Ways to learn how to fix electronics?

[jcalder8]

I'm not sure if this is the right place or not but I'd love to know how to fix electronics, like game systems and the like. But I haven't been able to find anywhere that would teach me.

So my question to those of you who are able to work on PCB and monitors and such is: how did you learn? Is there any sort of school(or class) or have you just killed your share of electronics over the years getting experience. I'm not really interested in a degree in electrical engineering I just want to be able to repair stuff.

Thanks

[NES_Rules]

I am no expert in electronics repair, but I do know a fair bit. In high school, I took an engineering "sampler" class that had some electrical stuff which is what really got my interest. It was nothing major, mostly just learning the basic components. From there I would just learn what I needed to to fix something, and then try to retain that knowledge.
One thing I've found with fixing electronics, being able to spot a bad component is 99% of the work.

And if you want to get into repairing electronics, buy yourself two things immediately; a soldering iron and a multimeter (I prefer digital, but some like analog). There's not much you can do without both of them.

[Goblin]

You are going to need to either take a class or do some independent reading to learn the basics. I would recommend the art of electronics by horowitz and hill. You would never expect to repair a car if you didn't understand engines, electronics are the same way, so you need to pick up the basics somewhere.

Once you have them, you can begin to understand different circuit parts. Then based on the symptoms, you begin to focus on certain parts and either confirm a failure or prove it works and move onto the next likely candidate. Much of repair is just working orderly through the schematics.

Let's try an exercise: You have a 2600, that doesn't work. You hook it up, turn it on and no picture. First you would want to check the voltage at the power supply. If correct and you are sure the RF modulator and TV are good you would open the box up and look at the power at the input. Is it getting into the unit through the connector? If not replace or fix the connection. If yes, then check the input of the voltage regulator and then the output. Input would be 9V, the output would be 5V. Eventually you work through the steps logically and will come up with something that isn't right and that will get things going.

[izarate]

So my question to those of you who are able to work on PCB and monitors and such is: how did you learn? Is there any sort of school(or class) or have you just killed your share of electronics over the years getting experience. I'm not really interested in a degree in electrical engineering I just want to be able to repair stuff.

Thanks

Over here people take obligatory electronic classes in high school for two terms (grade 11 and 12). The first term is about "analog" electronics: capacitors, resistors, etc. The second term is for "digital" electronics: transistors, micros, pics, soldering, etc. Those only cover the basics but for me that was enough. If I need to gain new knowledge I use Wikipedia or do a Google search.

[jb143]

I'm not really interested in a degree in electrical engineering I just want to be able to repair stuff.



Just so you know. Getting an engineering degree won't teach you how to fix stuff. Technical school might thought.

But anyways...I learned early on by trial and error and from books. And also from building electronics circuits. You learn troubleshooting really quickly that way. At the very least you'll want to get a multi-meter and a soldering iron as was already mentioned. Learn how to use the meter and learn how to read schematics. Electronics can seem pretty complicated at times but you can do most repairs with only a basic undertanding. Knowing how to use a meter is much more important than knowing all the complicated math involved.

[FABombjoy]

There's always the Randy Fromm's Arcade School DVDs. Lots of real-world repair tips, basic electronics troubleshooting, etc.

[CrimsonNugget]

Are there any good tutorial sites out there? I am also interested in this.