Talk:Repair centers

Leave your comments and thoughts on repair centers below.

Wiki headers needed

This and many other pages unrelated to the support FAQ are being tagged with that header. We need separate headers and navigation for repairs and local SIGs. --Sj leave me a message 10:41, 21 January 2008 (EST)

Alternative parts

There have been reports of alternative charger tips, etc. working with XOs in lieu of the "original" parts produced by Quanta. If you know of any alternative parts that can be used for repairs, and sources and prices for such, please post them here! Mchua 10:41, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Added a title/some thoughts from KayTi

The one idea listed near the end of the wiki page sounds an awful lot like a "repair jam" where people and computers would come together for a day to repair a bunch of laptops. Am I getting that right? I added that title tot he wiki page as an idea. If so, then this might be a business model for repair dates. It would requiring queing of "needs repairs" laptops, and would probably work best on a periodic model (e.g., quarterly repair jams in xyz location in xyz city.) This way people could plan in advance (example: I have a sticky key laptop. I would consider shipping or bringing mine to a repair jam and either working on the repair myself or expecting someone from the repair jam to do the repair for me and then shipping it back. but to do so I'd want it back on some kind of schedule.)

Some further thoughts - who is the primary customer for a repair center? OLPC? Individual users? Schools? Organizations? Is it global or local? How local? Or, local only in the sense of being close to a shipping facility?

If OLPC is the primary customer - e.g., providing broken machines currently located at Brighstar to get repaired to re-enter the product stream, well, that's one kind of operation. But if individual G1G1 donors are the primary audience, that's something else entirely.

I like the idea of the repair centers being able to charge for services, that might make it a really fascinating school project. I would like to talk to the IMSA folks about this some more, but things like setting prices, setting up governing documents, arranging shipping logistics, managing workflow through the repair center, tracking units, doing the actual repairs. This is cool stuff. I'm interested in getting my son's pre-k through 8th grade school involved too, probably in partnership with IMSA if they are interested.

More on this later, but I'm intrigued by this idea. KayTi 15:46, 19 February 2008 (EST) aka Karen Smith

Sample Mail to holt at laptop dot org

Hi,

I intend to open an XO (XS) repair center for the Birmingham, AL, USA, region. Currently I have a "day job" leading / training a small team of electronics repair personnel at a major automobil manufacturer. I / we fix PCs down to component level and keep the test environment running.

Having worked close to hardware since 1991, and in maintenance since 2004, I thought I'd start a XO (XS) repair venture. If it takes off: fine, if not: no big deal.

With 15.000 XOs coming to the area, and if ony 2 - 5% suffer some damage per year, this could keep one busy. Be it busy training school / student repair centers, or busy fixing hardware. But it all hinges on the availability of spare parts. Does olpc expect the repair shops to get their components from e.g. digikey?

I expect to see the first 1000 units in Birmingham by April 15th, warranty will run out by May 15th... So a (somewhat equipped) repair shop needs to be operational by May 17th (08!). The solution to run with failed G1G1 XOs is not sustainable. Particularly for a serious business. Nice for soldering practice but not for serious operation.

For a start I'd expect to be buying about 10 - 30 XOs in parts, depending on the time between ordering and delivery of spare parts. I don't expect order lists on component level, but on module level (smallest unit accessible with a screw driver, including wiring harness). I also expect schematic drawings and parts lists on component level (component value / location). Getting components in high demand from digikey is no problem. I expect the price for the sum of components necessary to make one XO to be lower than the price for one XO. (Otherwise working XOs would make valuable targets for spare parts). I also expect to have "wholesale prices" which would give (semi-) professional service providers a (small) price advantage beyond the saving on shipping cost over do-it-yourserlfers to encourage businesses to get in on this.

For a start I can imagine 3 paths to doing business: a) Teaching repair b) Offering advice, tools and material to do-it-yourselfers at a flat fee plus cost of parts. Maybe in a workshop / repair jam setting. c) Full service repair I can imagine doing all three simultaneously.

I already have a business set up, so starting operation mainly depends on the availability of parts and schematics.

Please contact me at +1-205-292-5131 anytime between 7:00 am and 8:00 pm CDST (GMT -5) on any week day. A.s.a.p. of course... ;-)

Best regards Stefan Reitz

Anybody have a better aproach to getting this started?