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Buying 'damaged' equip deliberately??
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Stray Electron:

--- Quote from: GlennSprigg on January 26, 2020, 12:54:40 pm ---Often I see something like a latest 'Tablet' on eBay, that is listed as 'Parts Only'.
They have to say that, as it is not 'working', but may be just a cracked screen!!
(Their further description may state that it is only the screen etc.)
Ok, I pay $99 instead of say $699, and can source a new Screen for $130 to fit 'myself' !
Can it be worth it, or should I/we steer clear?? Am sure there are past experiences!  :)

--- End quote ---

   Ebay used to be a good place to buy untested or nonworking equipment but not so much any more.  Years ago most of the sellers on E-bay were private individuals and they'd usually give you an honest description, at least within their level of expertise. But in the last five years or so there seems to a lot of full time, professional sellers on E-bay and most of them are just dumping junk IMO.  One thing that you do need to look for, particularly in electronic equipment, is equipment that has been opened up and the valuable parts stripped out and the left over hulk is sold on Ebay.  Another consideration, probably particularly for you guys down under, is the cost to ship the item to you and the customs charges. Within the US the shipping is reasonable and the customs charges are usually zero but some of things that I see from Australia and Europe make me wonder why the peasants (based on the way that they're treated by their own governments)  there haven't revolted yet.

  I probably buy at least 6, 7 or 8 items per month from E-bay but usually from sellers that I've dealt with and trust or CHEAP items.  There's no way that I will pay $200 to $300 (or more!) for a piece of equipment that I don't know anything about. In fact, this coming week I'm driving over and picking up 8 items that I just bought from one dealer.  He usually has GOOD equipment but he gets it on consignment and he's too lazy to test it so it's sold strictly as-is where-is.
edpalmer42:
I usually buy test equipment that's advertised as dead or flaky.  I use them as learning exercises to improve my knowledge in those areas.  I've bought power supplies, oscilloscopes, microwave counters, rubidium standards, even a cesium standard.  The repairs have varied from something as simple as plugging in or rearranging internal cables to replacing a specialized IC with a history of failure.

If I was buying consumer electronic or computer equipment, I'd be much less likely to buy a dead unit.  Consumer equipment is just not made to be repairable - particularly newer items like computers or laptops.

Regardless of what you're buying, you always have to go into it expecting to end up with nothing but scrap.  It's pure gambling.  Don't gamble with money you can't afford to lose.

Ed
Stray Electron:
    Good points.

   I wouldn't buy any defective "consumer electronics".  First it's inexpensive to buy it new that it doesn't justify buying used or defective. Save your time for something more productive than repairing consumer grade crap.  Second, consumer grade electronics today also uses too many one-off, house brand marked parts and in general just isn't made to last long.

    I'm usually looking for (top grade) test equipment of one sort or another and I always look at see if there are service manuals available for the item and if that model has an known defects and I take that into consideration before buying the item.  HP, for example, makes some good TE but some models are known to be problematic and some of it has parts that have a known high failure rate and that are unobtainable.
Berni:
Oh and you also see people like techmoan on youtube buying old HiFi equipment and fixing up any simple faults with them.

Since all of these old tape or disk based storage media are highly mechanical means that most of the faults he comes across are of mechanical nature. So fixing these doesn't really involve a whole lot of knowledge. Just take it apart, clean it, replace some fallen apart belts, lube up and jiggle around any jammed parts, glue together any broken plastic bits ..etc

Then there is also people like The8bitGuy that buy retro computers and fix them up. Tho he mostly focuses on the exterior of them to make them look as close to new as possible by extensive cleaning, bleaching plastic parts, replacing worn labels etc. But he will also do simple fixes like replacing bad caps, cleaning up leaked batteries and such. It can be turned into a business even since good condition retro computers sell for a pretty penny.
GlennSprigg:
(original OP)
Years ago, I 'obtained' virtually for free, 15 HP laptops. Back then, they had a common fault
where the graphics chip had some soldering issues to the main MotherBoard. I put weights on
the chips, after disassembly, and in an order to 'ReFlow'. all worked fine, and sold each for $300!
And after setting up all software they would ever need.
Sometimes it works out!!!  8)
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