Neale 00:08
Hello, I am Neale Mighall, welcome to the another Brights Park podcast. We’ve got a really really special guest today most of the engineers upstairs are really excited that you are here. I’m excited that you’re here – it’s YouTuber Mend it Mark! Mark hello how you doing?
Mark 00:22
I’m very well thank you
Neale 00:23
Excellent I say you’re a YouTuber but I mean you’ve had quite a career, you’re an engineer you’re a fixer you’ve had quite a career before, you know, the current one. You call yourself a big nerd, were you ever a little nerd?
Mark 00:39
I suppose so, probably from I’d say the age of five I became a nerd, I remember we had the TV in the living room and it would occasionally break down and we’d have the TV repairman come round and they’d take the back off the TV and inside was this little miniature city of things, it just looked really interesting and I thought it was more interesting around the back than the front of the TV and that sort of stuck with me and I remember the idea we had the second repairman come round a year later and he found a pair of pliers in the back of the TV that the first guy had left behind and I thought that hardly had a story behind it, I thought this is incredible and so that was the start and years later we had a, my dad had a laptop computer and that broke down and we had an engineer come out to fix the laptop and then that was a whole new level of intricacy and I think I was probably about twelve at this time and that sealed it for me, it’s like never mind being an aircraft pilot or whatever, it’s like this is what I’m into.
Neale 01:34
You wanted to be an engineer. I want to understand that. I was just wondering, it’s completely off topic and far too early in the podcast but sort of a great idea of, I love the idea of like engineers leaving like little notes and little tools for the next one to come along and find in the back of products.
Mark 01:47
Oh yes. That’d be great.
Neale 01:48
Little easter eggs. One other thing I want to dig into right to repair and there’s a whole topic that I think is really interesting. What I want to touch on first though is you talked about the engineer coming around taking the back off a product, off the I think we’ve lost that as a society. I was speaking to my friend Claire the other day and she was saying that you should be able to put up with men because they were useful and they used to be able to fix things but now you’ve got to put with men and they can’t fix anything. Why is it that you think we’ve lost that ability to sort of take the back off the telly or lift the bon up in a car and actually have a go at taking things apart?
Mark 02:25
I’ll be honest, to me personally, I don’t know. To me, it’s just very natural. I think my dad was always good at, he played woodwork. Played woodwork, he wouldn’t be saying that. He did woodwork. He played with wood. Played with wood in his workshop. His dad did a lot of metal work. He worked in a factory where they used to spin aluminium. I had no idea what metal spinning was. I thought, what the hell was that? But I found out and that was the thing. And I just sort of, it’s followed through the generations and I decided I wanted to do more mechanical stuff. Or metal stuff as a hobby when I did electronics as a job. And then, and I just decided, I’m not doing much electronics in my life. So I started to keep my workshop out with more electronics. And to me, why people don’t do this now, I don’t know. It’s possibly, they’re just not enough inspiring people out there.
Neale 03:13
Maybe because I know when you sort of look at these these things it says you know if you remove this warranty as void is it’s more complicated or people are just less used to getting hands-on maybe?
Mark 03:24
I’m going to, there is that a bit, and I’m also going to blame software, has infiltrated a lot of products now, and you can’t actually see how they work. And I think that makes it very difficult for a lot of people to even start, because I’ll be honest, some things I will take apart, and it’s not working as you expect, and you open in the middle of it, there’s a big chip in there shaped like an after eight mint, and it’s doing everything, and it’s just sitting there unresponsive, and you’ve got no idea where to start, and it’s, you’ve got no idea, and there’s no information, and that’s often these things to be thrown in the bin, and it may be a simple repair, but yeah, where do you start?
