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Old 07-07-2009, 08:23 AM
Barrykgerdes
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Barrykgerdes is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Beaumont Hills NSW
Posts: 2,900
Repairing PCB's these days is not worth the trouble. You need the skill of a micro surgeon and get paid at the rate of forced labour.

I looked at the picture and repairing that board could take all day (at $120 per hr) it would probably be cheaper to buy a new telescope. Yesterday I replaced a 74LS14 chip on a board. It took an hour just to get the old chip off the board without damaging the board. After replacing it there was still another fault so the board was discarded.

I do do some PCB repairs but I never get paid for it except by the experience

I recently fixed a board in my ETX125. It was a very simple fault an O/C choke on the dec board which I found on the first test. I shorted it out and the scope worked again. However disassembly and reassembly of the scope took three hours. I have been able to get a replacement board but it will still take me an hour or so to put it in. To repair this ETX125 commercially would have cost $500 about half the cost of a new item.

I have two or three motherboards for LX200 classics waiting repairs. One board I repaired took 9 years to get it right! I only do these boards for experience. My usual advice to an owner who has a faulty motherboard now that you can't get repair kits is. "Remove the OTA, salvage the undamaged parts and get a EQ6," or similar and mount it on that. It will be cheaper in the long run.

Barry
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