Hi Everyone,
I want to start my new electronic repair business. Any one please suggest me how i can start a new business and please give me some advice also that can help me to grow my business.

 

http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/business-opportunity-for-the-right-person.97491/

 

you will probably have to decide on a brand to service, get with that brand and see if you can get any service info, schematics, parts, and such. otherwise you will have to have a lot of experience to fix the stuff.

 

It will not be easy to start. Established Industrial Electronics Repair facilities have a pool of resources that one man alone does not have (in all likelihood). I used to work for a company that did Industrial Electronics Repair as well as Industrial Electronics Retail sales, Engineering, Panel Building, and Field Service. I was in Field Service but my duties often overlapped with the duties of the Board Repair department. Our Board Repair department had a "BoneYard" of crippled (or still perfectly good) Industrial Electronics. A warehouse of racks upon racks lined with bins upon bins of whole or dissected DC drives, VFDs, PLCs, and all other manner of Industrial Electronic Gadget made by just about every manufacturer in the world. Amassed over a period of many years, they were customer trade-ins (a product of the retail sales dept.) or devices sent in for repair and deemed "beyond economical repair" and the customer chose to have the company dispose of them, or they were purchased on eBay or other vendor for the sole purpose of harvesting a single component/board. Having this massive stockpile of surplus enabled the company to often turn a profit on something by having the parts already on hand, on the books @ zero value (considered "dead stock") that otherwise would have to purchased from the manufacturer at significant cost and lead time.

If all your repairs must come about by means of purchasing repair parts from the manufacturer, you are unlikely to make much if any profit. The manufacturers extort the customer (you, the repair depot) on the cost of parts because they would rather sell a new product than support an old one. Sure, you can do component-level repair on simple transistors, caps, etc. but that's only half of it. There's custom ROMs, etc that only the manufacturer can supply, and they want to sell you the whole board @ nearly the cost of a new drive. So you can turn to eBay for used parts/boards/drives/etc. but don't forget you have to warranty your work or nobody will utilize you. And if you're going to warranty your work, you need a way to test it before it leaves your shop. Do you have a 600HP DC motor dummy load test stand? Your competitor does.

My previous place of employment did not start out as a repair facility. They started out as an Industrial Electronics Retailer and Panel Builder. Later they added Field Service. Only after Field Service had been bringing in all these drives from the field for years, and the salesmen bringing in drives from trade-ins for years, did they find it economically feasible to start an in-house repair depot.

I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying I've seen what works, and it didn't start with one man doing electronic repair. I'm saying it won't be easy. If you're the type of hard-headed individual that is likely to debate me on what I'm saying, and driven to "prove me wrong," then you're the only type of person that would have half a chance of making this work. But if you're the type of person that's become more and more discouraged and doubtful in the course of reading my post, then your case is hopeless; give up this silly notion right now.

 

you will probably have to decide on a brand to service, get with that brand and see if you can get any service info, schematics, parts, and such. otherwise you will have to have a lot of experience to fix the stuff.

excellent point. manufacturers do not usually hand over schematics unless you're in bed with them. The place I used to work had a library room full of bookshelves and filing cabinets full of schematics; each one likely representative of several pulled teeth or inappropriate favors. Gathered by a TEAM of resourceful people over a span of decades. Something that I took for granted.

 

we still have here a few cabinets of allen bradley nc books, on the 8200at and back, back when allen bradley still sent them out. nothing newer, tho. we dont have any of those nc controls here now, only newer ( alittle newer) stuff.
my shop here didnt start out as a one man shop, there were 8 in the shop back when I was transfered in. now there is only me, and I am getting old, old enough that if anyone fives me a hard time, I just might tell them to fix it themselvs and go home.
I dont know how all manufacturers classes are, but the few I have gone to are usually just on hooking up and programming controls and drives, no schematics, parts lists, or anything else.

 

Depending on your skills, you might start by approaching brands that you respect and ask them about training options for people interested in becoming certified technicians. Most brands offer programs and economic support for that purpose.

 

Hi Everyone,
I want to start my new electronic repair business. Any one please suggest me how i can start a new business and please give me some advice also that can help me to grow my business.

Also you need to decide whether you are going to be a specialized in house service shop for component units, or will also cover field service which usually has a lot more pressure, you have to be prepared to be called to a customer that has a machine down that you may have never seen before, and likely the only one like it for 100's of miles around.
This may be a customer that has a assembly line down and there are several trucks waiting to be loaded with a finished product, the on-site maintenance crew have thrown up their hands so you are the Man!.
But if you obtain or have the skills to be able to handle 99% of these problems, the word gets around and due to the often scarcity of anyone that can do this you can virtually write your own ticket,
Max.

 

Hello Everyone...Thanks to all for sharing your views. I will try to implement your tips and if you have any new tips please share with me.

 

Hi Everyone,
I want to start my new electronic repair business. Any one please suggest me how i can start a new business and please give me some advice also that can help me to grow my business.

Start building a great relationship with the clients.

 

Fix something that is expensive and worth fixing, like medical equipment or avionics.

 

Hello Everyone...Thanks to all for sharing your views. I will try to implement your tips and if you have any new tips please share with me.

kindof, you have to have grown up with the electric appliances you intend to fix.

I've grown up with dissecting all kinds of appliances, that helps a lot to become familiar with new parts quick, to understand what they are good for, to understand the pricing.

For instance I made a lightbulb circuit when I was in primary school, I see people here ask about these basics, its much harder when you have already grown up.

If you havent grown up with technology, I would not recommend to start a business just by an idea out of the cold. You might be ending up to invest a lot of money for gear you never really need all day.

The appliance dissection whiz can do it with some old batteries and a cheap DMM for almost nothing, the well advised startup entrepeneur, having secured considerable VC, ends up with a park of complicate testing and calibration equipment.