[rescue] rescue Digest, Vol 135, Issue 8

[microcode at zoho.com]

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 02:09:19AM -0500, Mouse wrote:
> >>> The cost of repair for a small business is more than the cost of a
> >>> new LCD monitor.
> >> That's completely dysfunctional and we should work to change it.
> 
> By making new ones more expensive, or making repairs cheaper?  In
> either case, how?
> 
> > It might not even be true.  Peter just said he fixed a bunch.
> 
> Yes...at what cost?  I'm four for four, I think it is, at fixing LCD
> flatscreens by re-capping.  I'd be surprised if I would ever get to the
> point of taking less than an hour to do one - and, at any realistic pay
> rate for a decent electronics tech, that approaches the cost of a new
> flatscreen.  Add in the costs of reselling the fixed monitors and I'm
> far from convinced it's not true.  And that's not even considering
> profit margin - and, in jurisdictions where it's an issue, liability.

They've come down a lot but commodity el-cheapo flatscreens here cost about
150 bucks for a decent (by our ratty standards) 19.5 inch. They don't pay
what passes for technicians here two hundred bucks a day. I think it would
be closer to 14 USD an hour- and from my experience, they're about 14 dollars
overpaid. But I digress... I guess depends a lot on where. Most markets are
much smaller than North America and most places the prices are much higher
than in North America. Here, it definitely makes sense when you can pay one
guy to (sortof) fix 8 screens and sell them for let's say 800 dollars for
112 dollars in labor and whatever a new cheap set of Chinese caps cost.