Is anyone else afraid of making their own electrical repairs?

[aysiu]

My wife and I try to be pretty self-reliant. Part of that has to do with our personalities. Part of that has to do with our budget.

If we have software computer problems (and yes she does have them, despite Mac fans' claims to the contrary about everything "just working"), we'll try our best to research the solutions online and fix them ourselves.

If we have a plumbing problem, we'll try to fix that ourselves too (she's fixed our showerhead; I've fixed toilet clogs).

I've changed car oil and batteries before. She's done house painting. She's sewn up fallen-off buttons on clothes.

Recently, though, our rear projection TV (after about five years of solid performance) broke, and we were trying online to research ways to fix it. I even tried Sony's completely unhelpful chat tech support (proposing "solutions" I'd already tried after finding them online). It came down to some fuses needing to be replaced with a lot of soldering.

Could we have done it ourselves? Maybe. The parts are already about $50 each. The fact is--do-it-yourself as much as we are--we're both scared of making electrical repairs. What if you're not grounded and end up electrocuting yourself? What if you drip solder all over the wrong parts? There's too much to break and even our lives to be put in danger (whereas, with software troubleshooting, the worst that could happen is you delete everything, which can be taken care of if you back up your data beforehand). Needless to say, we hired TV repair guys to come in and fix our TV.

Are we the only do-it-yourselfers who are afraid of doing electronic repairs? What about you all?

[Pekkalainen]

As an electrician educated in safety regarding electrical installations, no Im not scared of it ;)

[Medieval_Creations]

My wife and I are the same way. We both do everything we can as far as do-it yourself goes. But there are a few things that we still shy away from. Electric being one of them (aside from changing out a switch or installing a ceiling fan) neither of us want to take the chance.

We're still in the middle of remodeling our bathroom and we've done everything from demo, to moving walls, you name it. The 2 things that neither of us felt comfortable doing was moving the plumbing from 1 wall to another and redoing the electrical.

[mips]

Could we have done it ourselves? Maybe. The parts are already about $50 each. The fact is--do-it-yourself as much as we are--we're both scared of making electrical repairs. What if you're not grounded and end up electrocuting yourself? What if you drip solder all over the wrong parts? There's too much to break and even our lives to be put in danger (whereas, with software troubleshooting, the worst that could happen is you delete everything, which can be taken care of if you back up your data beforehand). Needless to say, we hired TV repair guys to come in and fix our TV.

Are we the only do-it-yourselfers who are afraid of doing electronic repairs? What about you all?

I studied electronic engineering and know enough about electrical stuff. Even with this knowledge there are a few thing I do NOT like to work with, microwaves, tv/monitor and any other stuff that might have high voltage (switchmode powersupplies) etc

There are ways to make the above device more safe but I still avoid them. Also never work on devices that are connected to the outlet. I've seen people doing some pretty stupid things with electricity which could be deadly like wire a switch into the ac neutral wire instead of the live wire etc.

I've been shocked working on a monitor before (about 20kV) and also by an electrical outlet strip in a data cabinet (which I might add was brand new) luckily for me there was a guy standing next to me that kicked my hand away otherwise I might have been pushing up daisies right now.

Rear projection tvs usually use 3 small crt tubes to generate the picture so there will be high voltage + your normal AC in there. Spilling solder across components would cause an electrical short and could damage the components (been there done that modding a playstation for a mate and I'm very carefull).

My advice to you would be to get a friend who knows what they are doing perform the repair for you.

If you dont know or understand electricity stay away!!!

[aysiu]

My advice to you would be to get a friend who knows what they are doing perform the repair for you.Oh, it's already been fixed. We paid a professional TV repair guy to fix it.
If you dont know or understand electricity stay away!!! I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I created this thread.

