Electronics Repair Workshop | Hacker News Reader

Electronics Repair Workshop

futo.org

145 pointswalterbell37 comments

If you’ve followed Louis Rossmann at all, this is what he’s been up to the last few years. It’s really cool to know that his right to repair focus has continued into these kinds of efforts. I hope I can swing down to Austin sometime in the near future to see this.

This whole Futo stuff is looking great. Finally a lobby organization for user freedom.

These are exactly the things that are needed, good job!

I've said for a while now that if I enough money to do something like it, I'd love to buy up the RadioShack name and re-open the business as effectively a bunch of local DIY repair shops like this. Work benches with tool rentals, test equipment rentals, digital microscopes etc, locker rentals and of course component sales (because yeah you can get resistors cheaper and in 1000 counts on Amazon, but being able to walk 20 feet to the counter and get the one you need right now and get back to what you're doing is valuable. Look into hiring some local old salts in the area that are retired and looking for some odd work from time to time and make sure you give them their own bench to work on their hobbies right there in the store / tutor the next gen.

There are a few community group types that do work in these areas. Worth seeing if any are based around where you live:

- Repair Cafes: People bring equipment (not just tech) in for repair, and work with the person repairing it. This gets the equipment repaired and teaches repair skills - Tool libraries: borrow tools as you would borrow books from a normal library. - Hackerspaces/makerspaces: if you are willing to repair yourself, but don't know how, hackerspaces might have people willing to give you pointers along that journey so you aren't just googling by yourself.

Xbox board repair workshop in Austin (Dec 2022, 56m), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc4W8BdufZo

A repair shop like this makes a ton of sense - but could they also expect to help with the diagnosis? Do repairable problems generally appear obvious under inspection?

this live demo included diagnosis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35026204

Somehow I assumed Rossman lived in NYC. Is he just visiting Austin?

Website says the store is in Austin: https://rossmanngroup.com

He moved (and moved his business) after bad experiences with the tax/business environment in NYC.

> Do repairable problems generally appear obvious under inspection?

It is the other way around. If you can’t diagnose it how could the problem be repairable?

We used to have TechShop, but after the bankruptcy and the disclosures that the the concept inherently lost money, the maker shop scene pretty much died.

I wish I could repair my welder. It’s like 6 boards all interconnected by wires. No smd, all big stuff, but I’m afraid of the high voltage.

Watch Wes Work did a couple of videos recently on repairing some old welders he picked up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxRyxD8-tyM

Might help/inspire you!

It’s easy when it’s a Miller and everyone has schematics lol. Mine is an AHP. Someone has some testing points but they don’t want to share them, and AHP won’t even talk to you if you can’t find your receipt.

> "Will have mild distractions until fully set up/caught up 2nd week of January."

It's March. Did this actually open?

It does look like it launched, just googling the actual location for 'FUTO Open Repair Workshop' gives back recent activity based on reviews.

Does not seem to have much social media follow up though...

Yeah it's weird how little following FUTO has. Such a good concept. But that's not weird if you realize that popularity and merit aren't related.

But the lack of popularity is why he hired Louis I assume. Because Louis has a large audience on YouTube.

Their web site describes this as a Real Soon Now thing:

"We eventually plan to have these available every day, once Louis’ staff has completed their full move to Texas. For the time being, check back this page regularly for availability, as the schedule is subject to change!"

No useful stuff like an equipment list, policies, current wait times, stuff you'd need to know to use the place. Do they sell parts, for example? What's their parts stock?

How useful this is tends to depend on little stuff. At TechShop, they had a hot-air rework station. Those need a set of nozzles which fit various part shapes. I had to get my own set of nozzles. At TechShop, to do electronics work you needed your own set of all the small hand tools.

If you're going to repair surface mount electronics, you need to practice first. There are surface mount practice kits, where you solder parts on boards that don't do anything. I did three or four of those before attempting a real board.

None of this stuff is inherently difficult, and there are YouTube videos for technique. But it takes training and practice.

I just wished something like this/a guy like this would exist here in Germany. I would love to learn that stuff :/

Regional CCC hackerspaces? https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2022/offenehackerspaces

> Hackerspaces are open places for the creative use of technology. They not only provide tools such as 3D printers and electronics labs but also offer a space where hackers, makers, and tinkerers can meet to exchange ideas and work on projects together. Over fifty Hackerspaces will join in and open their doors nationwide and in Switzerland and Luxembourg. The spaces and projects are as diverse as the interests of the CCC activists who meet and get involved in them.

I desperately need an online version of this. I would pay for it. Anywhere in 250 - 350 USD range would be ok

> need an online version of this

Do you mean a video conference about a board that you would ship for repair?

Or an online course of recordings from F2F repair workshops?

Happy to see Louis Rossman in hackernews!

Need a few of those in Los Angeles County

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