Neale 04:04
So you did a video about, I know you hate modern consoles, but you did an Xbox repair that I found really interesting and I think it touches on this because if you look at the HDMI cable, which was the broken part, you had to take the casing off, then start taking the power supply off, start separating the boards, then there was clamps, then there was… Oh, you’re bringing back a nightmare now. So there’s multiple layers and you’re just removing screws and screws and screws. Now, for me, the HDMI cable is the thing that people most interact with, you know, they plug it into the TV. It’s quite sensitive, isn’t it? It could be pulled, it could be yanked, it could be damaged, but in order to access that, you had to dismantle… I mean, it was a 20-minute video and that was just taking apart the Xbox mostly. Mainly, yes. Yeah. Do you think manufacturers have an obligation to make those more accessible parts… well, those parts that are going to get damaged, more accessible to repair?
Mark 05:02
For me, part of product design should mandate that sort of behaviour, to make the world more sustainable, which comes up a lot, I think things should be sustainable, but I’m not crazy over the top for the environmental side, it’s the right thing, it’s a good message, but I do think, I just look at it as bad design, but I get why they do it, it’s to probably keep the production costs minimal, you’ve got a single PCB, because obviously what they should do, is mount those sockets on a cable with another connector, so the bit that gets damaged in use is an easy to change part, but it’s going to be more cost, more assembly, and that’s why they don’t do it, but maybe legislation’s going to come in that forces them down that road.
Neale 05:47
Yeah, well, I think it was the 2021 right to prepare legislation, which meant that manufacturers had to supply spare parts. Now, how easy that is for mobile phones and a lot of e-waste, I don’t know, but are spare parts more readily available? Because I know when you do research on stuff, you take an existing component and you look it up and try and find the best match. How available are parts to get if someone’s got a broken device?
Mark 06:16
Depends on the vintage because you’ve got two problems now. If it’s very modern, very new, it’s probably the parts are probably unavailable because they’re only available in huge production quantities, so you’ll need to buy a thousand of them and they’re very expensive and you’ll have to wait months for it to arrive. So there’s that aspect. And also if you’re repairing old, very old products, you’ll find that the parts that are in there are obsolete. Now, if you know what you’re doing, you can select something new that’s currently available and away you go. But the other risk you have is you can fall into traffic buying fake parts. OK. Which you’d think who makes fake electronic components? They’re the real ones, but yeah. Yeah, they look like the real ones. They they they cost us real ones quite often, but they they just don’t work. And it’s quite an art. I would sort of love to find myself myself into. And I’d say it’s clearly in China. They there’s companies, probably the wrong word, organized crime, organized crime where they actually had the facilities to make small silicon chips like a like a 100 milliamp or PNP transistor. And they’ll mount that inside a larger transistor case and it will work. It’s a working transistor and you’ll test it and you’ll find it. So I think generally they’re always NPN regardless of what it says on there. They also test as an NPN transistor with a gain of about 200. If you check the data sheets, you’ll find that’s rather a lot of gain for this transistor I’m putting in and then you try and put some current through it and you’ll put it on the transistor test, which I did once. Right. Because I do have to quality check parts I buy. So I buy instead of buying one or two transistors, I buy five, which again puts your repair price up. But I have to do that if I don’t trust the supplier. I say I don’t trust. Don’t know them. And then I put my transistors on a curve tracer. These transistors should be rated for 10 amps. And I think we got to one amp and then they just failed on the on the curve tracer. Then I broke the casing open and found this very small piece of silicon inside. It’s big casing and it was something like three millimeters square. And so if they’ve got the know how to make the ability to make a working transistor. Why don’t you make the one that’s fifth purpose? Why not make just equivalents because there’s a market I will buy them.
Neale 08:33
Maybe some people just want to watch the world burn.
Mark 08:36
Perhaps.
Neale 08:36
So as reference my friend Claire, men are useless now don’t really do you know electronic repairs or repairs in general. So your passion project of yours you know it’s in your blood. If someone wants to come to you and say you know what I really want to get into repairing some equipment at home you know what’s what’s the starting point in terms of method and equipment first what are the basic tools that you would recommend and you can’t take any of these.
