How much do people make who repair electronics?

[lili5689]

I'm wondering if you can earn a decent living from repairing small electronics. If so who would you work for? Would your work for a company such as sony? Fixing electronics are my favorite thing to do and I know a lot of the basics. How can I learn to do this without college because I suck at book work and can't handle book work.

 

[colin55]

The best thing is to go to an electronics shop and say you will work for free.
This way you cannot be refused.
That's what one of my employees did.
I hired him. Because he had the right outlook in life.
He is now a very successful CEO of his own company.
Sometimes you can lose on a repair. Sometime you make money.
That's the way it works.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I'm wondering if you can earn a decent living from repairing small electronics. If so who would you work for? Would your work for a company such as sony? Fixing electronics are my favorite thing to do and I know a lot of the basics. How can I learn to do this without college because I suck at book work and can't handle book work.

It's far harder to make a living doing domestic repairs than it used to be, and it's never been a terrifically profitable business to be in anyway.

The main problem is the 'give away' prices of new equipment, and the high prices of spare parts - it makes a great many repairs non-viable. The vast majority of our repair work now is under warranty, where you get paid a fixed 'contribution towards your costs', you don't get paid the going rate for the repairs.

Unless you're qualified I doubt any of the big companies would be interested, and generally they don't run their own service facilities anyway, warranty repairs are done via a network of dealers or service agents.

 

[tvtech]

I'm wondering if you can earn a decent living from repairing small electronics. If so who would you work for? Would your work for a company such as sony? Fixing electronics are my favorite thing to do and I know a lot of the basics. How can I learn to do this without college because I suck at book work and can't handle book work.

In a nutshell..no.

We are globally becoming a throw away society. I have been in the TV repair game for around 18 years now..I think.
Even though I am from South Africa, and a dumping ground for the Chinese, I believe this is a Worldwide problem.

I see the rubbish that is being dumped here TV wise. All CRT of course. Crappy thin neck tubes everywhere that have low emission problems after around a year of use by the customer.

Rejuvenate the tube for the customer. Warn him/her...it may last/not last. Minimal cost to customer. TV is back after a week. Now the Line Output Transformer is arcing.

And has blown the PSU. Because it has arced against the PSU chopper heatsink. Bang. Start again.

I tell you guys, the Chinese are giving TV Techs a soon to be redundant job. We are not supposed to fix this rubbish...we are supposed to throw them away.

As per the original Chinese plan.

Pity the poor Techs that try and repair DVD's for a living......they are probably eating a nice meal of warmed up dogshit with their family right now.


lili5689, I hope that answers your question.

Cheers

 

[Ian Rogers]

I have a friend, huh! I call him a friend, anyway he is a DJ and I used to look after his equipment. He would gladly pay me £200 - £300 to repair his amp or his mixer, the trouble with used electronics you soon find out that by replacing certain components, you are then responsible for the Iraq war, anything and everything is now your problem.

Glad I got out... I now stick to new designs, MY designs... Far easier...

 

[killivolt]

The real money was made back in the day.

When Tubes we're replaced and no one new what the electronics age was about. Repair people became salesmen and the time of "what's" new and "Hip" was a household word.

Watch the moon landing and the Beatles, all those TV dinner's with the hole family gathering in their living rooms. If it we'er back in the time of the Old Tube Radio it would have been the same.

Unfortunately, we now have them in every room. The family has now distanced itself from one another, a common problem.

Those day's are long gone. Big Box Business has taken over and we are subject to it's demands.

 

[Dr_Doggy]

sry to threadjack, but then where are the good electronic jobs?

 

[Brevor]

sry to threadjack, but then where are the good electronic jobs?

In my opinion there "very few and far between". Maybe others will have some input.
I work with industrial electronics, It's still quite expensive so companys are willing to pay a decent price to keep it working.

 

[leal]

Well, what I could say is that, I,m self employed and going on for twenty one year doing just about anything I could get my hands on. You name it. From industrial, commercial, domestic down to automotive electronics. ECU,ECM,TCU etc... If it doesn,t fit, I will make it fit and work.

I,m not saying it is easy, you really need to know your stuff.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

In my job, it wasn't full time and it was a University research setting. Many years ago there was "electronic PM" type work that had to be preformed on instruments and older computers (pre IBM PC) that were used to control experiments broke. Gauges and power supplies broke and we used a base of "spares" to keep the critical equipment running.

Pieces that we had a lot of, I learned to fix and I could do it quickly. Sorenson switching Power supplies and gauges would basically require recapping and various minor problems.

Computers were isolated to the module level and the module was sent for repair at a "fixed cost".

I built and designed custom interfaces and automated measurement systems. I assembled "stand-alone" temperature controllers. I found easier way of doing things. I designed safety shutdown systems.

I even learned to fix an early "Scanning Electron Microscope" to the component level. The thing had lots of 741 OP amps in it. I converted a microcomputer based card to operate stand-alone with a multi-channel analyizer. That crazy think kept blowing too and I called the manufacturer on it about the lack of "transient protection". Their comment was, the power is specified as 120 VAC +-10% 60 Hz. Your problem.

I learned to fix Mass Flow Controllers, because we had lots of them and they were easy.

