How much do people make who repair electronics?

gary350 said:

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

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Going back to the 80's, a lot of TV Engineers moved to repairing medical gear, I don't seem to remember many of them stayed there very long?.

But certainly the pay was a LOT higher, but the equipment is expensive, and sold at a profit - most domestic electronics is dirt cheap, and sold at a loss

50 grand a year is BIG MONEY?? That was about 30 years ago. Today 150 grand and more is paying to live in a big city.

Yeah. I could make half again more if I moved 100 miles south of here but I can't stand it.

The city smells and you're risking your life commuting on a bike.

I could double my income moving to the California coast but my cost of living would triple.

OTOH, $50K is BIG MONEY compared to working the counter at MickeyD's, even in the big city. It may not get you a place of your own and all the rest but it'll beat sharing a 3-bedroom place with 3 other guys and living on rice, beans, potatoes, pasta, and beer.

You can live in a tent and ride your bicycle around in the rain today if you are paid only 50 grand per year. I DONT DOO DAT!
My home is fully paid and worth 5 times more today than I paid for it, is in a safe neighborhood and I ride my bike for exercise but drive my fully paid car to get things and visit friends and family. I don't rent or lease anything.

My government retirement pension is almost 50 grand per year and I don't even work anymore. All my medical care and drugs are FREE for me!
Most stores and restaurants give me a senior's discount.


Offensive Text Deleted: Moderation.

I'm new here, just read your question.
Consumer electronics is rough. Many of the big box stores have repair facilities. Others farm it out to a local repair facility. Try those first. That way you don't have to spend time selling and collecting payment.
I did commercial 2 way radio for most of my career. The equipment is sufficiently costly to warrant repair. Some jobs are private, some are government. As many of these companies are small and offer limited bennies, I recommend you join the Reserves or National Guard to supplement. They also offer great training. I was Coast Guard, but Navy, and Air Guard also have good programs. I don't know about the other branches.
Other areas are marine electronics, and now auto repair. The Air Guard and CG Air or Navy Air can get you started in the aviation sector. You won't get rich, but you will never go hungry.

Best

audioguru said:

You can live in a tent and ride your bicycle around in the rain today if you are paid only 50 grand per year. I DONT DOO DAT!

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Yeah. Whatever. To each his own. Most of my friends would give their left nut to be making what I do. They are mostly regular people working regular jobs although there are a few attorneys, physicians, and university professors thrown in. The ones working retail, manufacturing, and farm jobs live on $20K.

Are you aware that fixing milking machine controllers can pay as much as $600/day? $200 a pop when you turn them around in a day with the manufacturer demanding $450 for a refurb that takes a week. Dairy farmers do not like down time any more than industrial facilities.

My house will be paid off in 8 years. It's in a neighborhood that's repeatedly rated as one of the safest in the country. I've been saving 10-12% of what I make for decades and investing prudently. And, by the way, I live at the end of the second rainbow, less than 2 miles from idyllic hiking and biking, and my yard is a NWF certified backyard wildlife habitat.

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$50K a year can be quite a nice life. The only smell I have to deal with is the manure from the farms that surround me. I suspect that's a bit healthier than diesel fumes.

A neighbour recently got a job driving a bus around the city. 60 grand per year.
Cashiers in grocery stores also make 60 grand per year.
Both make much more doing voluntary overtime.

The only diesels around here are trucks and buses and they are few and far between. Their exhaust is visible black smoke so it is easy to avoid it.

cachehiker said:

Yeah. Whatever. To each his own. Most of my friends would give their left nut to be making what I do. They are mostly regular people working regular jobs although there are a few attorneys, physicians, and university professors thrown in. The ones working retail, manufacturing, and farm jobs live on $20K.

Are you aware that fixing milking machine controllers can pay as much as $600/day? $200 a pop when you turn them around in a day with the manufacturer demanding $450 for a refurb that takes a week. Dairy farmers do not like down time any more than industrial facilities.

My house will be paid off in 8 years. It's in a neighborhood that's repeatedly rated as one of the safest in the country. I've been saving 10-12% of what I make for decades and investing prudently. And, by the way, I live at the end of the second rainbow, less than 2 miles from idyllic hiking and biking, and my yard is a NWF certified backyard wildlife habitat.


