Anyone have luck sending laser components to circuit board repair places?

[Ross Moshinsky]

I need to replace/repair my mainboard. Gravograph, as per usual, wants a boat load of money to replace it. Everything with the motion system works well. The actual problem is the keypad does not function when the laser warms up. The actual keypad is not the issue. My hope is only a "simple" repair is needed to the main board.

Has anyone had any luck sending out a board to get repaired by someone other than the actual manufacturer? My gut says after 8 years a simple component has failed and simply needs to be replaced, something like a capacitor or a bad solder joint.

[AL Ursich]

A can of FREEZE Spray is your friend..... Used it many time for stuff like this at Sony.

AL

[Phil Thien]

I once had a film scanner gifted to me. The customer said the unit would act erratically after 10-15 minutes. I told them I'd take a stab at fixing it, but they were a professional shop and moved on, didn't want to waste any more time on it.

Turns out there was an LGA (large chip) that was getting real hot. I used thermal epoxy to attach a heatsink to the top of the LGA, problem solved.

So if I was going to diagnose your problem, I'd heat it up until the problem is exhibited, unplug the power, and use the back of my index finger to look for especially warm components.

[Bert Kemp]

Back whe I had my junk fsl I found a local guy that built mini cnc milling machines, he rebuilt my power supply for like 60 bucks. I would think a local electrician might have good luck fixing it.

[Keith Colson]

Hi Ross

A good part of my companies income is doing repairs on various items, usually higher dollar stuff because it is worth repair. The most important thing to do here is find someone that knows what they are doing. The average tech will make your system worse than when he started. A lot of "new" work I get has been butchered before I get to it and I say "sorry that has been butchered, if you had of brought it to me in its original condition I could have helped". Once my customers get this, the repair success improves a lot. I think you should call around a few places like some movie camera rental or drain camera places and ask who they would "recommend" for a quality repair and go from there. These people have high dollar items and only want competent people working on their gear.

Cheers
Keith