What ever happened to service manuals?

[Fred]

Just wondering if anyone has had trouble getting service manuals for various electronics or appliances and how you got the info you needed to fix something.

I remember years ago that all companies were required by law to sell a service manual or at least enough drawings and parts lists so that a technician could disassemble and work on their products. I was thinking it was 7 years? Sure seems like that law no longer being enforced.

In my case, I have an Olympus C700 digital camera, 2-3 years old with a power drainage problem. This should be a simple matter to isolate but I'm finding only operator/user info available. None of the camera repair shops in the LA area even work on this model bcause they have no documentation from Olympus. I have taken the camera completely apart (yes, and back together) and it is very simple to do, but not seeing anything obvious, like burned points, bad contacts, etc., I can't do much else until I know the test points, etc.

Any advice would be appreciated!

If you don't want to post, just send me an email to [e-mail]

Thanks!

Fred

[Edwin Pawlowski]

I've heard of such a practice, but never heard of it being a law. Today, the cost of repairs if often more than the appliance so a manual is not needed for a $10 toaster or $13 iron.. Many shops have a $40+ minimum so the chances are, you won't have the $39 DVD player fixed after two years.

Simple for you, but not most of us.

OK, the repair shops should have access to something, even if very basic. The Olympus factory techs must have some info or do they just replace modules? Could be a cost factor as the cost of making a manual as compared to the number of repairs is very high. Sad result of a throw away society.

I'd continue to buy Olympus. Maybe they will offer a repair if you become a big, but polite, PITA to them. Ed

[m Ransley]

Excessive power draw is a common defect , but could it be your batteries are not good.

[Phisherman]

I don't know about household appliances, but I won't buy a new car/truck unless I get the Service Manual with it. My 1983 Honda Civic Service Manual has been valuable to me and my mechanic.

[berkshire bill]

Camera, copier and fax manufactures require that you be CERTIFIED by them to repair their products. They will not sell parts catalogues and service manuals to end users. I'm sure there are rare times when people have made a big enough stink that they receive some documents showing parts layout or generic information. The certification test isn't that bad, but the test is usually conducted at their facility. If you work for a recognized dealer they will often let you take a self paced qualification test to show your ability, but either course is not free. The camera manuals we buy are in the $150 neighborhood, copier manuals can run as much as $700 a set and copying the documents if forbidden by the manufacturer (they own the proprietary rights).

Bill

[Zemedelec]

Generally, they seem to be online. Saves money I suppose (for the company, not the customer.) zemedelec

[Greg]

I worked for a big computer company and watched the death of service documentation. They used to provide the service reps with very good documentation and they also had to sell it to anyone with the money. They "fixed" that problem by not giving us much of anything either. The "documentation" ended up being a flowchart that always ended "replace it", The Field Replaceable Unit became the assembly and the mainenance philosophy was "swap til you drop".

[Dan Lanciani]

I wonder if he is thinking about car service manuals? There might be some requirement there, though the manufacturers have managed to reduce the information content significantly and replace it with flow charts. :(

| Safety concerns totally trump repairability. Under no circumstances will a | company legally expose themselves by telling you anything about how to muck | about in the innards of their product.

Sony used to be very good about this, selling service manuals for anything to anybody. I have service manuals for every Sony product I've owned (TVs, VCRs, older DSS receivers, etc.) and they actually have schematics. I also had no trouble (though it was slightly more complicated than with Sony) getting a service manual for a Pioneer LaserDisc player and (I think) some Panasonic VCRs. Recently I was unable to get a Sony service manual for a newer DSS receiver, though, and I'm afraid this may be a trend. The sales rep seemed rather puzzled about it and was supposed to do some research and get back to me, but he didn't. I think the problem may be more the DMCA and friends than injury liability concerns. The current legislative environment effectively requires a lot of consumer electronics to be tamper-proof black boxes in order to protect the new rights of content providers.

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

[Ed Price]

Apparently, they can. However, they do appear to have a dexterity problem. They also don't realize that two of the groups they are spraying with electrons do not exist.

Jack, can you figure out which two groups exist only in your imagination?

Ed wb6wsn

[Ed Price]

That's really impressive analysis skills, considering that you forgot about the shock hazard of the flash circuitry and the energy content of the batteries.

And you're still posting to those two imaginary groups.

Ed wb6wsn

[MUADIB®]

Fred, Sorry I can't help you with the service manual Issue. It's one of my big peaves too. However I will offer some advice on fixing the camera.

One of the guys at a Dealership (automotive) that I visit daily does this for a side gig.

He buys cameras and other electronics off of eBay and pieces together broken ones and gets them for dirt, and makes a pretty healthy profit on many of the items. He says that cameras make him the most money, because they are not worth much to many people unless they are complete operating units. See about finding some used, possible broken ones on eBay and see if you can get a matching part , say a board or something to fix the one you've got.

Just an Idea anyway.

Remove "YOURPANTIES" to reply MUADIB®

It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

[gothika]

The shock hazard is trivial, it won't kill you. Won't even burn you, just make you yell abit. I did camera repair years ago and we used to use flash capacitors and charging coils on any hard nose that got transferred in. Just wire it into an open loop between his metal stool and the steel work tables we fixed camera on.(And we used really big caps from the older graflex flashes and old strobonars.) Also I doubt his camera uses anything bigger than "AA"s, not enough energy in those to do much more give you a mild spark even on a small charged capacitor.

[Ed Price]

You need to stretch your imagination a bit. True, a charged strobe capacitor likely won't kill you. But what happens immediately after getting a zap? Maybe you involuntarily shove that Xacto blade into your thumb, or maybe knock the camera on the floor.

As for battery energy content. I can recall doing a stoopid trick with a Polaroid flat-pack battery; I decided to cut the sheet open to see what was inside. I was amazed to find that, as I was cutting the pack open with a stainless steel scissors, there was enough heat liberated to boil the chemical filling and cause smoke to rise from the pack. OK, not exactly nuclear fission, but not a suggested practice either.

Besides, the OP was a considerably lower than 50th percentile induhvidual, and ignorant persistence seemed to be his leading trait.

Ed wb6wsn