I agree with oldturkey--This is a visibility problem. There are already troubleshooting guides? Who knew?
From my limited experience, the heart of iFixit is the Answers section. I think putting a link to an appropriate troubleshooting guide as an almost automatic comment would do wonders. "No power in iPhone 5? Have you tried this troubleshooting plan? (link) Let us know if you get stuck!"
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Re: Board-level repair. There are two elements of this: 1.) Troubleshooting a board. 2.)The art of soldering/microsoldering.
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Re: Board-level repair. There are two elements of this:
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For the first, you really need an electronics 101--Princeton Review Style. This is something I bet you, OldTurkey, would be great at writing. What is an inductor? resistor? capacitor? What do those little black chips really do? What is a signal? Walk me through some basic circuits based on real life examples---i.e. the iPad mini battery---how does the board 'know' the battery charge percentage? This is where I am on the learning curve right now, and I'm having a blast. Today I had a friend over and he walked me through the basics of how capacitors and inductors can smooth AC and DC signals. All super practical---based on real life circuits that I repair every day. Inspired by my repair friend Louis's YouTube channel, Zack and I joked that it would be really fun to make a couple of videos of "Things that may or may not be true" as we tried desperately--and failed---to blow the iPad mini backlight filter today. To teach people to specifically troubleshoot their own board-level problem would require schematics---I'm not sure what to do with that.
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# Troubleshooting a board.
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# The art of soldering/microsoldering.
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For the first, you really need an electronics 101--Princeton Review Style. This is something I bet you, OldTurkey, would be great at writing.
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* What is an inductor? resistor? capacitor?
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* What do those little black chips really do? What is a signal?
+
* Walk me through some basic circuits based on real life examples--i.e. the iPad mini battery--how does the board 'know' the battery charge percentage?
+
+
This is where I am on the learning curve right now, and I'm having a blast. Today I had a friend over and he walked me through the basics of how capacitors and inductors can smooth AC and DC signals. All super practical---based on real life circuits that I repair every day. Inspired by my repair friend Louis's YouTube channel, Zack and I joked that it would be really fun to make a couple of videos of "Things that may or may not be true" as we tried desperately--and failed---to blow the iPad mini backlight filter today. To teach people to specifically troubleshoot their own board-level problem would require schematics--I'm not sure what to do with that.
For the second, the physical art of microsoldering--this is really all about video tutorials. I have had an interest in doing this for a long time. Other than time, the limitation here is a lack of proper equipment. The good news is that, again, my buddy Louis Rossmann has already figured out what the equipment requirements are to make crystal clear microsoldering videos with voice instruction. Now it is only a matter of implementation.
I agree with oldturkey--This is a visibility problem. There are already troubleshooting guides? Who knew?
From my limited experience, the heart of iFixit is the Answers section. I think putting a link to an appropriate troubleshooting guide as an almost automatic comment would do wonders. "No power in iPhone 5? Have you tried this troubleshooting plan? (link) Let us know if you get stuck!"
Re: Board-level repair. There are two elements of this: 1.) Troubleshooting a board. 2.)The art of soldering/microsoldering.
For the first, you really need an electronics 101--Princeton Review Style. This is something I bet you, OldTurkey, would be great at writing. What is an inductor? resistor? capacitor? What do those little black chips really do? What is a signal? Walk me through some basic circuits based on real life examples---i.e. the iPad mini battery---how does the board 'know' the battery charge percentage? This is where I am on the learning curve right now, and I'm having a blast. Today I had a friend over and he walked me through the basics of how capacitors and inductors can smooth AC and DC signals. All super practical---based on real life circuits that I repair every day. Inspired by my repair friend Louis's YouTube channel, Zack and I joked that it would be really fun to make a couple of videos of "Things that may or may not be true" as we tried desperately--and failed---to blow the iPad mini backlight filter today. To teach people to specifically troubleshoot their own board-level problem would require schematics---I'm not sure what to do with that.
For the second, the physical art of microsoldering--this is really all about video tutorials. I have had an interest in doing this for a long time. Other than time, the limitation here is a lack of proper equipment. The good news is that, again, my buddy Louis Rossmann has already figured out what the equipment requirements are to make crystal clear microsoldering videos with voice instruction. Now it is only a matter of implementation.
