1. Introduction

Electronics Troubleshooting and Repair

This site,  started out as an idea for a book.  But it made more sense to put it here on the web, as a place to collect little gems of knowledge related to electronic repair. There are blog posts that are timely short updates of interesting things going on, and also pages which are like the chapters of a book.

How to troubleshoot and then repair electronic equipment, with or without technical information or schematics to the component level is the topic.  Thru-hole is a kind of electronic circuit construction. Thru-hole construction means the components go through a hole in the circuit board, It is the older kind of circuit board, before there was such a thing as surface mount technology.

The transistor was invented in 1948. The Navy rating “ET” or Electronics Technician was established that same year.  Before that, they had “Radio Technicians”. A related rate “Radioman” had been around since 1921. Grampa Owen Brucker Abbey was an Electricians Mate with the Sea Bees during WWII. He left a great photo, he is climbing a palm tree, about half way up. On the back he wrote “high as I go”. At that time there were no ET’s or CE’s (construction electricians). The story of the Sea Bees is fascinating and is detailed in a book, “Can Do” by William Bradford “Bill” Huie.

ET school was building 520 at Great Lakes in 1983 (now torpedo man school). Perfectly waxed decks, whisper silent hallways, men and women in meticulous uniforms standing in ranks at attention waiting to enter the classrooms. Dress blues were the uniform of the day on test days.

ET School, Great Lakes 1983

The training pipeline started in BEE school (basic electricity and electronics). ET school was the big time. Real SPS-10 radar sets to work on. R1051 HF receiver and the matching URT-23 one kilowatt transmitter. Not everyone that started made it through.

Missing a few questions on a test will get you an appointment with the Master Chief. A second time will get you a ticket out to the fleet as a Bosons Mate. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Good honest work. They get to run the small boats, learn lots of knots and rope tricks, paint everyday. But the goal of getting through that school and getting out in the fleet was exciting to me. I wanted it more than anything else. And the fact that not everyone who tried made it, only added to the excitement.

From what I know now, that training, combined with my troubleshooting experience at the Navy contractor Pacifica was the very best preparation available at any price to learn to do, what I do, before or since. Civilian schools teach the theory, and they may have some circuits built up on proto boards, that sort of thing. But real world troubleshooting is just not taught anywhere else. And even in the Navy, where the ET’s were expected to troubleshoot to the component level, there were many techs who just were not very good at it. It was a difficult skill to master.

During my time, the cold war years, the RM was the operator, and the ET’s fixed the gear. ET’s were advanced based mostly on a “rating knowledge” test the books for which would stack to about 6 feet tall if they could be assembled all in one place. A perfect score was an 80. People who made perfect scores were vigorously investigated.  ET’s can and are encouraged to study at work, if all the gear is up.

In recent years even the Navy has gone away from old guys teaching the new guys with real broken hardware and switched to computer simulation and “on the tube” or computer based training. The result has been ships with broken equipment, poor material condition and failing inspections. Sadly, the world has changed to disposable equipment and troubleshooting and repair to the component level is mostly a lost art.

So this is mostly about fixing older equipment, thru-hole construction. Some techniques will work on the new equipment. Really the only problem with new equipment is that in many cases it was never intended to be repaired. We fix it anyway. The chapter on troubleshooting without technical data (easter-egging) certainly applies. Surface mount components are a little bit tricky to replace but it can be done with conventional soldering tools or if you are very lucky, special smt tools.

 

6 Responses to 1. Introduction

  1. Joseph says:

    I hope to learn alot from what you post, I’ll be looking through the rest of the pages, good introduction 🙂

  2. ANTONIO CARLOS DOS SANTOS says:

    INGRESSEI HOJE NESTE SITE, DEPOIS DE MUITO RECOMENDAR A AMIGOS E CONHECIDOS. ESPERO APRENDER MUITO, EMBORA MINHA FALTA DE EXPERIÊNCIA EM INFORMÁTICA PREJUDIQUE UM POUCO. Language is Portuguese. Babelfish translation I ENTERED THIS SITE TODAY, AFTER VERY RECOMMENDING THE KNOWN FRIENDS AND. I WAIT TO LEARN VERY, EVEN SO MY LACK OF EXPERIENCE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE HARMS A LITTLE.

    • admin says:

      Ok Antonio, Have a look around. Sometimes on the radio I have had conversations with people in Brazil. Looks like you are in San Carlos, Brazil. Are you interested in the Navy? Brazil must have a big Navy. 73, Dave

  3. Mike Kane says:

    I went through ET A in 1986-87, it was indeed a challenging course, that’s why I loved it so much I think. I love your comment about anyone who scored “80” on the advancement exam being investigated. I scored 80 twice, once on the ET2 exam and again for ET1. I was a lot smarter in those days apparently!! Looking forward to reading the rest!!

  4. Frank says:

    Da of a Collins tranceiver on the wallve
    I went through BE&E and ET “A: school in 1969-70. True Dat good training. For our final test we were paired up with another student and the instructor threw a dart at a large schematic of a collins tranceiver on the wall and then marked that point in a schematic book. We then had to plot the waveform we should expect to see at that point mathamaticl land draw it with a french curve. Then we went into the lab and found that point in the actual gear and connected a O scope and compared the output to the waveform we plotted. Don’t think I could do that today if my life depended on it. Huge failure rate in 1969. I started with a class of over 20 and 9 graduated

  5. Jim Stowe says:

    That was an excellent introduction. You articulated everything perfectly! I was in BEE & ET A in 1987 – 1988. I followed that up with SPS-49, SPS-67, and eventually the short little GPETE (FCA) maintenance course. Then almost 4.5 years on the USS Wainwright (CG-28) with a great bunch of guys. Thanks for a great site full of memories and electronics!

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