$50K a year can be quite a nice life. The only smell I have to deal with is the manure from the farms that surround me. I suspect that's a bit healthier than diesel fumes.

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I paid my house off in 7 years. Go to the place where you have your house loan and ask for an amortization note. This tells you how much of each monthly payment is principle and interest. I noticed my monthly principle was only $21 so and advanced payment of $105 would knock off 5 monthly payments saving me several $1000 each time. The advanced payments was cheating the bank of of 5 months of interest. Do the math I was making 6 payments each month on a 25 year loan that turned 300 monthly payments into 50 payments. On a $100,000. house loan after 25 years you end up paying about $300,000. The 250 advanced payments saved me about $176,000.

Some of the new loans do not allow you to make advanced payments for the first year and some are the first two years. Most banks these days sell your loan to a large bank located out of state so that makes it hard to make advanced payments. The last loan I got I insisted I wanted the loan to stay in TOWN so I can make advanced payments easy. The bank said NO so I went to a different bank and they said YES but interest will be higher. I said OK because I don't plan to pay very much interest.

Another trick get a loan quote from a bank then go to a different bank and get a quote from them. The first bank offered me 9.5% interest. Second bank offered 9.75% after I told them the other bank offered me 9.5% they lowered the 9.75 down to 9.0% interest. I went back to the first bank and told them the other bank offered me 9.0% interest so they lower the interest down to 8.5%. I went back to the second bank told them I was offered 8.5% they lowered interest down to 8.0%. I went back to the other bank they lowered interest to 7.5%. Then I went back to the other bank they lowered interest to 7.2%. Then I went back to the other bank again they lower it to 7.2% interest too. After that I picked the bank that was charging me the least fees and got my loan. Some banks will charge you $400 to $900 just to tell you if they will give you a loan.

All I'm saying is the value of $50K depends an awful lot on where you live and what your priorities are. I do better but simply putting my job ahead of my life outside would net me an extra 15%. I'm considered indispensible by some but not because I'm a "company man". I don't like to travel for work, rarely work weekends, and don't like to be on call. I don't even like taking calls outside of work.

Around here, given the current economic conditions, production line workers start out at just over $10/hour and eventually work themselves up to $16/hour. Most retail clerks start out under $10/hour and eventually work up to about $14/hour. Farm labor pays even less. I'd have to ask a buddy about bus drivers but I suspect they start out at about $12/hour and work up to about $18/hour. Electronics technicians earn about the same.

On the other hand, $150K will get you a 2000 square foot house if you're not intent on living in the middle of the nearest "big city" (population 60,000). I can also take a date to the finest restaurant in town and spend less than $60 including the tip assuming we don't order prime rib or lobster or wine. The local lodge still serves DOLLAR BEERS on Sunday afternoons if you don't mind socializing with a bunch of redneck farmboys.

$50K will get you a decent life around here and I suspect it would get a substantial percentage the forum members a decent life where they live as well. 100 miles south of here it wouldn't pay for a nice place or allow you to eat out much but you wouldn't be going hungry either.

I happen to like it out here with all the peace and quiet and a freakin' Audubon Society chapter's worth of wildlife right outside my door.

I had a good career in audio electronics in Canada and now I am retired.
I live in a pretty big city with a huge lake nearby and a big river closeby. There is wildlife all over the place.
Very little crime and no redneck farmboys.

My government pays me a pretty good pension and pays for my medicine and doctors.

Cachehiker mentions in part:

All I'm saying is the value of $50K depends an awful lot on where you live and what your priorities are.

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This is something I absolutely agree with. For example I live in the Cleveland, Ohio USA suburbs. A single person or married couple can live well enough here with an average income of 50K annually. Not great but fine for all intensive purposes. That same 50K would have the same couple eating beanies and weenies and living in a shanty in NYC about 500 miles due east.

Something else to consider is taxes. The fact that a person may be earning 50 K annually or any salary for that matter says nothing for "Disposable Income" meaning what a pay check actually is following taxes and paycheck deductions before ever seeing the net. There is the gross and the net and you sure as hell can't spend the gross.

Salaries can vary considerably across the US or Canada for that matter. It all comes down to the cost of living against the salary.

