Dawn of a new era in pedal repair/development?

[Mark Hammer]

So yesterday, a guy on another forum asks for some help in repairing a booster pedal he has, where he can send it, etc.  The guy lives in a somewhat out-of-the-way place so it would involves shipping.  People make suggestions and it goes back and forth.  I ask if he has a meter, suggest that he may be able to fix it himself, and that I'd be happy to walk him through it.  He confesses to not being particularly adept at using his meter but then he asks the magical question that prompted this thread:

DO YOU HAVE SKYPE?

 

While my wife and kids have webcams, I don't, so I had never considered the possibility of "tele-repair", where one party provides consultation to another in real time, while being able to SEE and HEAR the device in question, and say things like "Set your meter to AC volts and tell me what it reads on pin 3 of that chip over by the edge of the board.  No, the other one.  Yeah, that's it.", or maybe "That sounds pretty good, though I think maybe you want to lower the value of that cap."

I haven't arranged with the guy to do it yet, so there may well be less promise here than I imagine, but I also imagine it can be every bit as revolutionary as I imagine.

This is gonna be interesting. (Though please, do NOT flood my mailbox with requests.  I'm offering this up as a vehicle for you folks to help each other.)

[frequencycentral]

Skype's a great idea for this forum. I've skype'd with a few forumites in faraway places. As is a chatroom - now that would be awesome. It's been mentioned before but............

[wavley]

Finally, I have a use for skype or face time!

I've never actually used either, but now Mark is going to help me fix all my problem circuits!

Seriously, that's actually a good idea I wouldn't mind doing that for folks every now and then.

I actually get all sorts of free stuff and sweet deals for teaching the guy at the local pawn shop basic electronics.  I live in a small town so it's the closest thing to a music store we have.  The closest repair shop is 45 minutes away and overloaded and between my day job building cryogenic amps, building my own crap, and trying to actually play some of my stuff/use the sweet studio I built, I have no interest in doing repair work as a business anymore.  I'm sure there are lots of people out there that are just like me and got tired of paying somebody to not fix their stuff properly so they're learning electronics.  I'm always happy to try and help out those folks.  If years ago when I lived in Tampa someone hadn't charged me $200 bucks for a cap job and returned it 8 months later with a blown output transformer then I would have never taken it on myself to learn how that amp worked and fix it, then I wouldn't be working in a radio astronomy lab loving my job.  I never mind returning the favor (hopefully without the charging someone to break their stuff) at the very least to help facilitate a rewarding hobby.

[deadastronaut]

i have skype too...its brilliant, especially now i have a hd cam, and its free......i use my cam (logitech720pHD) for my youtube vids too...

ive tried jamming with a mate but too much lag etc...but its great for instant messaging, and far away family etc too..

might be better than people constantly asking 'how do i upload pics?'...(dodgy grainy mobile one's) 


as long as people invest in a 'good' cam it'll be brilliant...

[Mark Hammer]

The other aspect of this is that, so often, the person who has the most expertise with whatever you're trying to fix/build is on the other side of the world.  So, even though you'd be happy to ship them the pedal, it would be a VERY big nuisance. So much easier to have the expert virtually at your workbench.

[EATyourGuitar]

exactly, I love to teach but I try to teach people who want and need this stuff. I have lots of guitar tech friends that I think should already know this stuff so I try to help them. I can't stand little punks who think they know everything but are constantly bringing failed projects with the "I give up, its over me head" attitude. they don't even watch me fix it! that is the last time I do something for free for an idiot who has broken every piece of gear he owns after I told him not to touch anything else. the guy who is nice and owns a store and does not constantly bother me will always get help from me.

[Johan]

it's great idea for helping ONE person out( and I DO think you SHOULD help that guy), but there is also a danger that there will develop a sort of "club for the initiated" inside the forum and a lot of information that is now searchable and available to all would be lost once the repair is done and you hang up...I'm all for helping people out, but I dont like when things turn from "everyone" to "us-and-them"..be carefull
I dont have Skype at the moment but if there is an ability to have a conference type of thing( I'd be surpriced if there isnt) it could make a GREAT hangout where we could socialize without the keyboard..call it "the Bar" or something like that  ( "Group DIY" has "the Brewery"  )
J

[alparent]

I realized that most of the time something is not working.......it's my fault.

So I got this for Christmas.......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_surgery

Now Mark can repair/make my stuff himself.

Thanks Mark.....your the best! 

[therecordingart]

FaceTime for the Apple folks over here.

[Mark Hammer]

it's great idea for helping ONE person out( and I DO think you SHOULD help that guy), but there is also a danger that there will develop a sort of "club for the initiated" inside the forum and a lot of information that is now searchable and available to all would be lost once the repair is done and you hang up...I'm all for helping people out, but I dont like when things turn from "everyone" to "us-and-them"..be carefull
I dont have Skype at the moment but if there is an ability to have a conference type of thing( I'd be surpriced if there isnt) it could make a GREAT hangout where we could socialize without the keyboard..call it "the Bar" or something like that  ( "Group DIY" has "the Brewery"  )
J

Agreed.  I think you are quite correct in that a muiltimedia transaction between two parties leaves everyone else here out of the loop.  But that being said, there ARE often threads that are essentially very slow conversations between two people about one single topic.  Quite often, I'll look at a thread, and my first reaction is "Okay, they're taking care of that problem".  In such instances, a Skype consult is an elegant strategy for tackling a technical matter that may require more interactivity than the text/image-archive-only format can provide.

Of course, the other downside is that now I really have to clean up my workshop....because people will be able to see it! 

