Off topic: Schematic for monitor

[Ron]

Glen,

Thanks much for the info. I wish I had it at the time I was
dealing with APC.

Have a nice day,

-- Ron


Glen Zook wrote:
> A company has to make available any service
> information that exists (for which they may charge an
> "appropriate fee") to any bonified service
> organization or to any owner so long as the owner is
> "qualified" to service the equipment.
>
> Any charge for service information cannot exceed that
> which is charged to the manufacturer's authorized
> service organizations.
>
> Back in the 1970s there were several two-way radio
> manufacturers that were made "painfully aware" of this
> law.  Also, any parts must be sold at the same price
> to any service organization purchasing them.  That is,
> the manufacturer cannot charge less to their
> authorized service organization than they do to any
> other service organization, individual, etc.
>
> Motorola learned this the "hard way" when they had a
> "3-tier" pricing on their service parts.  They had a
> "suggested list price" (which is legal), a price that
> they charged their authorized service shops, and a
> price that was less than suggested list but more than
> the authorized service shop that they charged other
> service organizations.  The federal government got
> "very" upset when some of the independent service
> shops complained.  Motorola had to start selling their
> service parts to the independents at the same price as
> they did to the authorized shops.
>
> I ran into this "no service data except to authorized
> warranty stations" on a refrigerator that developed a
> slight problem.  At first the manufacturer (major
> manufacturer of appliances) refused to provide any
> information.  Then they said that the manual cost
> almost as much as the refrigerator.  Finally I
> contacted the upper management of the manufacturer
> pointing out that they were required to provide
> service information and that their customer service
> department was trying to "snow" me.
>
> In less than a week a full service manual and updates
> appeared in my mailbox along with a letter of appology
> from the president of the company.  There was an
> invoice along with the manual that had been marked
> paid.  The invoice was for about $15 instead of the
> several hundred that customer service had tried to
> tell me the manual cost.  The $15 was the "normal"
> cost for the service information when requested by
> their authorized service centers.
>
> The fact that the "repair" cost was almost the retail
> cost of the item basically says that you would
> probably get a replacement item and the company would
> make more from the "repair" than they did from the
> original sale.  This is a "ploy" to keep others from
> easily repairing their equipment.  Since most consumer
> products cost more these days to repair than to
> purchase new replacements I suspect that many of the
> companies don't have a clue as to how to actually
> repair the equipment and thus do not have any service
> information available.  Since the repair information
> is not available to anyone (including themselves) it
> would be very difficult to provide this information to
> anyone.
>
> However, certain information, like a basic schematic
> should be available.  In fact, a small copy of the
> schematic can often be found somewhere inside of the
> equipment.  The only problem is that you often have to
> remove the schematic and take it to a copy machine
> that can enlarge several times in order to be able to
> actually tell what the circuit looks like!
>
> Glen, K9STH
>
>
> --- Ron <ra.ah at RCN.COM> wrote:
>
> I asked APC for a schematic and they refused, claiming
> it's proprietary information. FYI, there is nothing
> proprietary in a UPS. OTOH, fixing the darn thing
> without a schematic could take hours and hours, as
> opposed to 20 minutes with a schematic and PCB layout.
>
> The UPS was about $130 or so at the time. Turned out
> repair was (flat fee) $90, and just a bit less for
> replacing it with a brand new one... No wonder these
> pillars of honesty wouldn't give out the schematic...
>
>
> =====
> Glen, K9STH
>
>

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