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Ray Gianelli

Ray Gianelli

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
One of the best thing about this site is how people help each other out, sharing their knowledge and experience.

But I've also seen some frustration occasionally from those reaching out for help, and from those providing it.

With this in mind, here's a few suggestions to make the experience better for all:

Make and model number

If you're working on something and hit a snag, list the make and model number. Most do, but not all.

Be clear about the symptoms:

Complaint about crackling or popping? Say whether it's in both channels or just one. No sound on FM? Mention if AM works, or for that matter if there's sound on any function.
It saves time if you can clearly identify the trouble you're having. We don't have to ask.

If someone is helping you, notify them

I've seen this repeatedly. Someone is assisting a member with a trouble, and seems to have stopped responding. It's important to not just answer, but to hit reply or use the @ sign( for example, @Ray Gianelli ) to notify the assisting member. Many here are helping folks in multiple subforums, and may not know you've replied.

Write clearly

OK, this can be a hot button or delicate issue. This is a text based forum; spelling, punctuation and grammar matter. And paragraphs. When I see one long, run on sentence I usually just move on.
It doesn't have to rise to level of a college thesis, but again, clarity helps immensely.

I'm sure there's things I'm leaving out, so please post them!
 
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To your second point, as a life long electronics tech symptom recognition is key!!!

Get that nailed down and you can pretty much paper TS most problems then poke a couple probes to verify.
 
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gadget73 said:
As a further detail, if there are multiple service manuals by serial number or whatever, mention which one we're talking about because sometimes it really makes a difference.

also if at all possible, if a schematic or service manual is being referenced, post or link to it so we're all working from the same one.
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In this same vein, if you have to access a circuit board from another model because that was is installed in your DUT, make sure to mention that and include board number/Rev# of what you are troubleshooting. Again, so all on same page. Case in point: Some Pioneer SX-3800/3900 uses a Power Amp board from the D5000.
 
^ Pioneer SX-990 and SX-1500td have two different MPX boards. The one in all the manuals is one, and the other one is in the SX-6000. The manuals don't seem to mention the older board, I found that out by searching the number. They are completely different layout, parts, etc.
 
Ray Gianelli said:
Write clearly
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As a mod on another site, totally unrelated to this one, if I catch it I'll edit any bad spelling or endless sentences to make it more easy to read for other members. It only takes a moment.

Any posts typed in all uppercase letters are interpreted as shouting and get deleted immediately and the person posting will also get notified that they have been a bad, bad, boy.
 
And as a courtesy update the thread you start so others can see which suggestion fixed the problem or not. Its so widespread I may start reading the last post first so I dont waste time reading threads that lead to nowhere, a simple "I am giving up on this one" or "Rays last suggestion fixed the problem" would be helpful to know for everyone that reads the thread.
 
Ray Gianelli said:
When I see one long, run on sentence I usually just move on
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Makes me skip the post, too. There are a couple folks that have trouble putting space in their posts and I’ll work through those but that was found out through a pm.


Don’t be shy about associated equipment being used

Don’t cut your descriptions short. Some post an issue like they are using old twitter. Don’t be that guy, describe as best you can the complete problem. We don’t have post length limits.
 
If someone is asking specific questions in order to try and help you, please answer them precisely and/or carry out tests exactly as requested.

Please remember:-

The person offering assistance isn't sat in front of your device.
Remote diagnostics can be very difficult. It may take several posts to get to the root cause of an issue.
They are spending their own time and using their own knowledge and experience to help you FOR FREE.
You may not understand why they are asking for particular information, but assume they are asking for good reason.
There are a lot of very experienced electronics engineers on the forum, so don't be rude to people or they may stop offering valuable assistance.
 
A few more:

Hum: is it 60 hertz or 120 hertz (50/100 in non-US locations)? This makes a BIG difference in troubleshooting. The former is generally a bad cable, bad ground, or ground loop whereas the latter is usually a power supply issue.

"Static": This means nothing. Is it a regular hiss? Is it an intermittent crackling? A regular clicking? Low level or high level?

What test equipment and experience do you have? Almost anything can be repaired with a DVOM and a scope. But I've been guilty of assuming someone I'm helping is a beginner and trying to start with the basics, when the guy is an experienced tech. On the other end, if someone has no experience nor test gear the advice needs to be tailored accordingly. And that could include "take it to a tech".

Not everything is the fault of capacitors. I see so many posts asking if a "recap" will solve whatever problems they're having. Maybe.... but it's far better to track down the actual cause of the problem. Moreover, we've all seen many post-recap threads where the equipment was working fine before the recap and now isn't. I've said this repeatedly but it bears saying it again - capacitors are not the cause of every audio evil.