[deadastronaut]

and wear a mask...

[.Mike]

The problem with this, as I see it, is that... uhh... most webcams suck. They have definitely improved in the last few years, but most people still have crappy old 0.3MP webcams that just don't cut it for any kind of detail at all.

We have opened Christmas gifts with our family back in Chicago since we moved here in 2001. We started with dial-up, where you could barely make out a face and a gift. Now, though, it is greatly improved. I bought my girlfriend's mom an HD cam last year, and it worked great this year. I hooked the laptop up to the flat screen, and we had nice, clear, focused larger-than-life video. It was great.

BTW, if anyone ever wanted to try a DIYSB chatroom (again), you are welcome to set it up on my private IRC server. I can setup a Java front end in about 5 minutes. Just PM me.

Mike

[Mark Hammer]

While HD would be luverly, in some respects the resolution of the webcam is moot.  There obviously has to be something visual to discuss, but it's really more the interactivity that makes this useful,  The visual element simply provides a point of reference.  I don't really need to be able to read the part numbers or value codes from where I am, but if I am able to ask "And what does that chip on the right say, the one that appears to be either 14 or 16 pins?" or "That wire, I think it's orange or red...oh, it's red?  Alright, the red wire, where does it attach to?" or "And what is the AC voltage you get on pin 7?", then that's an excellent running start.

[frank_p]

Can you leave a recording, with Skype, for others on the net that might have similar debugging to do ?  Or it will be info that will be gone in the stream ?  Archives are great.

[Seljer]

If anybody here is into the Google+ thing the "Hangout" feature is basically group video/audio chatroom/conferencing thing which works rather well.

[Electron Tornado]

it's great idea for helping ONE person out( and I DO think you SHOULD help that guy), but there is also a danger that there will develop a sort of "club for the initiated" inside the forum and a lot of information that is now searchable and available to all would be lost once the repair is done and you hang up...I'm all for helping people out, but I dont like when things turn from "everyone" to "us-and-them"..be carefull
I dont have Skype at the moment but if there is an ability to have a conference type of thing( I'd be surpriced if there isnt) it could make a GREAT hangout where we could socialize without the keyboard..call it "the Bar" or something like that  ( "Group DIY" has "the Brewery"  )
J

Agreed.  I think you are quite correct in that a muiltimedia transaction between two parties leaves everyone else here out of the loop.  But that being said, there ARE often threads that are essentially very slow conversations between two people about one single topic.  Quite often, I'll look at a thread, and my first reaction is "Okay, they're taking care of that problem".  In such instances, a Skype consult is an elegant strategy for tackling a technical matter that may require more interactivity than the text/image-archive-only format can provide.

Of course, the other downside is that now I really have to clean up my workshop....because people will be able to see it! 

Mark,

Even those slow, two way conversations can be useful for some people who visit this forum. Discussions benefit greatly – as do any readers not directly involved – from others giving additional input. With that, I would hate to see the forum evolve away from its current format.

However, I do think skype could be a great tool for more direct, interactive help for someone. It might be able to be used to benefit everyone by recording skype conversations to video, and possibly uploading them on You Tube for access by others.

[Earthscum]

I have only used Skype a couple times, but it was awesome. I used it once for a Graphic Design job, and was able to get immediate feedback rather than email and wait for a reply and text explanation. We got straight to the point, and he was extremely happy. I think I did about 3 layouts less for that job because of that.

[Mark Hammer]

Now here is another question.  Could a person provide a service-for-fee whereby you contact them with a problem, they wait for the e-mail message indicating that the Paypal transaction has come through, and then they coach you through the repair/mod, etc.?  I mention this because there are plenty of repairs people could do for themselves, if only they had some real-time guidance, and this would save all the time waiting for a box to arrive somewhere else and then come back to you, not to mention the cost.

Again, just a thought.

[Electron Tornado]

Now here is another question.  Could a person provide a service-for-fee whereby you contact them with a problem, they wait for the e-mail message indicating that the Paypal transaction has come through, and then they coach you through the repair/mod, etc.?  I mention this because there are plenty of repairs people could do for themselves, if only they had some real-time guidance, and this would save all the time waiting for a box to arrive somewhere else and then come back to you, not to mention the cost.

Again, just a thought.

You might be just as well off to do a series of videos on the most common mistakes, problems, repairs, etc, and either put them on a disc for sale or on a web site that is accessed for a fee.

[Earthscum]

ETA: +1 to ET's suggestion, but another set of problems (not unlike copying pages from books and hosting them online).

I think you would sacrifice more than you would gain once people started to learn how to take advantage of it. It would be too easy for 10 min's to be charged for the "Hour Minimum", and a person to cram as many help sessions into a small time as possible to maximize their profits. I am  about 80% certain that is what would happen, and it will leave the smaller, good  guys with a bad rep. I used to do phone tech for the biggest ISP (at the time) through StarTek. Once I saw it from the inside there, I started observing it for many years and it's sickening how far it stretches. Nobody cares about quality anymore, just maximizing profits. Hell, it's not even a "quantity" thing anymore, more about how hard you can wring the towel dry.

But, on a private basis, Skype still kicks ass. There ARE private repair techs that use Skype already, although it's probably new to this area. We've actually joked about using Skype for songwriting over a distance, but the lag would only allow for that, and not live jamming or anything. Yeah, think 42mS lag is bad with Digi Recording, try running around 300mS or more, lol! Wanna try it? Do a sing-along with a buddy... one will always be lagging behind the other, so one person feels like they are rushing or being slow, kinda fun in a group live chat, however chaotic.