Welcome to the

Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ

Galactic Homepage

Welcome to the Sci.Electronics.Repair Frequently Asked Question(s) (or S.E.R FAQ for short) Home Page. This site features Samuel M. Goldwasser's latest and greatest "Notes on the Troubleshooting and Repair of..." series of comprehensive repair guides for consumer electronics equipment and other household devices. There is also a great deal of other information of interest to the electronics hobbyist, experimenter, technician, engineer, and possibly even the dentist and poet. Included are the now quite comprehensive and massive "Sam's Laser FAQ", many new schematics, and links to over 1,000 technology related sites. In addition, there are a variety of documents from other sources on electronics troubleshooting, repair, and other related topics.

If you know of something that is incorrect or missing from this site or simply have comments, friendly complaints, requests, or additions, please make use of the absolutely and positively fabulous or see the Email Page to identify the most appropriate recipient. Thanks!

Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Search on Drexel Mirror Site

The following provides a fast search facility but is currently only present on the S.E.R FAQ mirror site at Drexel University which is maintained up to date almost daily.

Search the entire Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ for More Search Options

Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ Sites

Please check the Home and Mirror Site Locations page to identify the best site for your needs. This is important for several reasons:

Not all of these Web sites have the same collection of documents or the same versions of these documents.

Accessing a site near your physical position on this planet (or elsewhere) should help to minimize Net traffic and hopefully reduce your World Wide Wait. :-)

This will also help to distribute the load among the sites (excessive load was what caused our former RepairFAQ.org ISP to implode).

Sam's Laser FAQ

Sam's Laser FAQ - A Practical Guide to Lasers for Experimenters and Hobbyists.

Silicon Sam's Technology Resource (SSTR)

This collection is also available at many sites worldwide. As above, check the Home and Mirror Site Locations page to identify the best site for your needs.

Please Read at Least Once

In return for this gold mine of information, please make a serious effort to find the answers to your questions before contacting me. It may take just a wee bit of effort and could stress a few neurons in the process, but there is an excellent chance that what you seek is covered at these sites. Should you be really stuck, I will respond to email in a timely manner. However, if your question indicates that you haven't even gotten past the Main Menu, AND I am in a good mood, you will get a somewhat polite reply to read the #$%& FAQs. On the other hand, if it is a bad day, and you are really really lucky, you will probably be ignored. In any case, I expect to be able to hit the reply key for my mail program and not get bounced email. I will not attempt to unjumble any anti-SPAM email addresses! I have posted over 20,000 articles to the USENET newsgroups using my true email address. (And, you won't pick up SPAM via private email anyhow.) Yes, SPAM is a pain but I tolerate the small amount I get so others will not be inconvenienced.

Note: I NEVER send email attachments. If you receive a message supposedly from one of my addresses with any sort of attachment, it is bogus and possibly a virus. Someone's address book includes my address and their computer is infected. Send me the complete headers and I'll attempt to check it out, or just delete it.

Where you have a model specific repair question, it will probably be more expedient to post a complete but concise description of your problem including manufacturer, model, symptoms, and what you have already tried, directly to the USENET newsgroup: sci.electronics.repair. I really don't have access to that much model specific service information - and that is probably what I will tell you to do anyway! See the document: Troubleshooting and Repair of Consumer Electronic Equipment for more information. Or, consult a Tech-Tips database to see if your specific problem has already been solved a million times. See the document: On-Line Tech-Tips Databases.

If you know of something that is incorrect or missing from this site or simply have comments, friendly complaints, requests, or additions, please make use of the absolutely and positively fabulous