpler circuits like radios, televisions or small appliances. There is no way you are going to repair smartphones or similar kinds of micro-electronics.

author: Paceguy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2022, 06:19:13 pm
content: Try to get your hands on a cheap multimeter. You would be surprised how many things you can troubleshoot with just a multimeter (if you know how). I started by fixing small things for people with just a cheap analog meter. The money I made I saved up and invested it slowly picking up second hand test equipment over a period of time. Check with your local Ham radio clubs to see if any members have equipment that they can part with. Check around with your local repair shops too. Since your country does not operate or encourage e-waste re-cycling, pick up discarded electronics, and repair and sell the stuff that there is a demand and market for such as flat screen TV's and computer monitors, and again save up that money you make for expanding your equipment. No one builds a decent test bench overnight, it can take some time but remain persistent and it will give you results. Good luck!