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Hall of Shame - dodgy repairs

Blimey, I’d never profess to be the greatest engineer in the world, I’m disorganised, my workshop looks like the aftermath of an earthquake, but my workmanship is at least the equal of any manufacturer, much of my own kit is stuff I’ve bought faulty and repaired myself, I just can’t understand how anyone with a business could be so bad at their job… I’ve thrown prototypes together on veroboard in a rush and they’ve looked better than anything in that link, he’s totally right to name and shame. That Krell preamp is a crying shame. Where did the original volume control PCB go? No matter how badly damaged it might have been, I could have fixed it, even if it meant using the remains of the original board to draw up a clone PCB and get it remade by PCBway, it could be done, Krell have the individual components (and they’re likely available off the shelf anyway), but if you’ve nothing to work from, it’s scrap… I’d have sued the “engineer” over that one.
 
I had my phone screen changed yesterday and while I was waiting, I could see a technician soldering a big BGA chip on a phone motherboard, He was doing a beautiful job with a paste stencil under a microscope, correct tools neatly to hand. I think that many of the better skilled techs have switched sector.
 
No question all of the 'work' featured is amateur-first-timer tier stuff, but the hyperbole turns my stomach and the example of his own work at the top is undersoldered and has clear signs of flux residue!

Reminds me of the "tradesman-tut" when examining predecessors' efforts.

The more time someone spends telling me how great their work is, and how clever they are, the more certain I am that they're an idiot...
 

At the polar opposite end of the skillset bell-curve here’s an amazing repair on a truly horribly battery-damaged and corroded Acorn Archimedes computer mainboard that proves pretty much anything can be fixed. His patience is unbelievable, that is a parts board at best to most people’s thinking. Obviously not an ‘economic repair’ even if these are rare and collectable vintage computers as it clearly took him months, but I’ve huge respect for folk with the skill to bring things like this back.
 
An acquaintance of mine spent about 4 months, putting a great deal of talent, time and resources into converting a broken handplane into a scraper plane. He coveted a scraper plane, but original ones of the type he wanted are rare and expensive.

He did a truly beautiful job.

I pointed out that even costing his time at a dollar an hour, he could have just bought an original.

His reply: "Shop time is good time"
 
To be fair he has no idea what happened to that krc pre amp volume board, it could have been toast.

But the rest of the stuff, well it's just shocking.

Having rebuilt a ksa200 and ksp7-b pre amp I can attest that the boards are made of cardboard, worst quality pcbs ive ever reworked, but even so only a thug could screw them up like that.
 
Tony L said:

At the polar opposite end of the skillset bell-curve here’s an amazing repair on a truly horribly battery-damaged and corroded Acorn Archimedes computer mainboard that proves pretty much anything can be fixed. His patience is unbelievable, that is a parts board at best to most people’s thinking. Obviously not an ‘economic repair’ even if these are rare and collectable vintage computers as it clearly took him months, but I’ve huge respect for folk with the skill to bring things like this back.
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Jesus, I'm not watching all of that, but amazing work. I am suprised anyone is going to that much trouble for an A3000 in this day and age, but it does look like an engagingly mindful activity.

I bought loads of these and an A5000 for an occupational therapy centre in 1992. Best computers of their day for about 6 months! They used Acorn's proprietary Econet netowrking protocol that used 3 pin DIN plugs. Were they the first ARM PCs?
 
That and the fact the batteries have wreaked havoc with most of the mainboards means finding good ones is *very* hard. Even NOS examples are likely trashed now. All early ARM machines are increasing in value, I suspect a really clean boxed example of a 3000 with no battery damage at all would go for a lot of cash, certainly more than it cost new.
 
earlofsodbury said:
Reminds me of the "tradesman-tut" when examining predecessors' efforts.
The more time someone spends telling me how great their work is, and how clever they are, the more certain I am that they're an idiot...
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Might not put it quite as strongly, but yes.

The well worn phrase, "Well, I wouldn't have done it like that...." normally heralds a hike in price!
 
Wow. I sometimes wish my amateur work was a little neater, but compared to these clowns mine looks like factory work!
 
Tony L said:
That and the fact the batteries have wreaked havoc with most of the mainboards means finding good ones is *very* hard. Even NOS examples are likely trashed now. All early ARM machines are increasing in value, I suspect a really clean boxed example of a 3000 with no battery damage at all would go for a lot of cash, certainly more than it cost new.
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Off topic for this group, but given that the ARM design is still going, examples of its first incarnation are becoming genuinely historic artefacts in the history of computing.

BugBear
 
bugbear said:
Off topic for this group, but given that the ARM design is still going, examples of its first incarnation are becoming genuinely historic artefacts in the history of computing.
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Computer history as a whole is a growing collector market, stuff has gone from landfill to highly collectable in the past couple of decades. Sadly huge amounts of large computers (mainframes etc) are gone forever, only a few survive in museums etc. The home computing revolution is far better represented as so many just got stored in lofts, cellars etc rather than being thrown out, and these are now sought after for restoration. There are some amazing YouTube channels dealing with this, it really is a whole subculture now. All the Acorn machines have a value, especially the Atom and the A3000. I’ve got a BBC B and a Electron, both working perfectly. Also a couple of ZX Spectrums. There’s a vintage computer thread here.

This guy is well worth following:


This is an amazing restoration of an old HP 9825 that was working, but the PSU blew and fried. It’s up to part 11 now, the logic analysers are out, some ROM bootloader logic etc has been reverse-engineered and he’s even got in touch with the original HP developers etc! His whole channel is excellent, he was part of the team that brought an original NASA Apollo guidance computer back to life recently. Just astonishing computer and electronics knowledge and skill.
 
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