[-grubby]

I hate working on electric things. I know I'm just gonna die if I do so. I had to fix an old laptops power supply and could barely do it
EDIT: just remembered. Once I was changing a lightbulb and was stupid enough to force it to turn the wrong way. It broke between my fingers and It was not a pleasant feeling (I was stupid enough to accidentally leave the lightswitch on)

[bluedragon436]

I will do some electrical work, now when it comes down to replacing an electrical component on a circuit board, I won't mess with it, but just about everything else I will give a try. I learned how to install all electrical components in a house by helping do a complete install in a newly built house, after that I feel fairly confident....not completely knowledgeable, but confident...

[Flying caveman]

Elecrtical stuff like replacing a switch or receptical or changing a fixture I can do myself.

I don't like messing with elecrtonics, my first attempt at fixing anything like that was trying to re-solder a capacitor that had broken off a graphics card. That was a disaster. bye bye 6800GS

The next thing i tried to repair was the DC-in jack on a Toshiba laptop. I actually sent it in to a place to get it repaired. they quoted me a low price, then when the got it they raised the price. it was several hundred dollars and it still wasn't fixed right. I sent it back and forth a few times for them to keep repairing it. finally I just decided to fix it myself. Which worked a few more times. before I got solder all over and must have ruined the motherboard. There was actually a class-action lawsuit over that defective model of laptop, but it would have still cost me more money to be awarded a $50.00 credit for repairs , or a Toshiba credit for their overpriced accessories.

The next thing I had to deal with was replacing another defective part, it was replacing the potentiometer in a replica F-16 throttle, (I play Falcon 4 sometimes and you need to have the right tools) the scariest thing was first taking it all apart, and wondering if I could get it to go back together again.
I only had to actually un-solder 3 wires and solder the new part back in the same way. This time I had a fine point soldering gun which made things a lot easier.

[Oldster]

Leaving your TV repair to someone that has soldering skills is not such a bad idea. A solder bridge could cause a component to overheat and although a remote possibility could cause a fire.

$50 for a fuse sounds like a raping to me.

Here is one of my personal stories. I replaced an electric water heater in my house. After rewiring it to the fuse panel, I flicked on the circuit breaker and noted no smoke. So I grabbed my voltmeter to check my work. Through the access panel in the water heater, I carefully probed the power terminals and looked up at the meter. At that very instant there was this very bright flash and loud boom. As you might guess at this already tense moment I got quite an adrenaline rush. I nearly jumped out of my shoes and my heart was pounding. At the very instant I was measuring the power there was a lightning strike very close to my house. What's the chance of that happening? :lolflag:

[kevdog]

Ive done some of this work before, however the problem I found was particularly with solder I didnt have either the appropriate or correct equipment to do a quality job. I remember going to electrical maintainence guys at work and they did a lot of the soldering for me. Their equipment was so much better than I had at home. Nonetheless I kind of stopped doing a lot of the microelectric work.

As far as basic home electrical work, switches, ceiling fans, bathroom fans, additional circuits -- that is pretty basic. I miss my college multimeter and oscilloscope!!

[LaRoza]

It depends, if it is important house wiring, or a device like a TV, power supply, microwave, etc I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want to be a toasted LaRoza.

[RandomJoe]

I'm an electrical engineer, and have been playing with electricity since I was a kid, so... No, I have no problem doing that sort of thing! :) I'll also tackle just about any DIY project including plumbing. The one thing I *will*not* touch is gas piping! My career is designing and installing commercial HVAC control systems, and after 12 years I still get nervous when working with gas-fired boilers and heaters.

When I bought my house, I found the previous owner's son - who was supposedly a licensed electrician - had made some rather... unorthodox... modifications. Most notably he had added a light over the driveway, and the easiest way he found to do that was to extend off the garage light. But, naturally, he wanted a separate switch for the two lights. So he used the black (hot) wire as hot to the garage light, the white (neutral) as HOT to the driveway light, and a bare ground wire as neutral for both! It's been fun cleaning up his messes.

I do draw the line electrically at 480V. Won't touch *anything* over that! (Besides, the tools I have are only rated to 600V in the first place.) I prefer to limit myself to control-voltage levels, like 24V or less.

[Dimitriid]

I wasn't afraid until I got hit with 110v current while trying to fix a light switch. That was not pleasant and the next time I'll either ask for help from somebody who knows what he is doing more than me or research a lot more..