Just My Take
Ron

Reloadron said:

Cachehiker mentions in part:



This is something I absolutely agree with. For example I live in the Cleveland, Ohio USA suburbs. A single person or married couple can live well enough here with an average income of 50K annually. Not great but fine for all intensive purposes. That same 50K would have the same couple eating beanies and weenies and living in a shanty in NYC about 500 miles due east.

Something else to consider is taxes. The fact that a person may be earning 50 K annually or any salary for that matter says nothing for "Disposable Income" meaning what a pay check actually is following taxes and paycheck deductions before ever seeing the net. There is the gross and the net and you sure as hell can't spend the gross.

Salaries can vary considerably across the US or Canada for that matter. It all comes down to the cost of living against the salary.

Just My Take

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Perfectly true - I'd love to earn as much as 50K, even American dollars.

If I lived away from civilization in the bush (or on a deserted island) then $50k American (or Canadian) dollars would make me rich.
But I live in a pretty big city so I can go shopping nearby whenever I want, see live theater or car racing, go to restaurants or anything else that is done in civilization. Of course I pay taxes. Then if I don't waste money like many people do then 50k per year is plenty.

Many people throw away more than $50k per year.

Moved on.boy,,for me just believe in your self,,, and keep on improving,,,study and study........I am an industrial technician and still receives a lot of repairs, so dont lose,,,carry on

Nigel Goodwin said:

Perfectly true - I'd love to earn as much as 50K, even American dollars.

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Me too. Problem is it ain't possible in our game. We canno't though do it as honest TV Techs.
That's life

Easy for cheaters though. I am not one.

I sleep at night at least

Cheers,
TV Tech

It's so tough to find stuff that's even repairable anymore. Repairable, can mean, fix the simple stuff or repairable can mean the documentation is there or repairable can mean you have the necessary test/re-work equipment. Many times the cost is 1/2 the cost of a new instrument.

My most recent repair ATTEMPT was a failure. I discovered that the contacts of a ribbon cable going to the front membrane panel vaporized. I could not, for the life of me make contacts to the conductive oxide that the ribbon cable was made from. Repair could have been easy - replace the front of the case for the instrument if parts were available. I did press my case and got it repaired for free.

More and more stuff is being made from unobtainium. Over time more and more stuff will be by subscription only: music, software, set-top boxes; possibly computers and even printers. Copiers pretty much are for a real business - you must have a service contract. Picture a future where you "rent" your heating system, your TV, your media players, your dishwasher etc.

For the most part, things are more reliable now and you don't have to spend time re-lamping things in an industrial environment. I used a particular switch in that environment until the bozo's put an "O-ring" to hold the lens in place. Now, no place for the heat to go and 100's of pushbuttons started failing at nearly the same time. The mfr wasn't interested in my complaints so I changed manufacturer's and went to a LED based design.

your best bet in the repair business is to work at a large service center. you will quickly learn what's economically repairable and what isn't. you will also have the service information, manufacturer training, and parts availability to get the job done. you won't have to fix stuff that's full of cockroaches, or that somebody's cat has peed in. you won't be asked by your boss to "cheat" (something that caused me to quit more than my fair share of jobs at small shops).

If you enjoy it, then perhaps don't worry so much about making a career out of it? That's the best way to spoil an enjoyable hobby, if you suddenly find yourself crunched for time and catering to the needs of customers.

Or, you can find a small niche that needs filling and run it as a home business. I ended up doing that just as a part-time thing with pinball circuit boards. I'll never make a living doing it, but I get a steady supply of work from time to time. Enough to pay for my pinball hobby and tools when I need them. Will it go somewhere in the future? Who knows. But I get to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, and I get to do it MY way.

I moved into Technical sales and never looked back. Sales people with a solid tech background are well paid.

Hello to all... I've been in this 'game' for over 20yrs would agree with most of the above comments regards the electronics repair trade.you win and lose a few battle's and get plenty shock's..sometimes it's easer to replace an item instead of sorting a heap of mess that's beenfrom tech to tech then it get's dumped on your bench to save it's life! what's more as in one of the above posting once you've fixed any,Imean any little fault that's happen's it's your fault! I recall helping a friend(friends and repairs are not a good thing cos it more trouble to you) out with his valve amplifier that only hummed when powered up...so after it was collected..two years later he returned it saying it sounds different!! yeah it's working... I only take a few high end pa items on these day's...

Things are not the same regarding fault repairs at component level it's cheaper to stick a new board in....