Repair service

[Clive]

Heh, maybe this should turn into a thread about how far you have to go to get your post, what with the Polish PO having Donkey express and Aussies having to go to the hospital:lol:

[retroleds]

Myself, I am getting burned out on repair work. IF you hang out a shingle that says, "digital watch repair work", it doesn't take long before you are receiving 5+ inquiries a day and 10+repair jobs a week. Sucks having to send out 3-5 "Dear John, your watch is f'n dead" letters a week....at least with junkers off ebay your expectation is much lower. I keep thinking about pulling the plug on my repair services but I keep thinking about this unpleasent experience I had referring repair work to someone else - in this case the "Referee" bad mouthed me to the customer(whom I already had a nice working relationship with) and then the customer received their watch with the exterior work looking so bad I felt obligated to tell them I would make it right on my time.

I think part of the problem is that there are not quite enough(but almost) digital watch owners for there to be enough repair work to support 2-3 full time repair people world-wide. Even myself, if I didn't have other streams of income and a bit of a "toil away alone like a monk" mentality, I couldn't/wouldn't bother. Fixing and selling is much more lucretive.....I haven't had time to do that in a while, ditto with some of my other projects.

One thing I have learned from doing repair work is that there are thousands of people out there who own a digital watch, who want nothing to do with forums and user groups unless they have a problem. It is an old, retro watch, they just want it to work. A bit amusing when they contact you," I need you to replace this, and this, and this", like this was 1974 and someone has a warehouse full of the parts just sitting there.

All right, back to work...sorry I don't check in and "administer" here more, but it's been suggested I just let the forum run itself a bit more. So, I am counting on you die-hard fans to jump start things with fresh topics, "watch I'm wearing" photos and such. More than 3 posts a week and I get accused of running everything.

Couldn't resist chiming in on this topic, since it is so close to my "World".

[Clive]

I think that's me tbh, I love the look of the watches but have absolutely no idea of what goes on inside, I don't even want to risk taking the back off one unless I break something.

I've taken one of my working watches to have the batteries changed and they come back knackered, hard to prove it was working when it was dead before you take it in, last time I took it to a new guy who was pretty clued up and did the job properly.

Take it to most places in the UK and they send it off to Seiko(I think) who then say they can't do anything and suggest you send it to Pulsar in the States.

[Diginut]

I have maybe 700 digitals and sometimes its worse than having 700 kids with wet nappies !

But I can do certain elements of electronics repair, and cosmetic restorations. Quite a lot of electronic problems are beyond being fixed and a replacement module is the only real solutions. Others it can be something simple like a dead 32k xtal.

Here's my recollections of what typically used to happen when I was fixing watches years ago. I do NOT do this now as I am supposed to be running a company, and a young family, and have little spare time for much else these days. But heres what happens to the few people who have tried to offer repair services to other owners.

What a lot of people don’t seem to realise is that TIME COSTS MONEY and EQUIPMENT costs money and SKILL is learnt over time, and they bitch like hell when they find out its going to cost $x00 to fix their recently acquired ebay special watch. So, after lots of initial correspondence (which takes time) and asking you to prove how good you are (which takes more time) they might actually send you the watch by registered post which inevitably gets delivered when you’re away from home/office and you end up having to go collect it (which takes more time).

So they get real pissed when they send you their watch and irrelevant of the value (high or low) spending 3 to 4 to 5 hours fiddling around, working out if its fixable all costs money, and you then send them an analysis and cost estimation (which takes time) and then they refuse to pay and demand the watch back !!!!

Then there’s all the equipment – this costs (scopes etc). Then there’s issue of skill / knowledge. These people send you their dead pride and joy and when you tell them the LCD is knackered and it needs a donor they take it upon themselves to ring the manufacturer and ask something daft like how much is a replacement panel for a Seiko 0634 (1975 !) only to not realise that Seiko or most others haven’t got a clue what they are talking about, and then they demand the watch back with no payment fee because its not fixed so why should they pay, then they try and fix it themselves by using a hammer to smack the wrong module into a case etc etc

And in my experience theres a higher propensity for these people to be from France or Italy who can bitch the most, yet readily admit they haven’t got a clue what goes on inside a module or how a display works. It just not worth the time dealing with certain individuals. I know that sounds like a generalisation and there are some superb people out there, but sometimes the bitching of one individual, who then bad mouths my work, just spoils it for the rest.