[blithen]

I hate working on electric things. I know I'm just gonna die if I do so. I had to fix an old laptops power supply and could barely do it
EDIT: just remembered. Once I was changing a lightbulb and was stupid enough to force it to turn the wrong way. It broke between my fingers and It was not a pleasant feeling (I was stupid enough to accidentally leave the lightswitch on)

o.O How hard were you turning it to FORCE it the wrong way in?

[-grubby]

o.O How hard were you turning it to FORCE it the wrong way in?

taking it out

[99bluefoxx]

i commend you for your do-it-yourself attitude, as for me, i refuse to touch the internals of anything with a tube in it, like old CRTs, and older TV sets, no matter how tempting those RCA jacks are for salvage
i DO however do my own electrical repaires, ranging from replacing a light switch i punched in during a arguement with my dad[the start of it all, ironically] to building my own curcuits[i am trying to replicate a amp circuit to be battery powered], and even minor hardware mods[i put a heatsink on my RAM off of a PSU transistor] and increasingly numorous case mods for my computer[moving switches around, adding extra LEDs, but thats off topic i think]
personally i dont mind slaving over a hot soldering iron for a few hours just to re-wire my beloved headphones[im something of an audiophile, my take on life is its all one big music video, and we are all the star of it for our selves] or change the matt green LED on my DVD drive with a surface mounting orange or faded red one, i find it strangly satisfiying to point something out to a guest and say" i made that"or "i did this", lol

[popch]

Fear is the mind killer....

Electrical installations and some household appliances are no problems for me. Checking connections, wires, switches and fuses is all right. I will not attempt to repair 'electronics' or devices which use very high voltages because I know I lack the knowledge to do anything useful.

[toupeiro]

hehe, for some reason the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread was that movie, Down Parascope.

[macogw]

If it wasn't a terribly expensive piece of equipment, I'd get one of those cold-heat soldering tools (to avoid grabbing barely-solidified metal with my bare hands like I accidentally did in a high school art class) and try it myself, probably with someone standing there watching who knew what to do. I'd definitely start with someone who had some idea giving me tips while I'm doing it so I learn right though.

On regular computer hardware, I just snap things in and out and hope they continue to work.

Oh, anti-static wrist strap: get one.

[Dale61]

When it comes to anything (mains power) electrical, I won't touch it.

Even though my trade saw me working in power distribution stations (power generation plants), I only worked on the mechanical side of things, not the electrical.

I was constantly working in an environment with up to 50,000V, and have been witness to a death or two due to faulty equipment.

To me, electricity is THE silent killer.

[rzrgenesys187]

Me - I'm afraid of messing up, especially if its expensive, I'd just ask my dad since he's an Electrical Engineer. Rather let him do it since I would probably just mess it up.

[adam.tropics]

Anything high voltage I would take the view of 'Get a man in'...I always thought that was fairly irrational of me, but reading this thread feel much better!....now if I could find an equally good reason to avoid the gardening I'd be all set!

[Lostincyberspace]

Housing electrical not really, circuit board electrical very much so. I spent a summer wiring houses so in that respect I am fine. But I wouldn't touch a circuit board to save my life, its to easy to mess up.

[PartisanEntity]

I too do not carry out any major electrical repairs, I don't know enough about it to guarantee I won't kill myself or burn down the house.

Like most, I can fix basic things around the house. But if something like a TV, microwave, monitor or fuse-box stopped working I would/do get professionals to do it.

Since we are on the topic, when I was about 16-18 I did something very stupid, I was playing around with an old alarm clock my parents had, those 80's style clocks with plastic tabs that turn to show the next minute or hour, and as I pulled the plug out of the socket, one of the pins remained in the socket, without thinking at all, I reached out and grabbed it in order to pull it out, this sent quite a heavy buzzing shock through my arm, I wasn't able to let go but did manage to pull the pin out, for stupidities sake I did this another one or two times because at the time I thought it was 'cool'. So yeah, I think I will leave it to the professionals to deal with things like this :)

[azkehmm]

Anything above 230V is a no go for me. Anything below, I'll try once or twice, get jolted a few times, then call in a proffesional. If i do something "big," like laying out new cables and stuff like that, I'll have to have a proffesionel certify what I've done, if I want my insurance to cover it. Same goes for plumbing, in Denmark.
When it comes to electronic repairs, I usually have a look at it, and if I can't see where the fault is without diggin and disassembling too much, i'll leave it to someone who knows what they're doing.

