Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Don't let companies make you waste your money, fix it yourself!

So I received a hard drive dock that i had ordered online, and upon receiving it, I immediately knew something was wrong. I hesitantly shook the box only to discover the weight designed to keep the dock stationary had broken loose inside the dock. when I emailed the company inquiring about a replacement, they informed me they would be happy to mail a replacement as long as i paid to ship my defective unit back. now for a large, or pricey item, this may be understandable, but I paid 15 dollars for this, and wasn't about to spend 8 more for a chance at receiving another defective unit, I opened the enclosure to see what i could do about it, and noticed that not only had the weight broken free, but in transit, it had managed to break off the only component on the bottom side of the board. a single crystal oscillator. obviously i couldn't just reattach the weight and have everything work, so i pulled out my "Bucket 'O Parts" and set out to find a new one to replace the broken one with. five minutes later I had my oscillator, and was plugging in my soldering iron to prep for the transplant. a few quick maneuvers later, i had everything as it should be. i grabbed an old drive off of the shelf, plugged it in carefully, and flipped the switch, SUCCESS! another instance where voiding a warranty was both cheaper and easier to accomplish than trying to use the warranty to get a replacement. Now, obviously not everyone knows how to solder, but try it out, the tools are cheap (~$10US) and you can practice with wires and old circuit boards until you become used to it. Now go and void some more warranties!

7 comments:

  1. cool, i want to star learning how to do stuff like this.

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  2. man... these crazy companies, standard poloicy should be to trust customers and send them replacements first! good thing you are handy with fixes!

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  3. Sounds like a plan man, keep it up.

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  4. Sounds like a highly useful skill, if potentially expensive to develop. :p

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  5. FLAWLESS VICTORY!

    Also, I love soldering (it smells good too!)

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  6. Marketable skills shouldn't only produce money, but stop you from spending some. good job yo!

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  7. yep do it your way cuz them companies aint gonna give two hoots

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