And all in all, you wonder why the hell you ever admitted that you can usually fix digital watch problems ! You end up never working on your own watches, and feel over committed to other people problems, and get nothing but hassle from cheapskates.

Obviously there are some individuals that are very very happy for the fact that you’ve fixed their watch. Look back through my posts going back years and I think theres some pics of watches I have restored or repaired.


I’ve often contemplated buying a wire-bonding machine because (1) I’d love to have that skill in my own repertoire and (2) I could preserve some rare early modules that use exposed wire bonds and (3) I could, in theory, repair other peoples watchs. But such a set up would cost £5k to £10k to set up, and who the hell is actually going to pay for all that time / cost / skill ???!!

So, due to the idiotic nature of some of the morons out there, I backed out of doing work for hire some years ago. Sad, I know, but it really pissed me off that I was getting grief when all I was trying to do was help preserve and repair watches for someone else’s collection.


<rant>

!

[Clive]

I can imagine it can be a bit of mare, personally I went down the trusting the bloke fixing my watch and paying what he asked.

It's a sad indictment of today's society that you're never ever going to know if you're being ripped off or not, if the owners knew what the watches problem was they'd understand but they don't so are always sceptical, it's a bit like taking your car to the garage, you don't know if it needs a new cam shaft but you pay for it anyway as the expert said it needed it, how many times have you seen programmes with garages being exposed/??

[Led-Time]

how many times have you seen programmes with garages being exposed

Been there got the t-shirt with that one, as I'am an engineer to trade luckily I usually know more than them and I've had several over the counter raging arguments with so called car experts regarding shoddy work and over charging. I hate being ripped off you see I won’t stand for it.

Working in the service industry must be a nightmare dealing with the public every day it must take a special mentality not to shout at the plonkers of the world when they're being an arse.

[Diginut]

how many times have you seen programmes with garages being exposed

Been there got the t-shirt with that one, as I'am an engineer to trade luckily I usually know more than them and I've had several over the counter raging arguments with so called car experts regarding shoddy work and over charging. I hate being ripped off you see I won’t stand for it.

Working in the service industry must be a nightmare dealing with the public every day it must take a special mentality not to shout at the plonkers of the world when they're being an arse.

How true is that !

I started off as an electronics engineer with a late 70's degree and spent most of the 70's building all manner of 'digital' / Logic based projects from simple frequency counters and clocks, right up to an entire digital oscilloscope using a hand made LED flat panel matrix display, in 1977. Hence my interest in Digital Watches.

As for cars / Servicing and members of the Public – I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment above !!!

Having once won a significant legal case for 'Negligent Misrepresentation" after a certain well known company buggered up my car big time, I have little faith in car dealers or service centres. The legal case was all cloaked up with a gagging order at the time as they didn’t want me telling the newspapers, or Top Gear…. But that period has now expired … and the company ? … it was none other than those nice people who hold themselves out as "purveyors of fine automobiles" ... Ferrari UK. It was of a monumental ****up of very expensive proportions entirely of their own making and they tried to stick the bill on me …

[Fitron]

diginut

I have maybe 700 digitals and sometimes its worse than having 700 kids with wet nappies !

lol bet it doesn't smell as bad though...

So they get real pissed when they send you their watch and irrelevant of the value (high or low) spending 3 to 4 to 5 hours fiddling around, working out if its fixable all costs money, and you then send them an analysis and cost estimation (which takes time) and then they refuse to pay and demand the watch back !!!!

I bet they do but take a mechanical analogue to a watchman and this is the basic charge. I doubt any watchman does an estimate for free - mine stopped this year for just the reasons you state. This is a modern attitude that is unrealistic for this situation. People who can fix any type of watch are few and far between, digi's even more so. A shame you've quit but understandable. Don't give up Ed/Piotr We need you.

Working in the service industry must be a nightmare dealing with the public every day it must take a special mentality not to shout at the plonkers of the world when they're being an arse.

I work in public libraries, oh for mace spray to be made legal in the uk...

Back on topic though, did oliver not mention something a while back about somewhere in Paris? And anyone know anybody in Germany (usick?) as there's a large thriving digi scene there. They must get work done there somewhere.

[LEDluvr]

I for one am very grateful for the few digital watch repair guys out there.
Particularly Ed since he's stateside and most accessable to me.
Ed - you dah man!