[matthew]

I'm not intimidated by electrical stuff, but that's because I have put a lot of time into learning how to work with it safely. I once rewired an entire house by myself* because at the time I couldn't afford to pay someone to do all the work, but I could afford to go to the library and study up on electrical best practices and codes. I also built a tube-powered guitar amp (http://www.matthewhelmke.net/index.php/2007/10/31/15-my-custom-amplifieryep-i-built-it-myself) by myself after buying old ones off of eBay, fixing them, and reselling them for a few years.

*(ok, not completely true, someone helped me upgrade the main electrical panel and the electric company did the actual meter replacement).

I do have a lot of respect for the potential dangers of working with electrical circuits, and I would strongly recommend that most people do NOT do things like this themselves. I think aysiu made a good decision taking his TV to a professional.

A few milliamps of electricity can kill you. Don't mess with it without doing your homework first, and even then, pay attention every second.

[mips]

I wasn't able to let go but did manage to pull the pin out, for stupidities sake I did this another one or two times because at the time I thought it was 'cool'. So yeah, I think I will leave it to the professionals to deal with things like this :)

Yes, I think you are one of those individuals that should stay far away from electrical stuff :)

[mips]

Anything above 230V is a no go for me. Anything below, I'll try once or twice, get jolted a few times, then call in a proffesional.

You are scaring me, really you are. Voltage(V) is not the real killer here, Current(A) is the killer and you need very little of it to actually kill you! A couple of mA could be lethal. Take care please!

[matthew]

You are scaring me, really you are. Voltage(V) is not the real killer here, Current(A) is the killer and you need very little of it to actually kill you! A couple of mA could be lethal. Take care please!There is a saying that might help a person remember this. "Volts jolt, but mils kill." (mils = milliamps = mA)

[azkehmm]

You are scaring me, really you are. Voltage(V) is not the real killer here, Current(A) is the killer and you need very little of it to actually kill you! A couple of mA could be lethal. Take care please!

Well, 230 is the standard "household" power sources we have here. So, "anything below 230V" includes changing a switch or a plug and stuff like that. Anything else would involve a proffesional if I am to decide.

A question just came to mind. Back when I was a metal worker, i was knocked out by a faulty welding machine once, while I was welding waith 110 amps. Does this mean that I've had 110 amps running through me, or will resistance and stuff like that have reduced it to a more tolerable level?

[mips]

Well, 230 is the standard "household" power sources we have here. So, "anything below 230V" includes changing a switch or a plug and stuff like that. Anything else would involve a proffesional if I am to decide.


That 230V you are referring to comes with a whopping 15Amps of current, enough to kill you many times over.

I know nothing of welding machines. From what I gather electrocution through welding usually happens with bad grounding.
http://www.lincolnelectric.com/knowledge/articles/content/grounding_arc_welding_safety.asp

[daynah]

Nope. My last laptop broke and required soldering the mobo back together. I did it. Unfortunately, the keyboard broke in the disassemble (first time disassembling a laptop for either me or my dad).Though the soldering job worked, we've been too lazy to buy a new keyboard to replace it.

I think it's 'cause my dad used to make radios when he was a kid (lots of soldering and electronics) and raised me to build things like that. When I was little and a power supply broke, he handed it to me with a pair of plyers and let me go at it. Electricity ain't no big thang!

But DIY with wood though. I don't have the tools, you have to buy the lumber, I can't do the math to figure out how much lumber I need and all the differnet sizes. I really want a desk to look like a TARDIS (I saw a picture online). But I always chicken out. Wood scares me.