Ray, thanks for starting this. Perhaps it should be a sticky?
 
+1 on the re-cap thing. While I've had things that were absolutely the fault of capacitors, I've chased the problem down to a specific cap or handful of caps and gotten the thing working before doing any blanket work.

There are occasionally exceptions to this. Stuff that is visibly leaking, damaged, or blown can probably be replaced without doing any sort of in-depth troubleshooting, but sometimes parts fail because of other circuit issues, not just because it was an old or poor quality part.
 
w3jn said:
A few more:

Hum: is it 60 hertz or 120 hertz (50/100 in non-US locations)? This makes a BIG difference in troubleshooting. The former is generally a bad cable, bad ground, or ground loop whereas the latter is usually a power supply issue.

"Static": This means nothing. Is it a regular hiss? Is it an intermittent crackling? A regular clicking? Low level or high level?

What test equipment and experience do you have? Almost anything can be repaired with a DVOM and a scope. But I've been guilty of assuming someone I'm helping is a beginner and trying to start with the basics, when the guy is an experienced tech. On the other end, if someone has no experience nor test gear the advice needs to be tailored accordingly. And that could include "take it to a tech".

Not everything is the fault of capacitors. I see so many posts asking if a "recap" will solve whatever problems they're having. Maybe.... but it's far better to track down the actual cause of the problem. Moreover, we've all seen many post-recap threads where the equipment was working fine before the recap and now isn't. I've said this repeatedly but it bears saying it again - capacitors are not the cause of every audio evil.

Ray, thanks for starting this. Perhaps it should be a sticky?
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Might just be a helpful sticky at that.

Your 4th point, about capacitors. I call recapping "the new bloodletting". It's come to be viewed as a panacea, a cure all. It's gotten way out of hand.

Many good points have been raised in this thread. Let's keep them coming!
 
Just two things: use of "Search" engine, and formatting.

In the upper right hand side of the screen there's a symbol of a mag glass, and the word "Search". This can be your best friend when looking for info/help.
It takes a little use, before you can work it right, but in no time, you'll be narrowing down your looking for input. There are features within this option as well that can help.

Secondly, rather than writing up a wordy one paragraph description or sharing a situation. Break your thought trains into separate portions, leaving a space between your different intents. Also, keep in mind "endless. long sentences" as already mentioned.

Finally if not sure about the set up, forums or such, there are introduction suggestions that can help in the understanding of how things are operational on this site. Plus, you will appreciate the amount of effort/work that has gone into the building and sustaining of this audio site, ie. who the "mods" are and what they do.


Q
 
gadget73 said:
+1 on the re-cap thing. While I've had things that were absolutely the fault of capacitors, I've chased the problem down to a specific cap or handful of caps and gotten the thing working before doing any blanket work.

There are occasionally exceptions to this. Stuff that is visibly leaking, damaged, or blown can probably be replaced without doing any sort of in-depth troubleshooting, but sometimes parts fail because of other circuit issues, not just because it was an old or poor quality part.
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Quite often your first action should be to relax, have a cup of coffee, and then have a really good look before jumping to conclusions.

So many people have got themselves into all sorts of messes because they have just jumped in and started tearing things apart.
 
Ray Gianelli said:
I call recapping "the new bloodletting". It's come to be viewed as a panacea, a cure all. It's gotten way out of hand.
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Ain't that the truth.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry on the board reads about recapping and since they are on love with their new, cheap, vintage unit and there is no action at home he dives into intimacy with his new unit believing that all the other Toms, Dicks and Harrys on the board are doing it or have done it so they can do it too. Look at all the folks wanting to learn to work on this gear with everything except an electrical of any variety background. Fortunately, there are some very helpful, trained and knowledgeable folks out there to bail us out when we get in too deep.
 
Another thing that just occurred to me; tell us your location. Better yet, put the location in you Account details.

Remote troubleshooting can be pretty tedious, and to do so for someone who is lives near me or another AKer who is trying to help is nuts.
I recently tried to help someone troubleshoot an amp module from an AU-719. He had suggested shipping it to me, but I wanted to help him learn how to go about this. After a bit of back and forth he shipped it to me. Took me about 5 minutes to find the fault.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but actually having the unit in front of you is priceless!
 
Powertech said:
Quite often your first action should be to relax, have a cup of coffee, and then have a really good look before jumping to conclusions.
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I did this to myself recently. Started looking at the service manual and just doing research on what modern equivalents would be for certain parts. Finally popped the thing open yesterday. The power transformer is missing. Fairly obvious why it doesn't work :)
 
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