An upgrade to an 1950's X-ray diffraction set kept popping RS232 drivers, so I found a solution to that.

And then there was this thing (CV-8) https://www.vesco-usa.com/ves-prints.html This one could kill in a blink of an eye. 15 Kv, 1 Amp shunt tube regulator. Plus 1000 W tube RF transmitters and 100 kV @ 0.1 A power supplies.

A lot of the stuff I did, tended to improve reliability and reduce operating costs, but it wasn't full time. Paying for travel time or sending a piece of equipment out by truck to be repaired wasn't cost effective.

I don't think management realized what I really did. You can't see the effects of "equipment not breaking".

Recently, nearly all the newer equipment was becoming very difficult to service on your own. There was no documentation and parts were non-existant.

 

[RCinFLA]

Whatever you do to make money, try to make sure it is leveraged. You want to get paid over and over again for the same, single unit of time spent.

Repairing electronics is not leveraged.

 

[nsaspook]

The top level senior Techs (20+years) in semi fabs can make 6 figures with 80K plus being common here.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Darn. Not even close, but it was still a FAB house. Just on a research scale.

 

[audioguru]

I went to the Sony head office in Canada for some parts. I noticed that everybody there was Japanese.
I gave them a list of part numbers that were on the defective parts and on the schematic but they gave me completely different parts then they replaced them with the correct parts that they had in stock anyway.

I went to the Panasonic head office in Canada for a part for my wireless phone. Again, everybody there was Japanese.

I worked at the Canadian head office for Philips. I am not Dutch.

I worked at the Canadian head office of an American tele-conference bridge manufacturer and installed their bridges all over the USA. I am not an American.

I worked at the Canadian head office of a Japanese PRO Sound manufacturer. I am not Japanese.

I didn't fix much because nearly nothing failed. But I was paid pretty well.

 

[unclejed613]

there are large retail chains that maintain repair facilities, but i would rate the pay at these (as a technician) on the low side of the curve. if you can get a job as an engineering tech at an aerospace related company, you'll find yourself on the high side of the curve. consumer electronics shops still need techs, but aren't willing to pay as much. if you can find a job prototyping and troubleshooting cutting-edge technology, you will get paid much more. aerospace companies are also more likely to pay for you to go to college for an engineering degree.

 

[Dr_Doggy]

now thats my ticket, unclejed, cuttingedge aerospace, and all that; but as an electronics engineer grad, isn't that a little advanced for me, (lol, i wonder how long id need to work there for free!); with my diploma; I have found that IDK much about advanced circuit configurations and such?

 

[unclejed613]

you have to start somewhere. look for jobs as an engineering tech. companies like Raytheon are always hiring. usually you start out by building prototypes. anothe good field is Metrology (calibration and repair of test equipment). get your foot in the door somewhere.

 

[bob Ormond]

Electronic Repair?

I asked this same question 35 years ago . I visited a television repair shop.
The owner asked me why I wanted to enter a field that was "closing" down.
He suggested that I could make twice the money by going to work in a semiconductor
fab house.
Intel...a tiny little company with beer partys on fridays (no more beer).
I would suggest thinking long term..get training..work smart..

 

[cachehiker]

Best paying job I ever had was as an electronics tech. On the other hand, it was working on VERY unforgiving industrial lasers powered by 5-35KV that had left one blind in one eye, given another a degenerative hip injury, chopped off a third's finger, and put a fourth guy on disability over a 25 year period. He ended up with heart problems after being bit by 35KV a few times. The hours sucked. Being on call sucked. I was careful enough to get by though. I was eventually "promoted" after I finished my degree. A 10% pay cut overall but 20% fewer hours and rarely being on call.

I used to be self-employed as a contract technician too. 50% good, 50% bad. Laser tuning and calibration chores at the local sensor manufacturer: good. Rework at the local contract manufacturing service: bad. On-site connector hook-ups, assembly of furniture, and other odd jobs for a local retailer: surprisingly good. Cleaning scales and troubleshooting lathes and end mills for a couple of machine shops: great although oily. Repair and troubleshooting of personal computers: never again in a million years. Too many ***t for brains with $200 pc's wondering how on earth I could justify $55/hour (cheap in this valley) when their 13 year old could do it. Wasn't it your 13 year old who put it in this state to begin with?

Look at the service life of what you intend to work on. <5 years like consumer electronics? You'd better be the one running the show because the people doing the work are considered one step above unskilled labor following a how-to document. >20 years like aeronautics or industrial? They'll pay well if you know your stuff and can troubleshoot and fix the out of the ordinary problems.

I do well working on electronics but I'm now an engineer and I don't stop there. I also do mathematical modeling, programming, mechanical design, and am utterly unafraid to roll up my sleeves and do what most engineers have a technician for. I do as well but sitting in front of a computer gets old.

 

[gary350]

If you want to get into some FUN electronic repair that pays BIG MONEY go to college and learn to be a Biomed Technician. This guys make $50,000. per year repairing hospital equipment and you get to work with a lot of young attractive unmarried nurses in hospitals. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale Illinois has an excellent Biomed Technology Program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyFcUJvVKMg&feature=related