Mark 09:09
I get asked this quite a lot, to be fair, and there’s always the fundamental tools you need to fix anything electronic, which will be things like the multimeter, whether it’s analogue or digital. Quite often now digital ones, because they’re so cheap to buy, and they’re generally quite capable. Certainly for doing a repair, even the cheap ones are good enough to get you through. And then you’ve got, obviously you need soldering irons, but then you open, you sort of get into a rat’s nest now, because they’re soldering the components in, and then they’re unsoldering the ones going out. Quite a different problem there. Right, okay. Because to remove components, especially if they’re large components, lots of sold, lots of connections, you’ll find, and this probably affects things like Xbox repairs hugely, where the PCB is basically a huge copper heat sink, the ground plane in there, and there might be one or two pins connected to this, but you try and unsolder all the pins at once. You need some pretty more specialist equipment, because you’ve got to make sure, which is where people go wrong with, for example you mentioned the HDMI socket, and I think even I had a problem removing that one, where one of the pads tore.
Neale 10:22
You had to put a little wire in, a little bodged in you to get the, as I said, very good repair, not a budge.
Mark 10:29
But yeah, it’s just been aware of these little traps because then you can put too much heat into the boards. And if you don’t know why, but there’s plenty of equipment that can do it. You can use infrared soldering that uses just heat lamps, basically. We can use hot air, which is very common.
Neale 10:47
So it’s a case more of sort of selecting the tools for the type of devices that you want to use so for more simpler Simple soldering I would do but if you want to get more complex high-tech things you need you need more kids to service
Mark 11:00
Pretty much, so if you want to repair something like an Xbox, you’re going to need very different equipment too, if you want to take on an old 50 year old radio. So the 50 year old radio is obviously going to be simpler, so any sort of old soldering iron will work. Multimeter, do you need a signal generator and oscilloscope? I think if you’ve got the one, you’ll probably need the other to make them useful, but do you need it all the time? Again, it depends on the fault. If it’s just dead, you probably don’t need any of that, just the multimeter will get you, and probably just good eyesight is a very good thing.
Neale 11:33
I think it’s a really good point. I mentioned before, I don’t really have a technical background, although I haven’t worked here. I’ve actually started to fix old SNES cartridges and Game Boy games and I got hold of a base on that was completely broken. It was going to get chucked out and it was working when it went into storage, it’s just not working now. So I said, do you want it or was it going to get chucked? I said, yeah, I’ll take it home and look at it. I don’t know a do, but yeah, I’m not a technical person, but the very fact of just unscrewing the top of the amp, taking it out, cleaning it and I could see there’s a few loose connections, sort of tidied it up, sort of plugged it back, or before I plugged it back in, just plugged the base in, turned it on and it was perfect, right? It’s like a 500 pound base amp that was going to go to the skip just by taking it apart and opening it, you can diagnose. I think there’s a, as I alluded to before, a fear maybe of not being able to get it back together or it might electrocute me, but I don’t think people need to be afraid to do that, they just have a go.
Mark 12:43
Yeah, I think that it’s basically electrical safety, especially if it’s mains powered. You plug it into, obviously there’s some dangerous voltages there, so I always recommend an isolation transformer. So as I’ve mentioned to my online community quite a lot, this is what you need. And that doesn’t stop you completely getting an electric shock. And I also recommend, they call it, and the Americans call it a dimball circuit. Basically putting an old incandescent light bulb in series with the load. But what that, again, that doesn’t stop you getting a shock. But it stops you getting a shock so much in, for example, if it’s short circuit, that device probably would have gone bang and blown a fuse. And that made you jump. But with the bulb, obviously the bulb will just light and you’ll get a lot less damage. So those things sort of make the whole thing less exciting. That’s the right word. And you don’t want, when you’re turning something onto the first time, so should the lid off. You don’t want excitement. No, you really don’t know. If it’s going to just be dead, if it’s going to just sit there quietly, and then it’s quite often just keep your hands out of the way. You’re going to go prodding, use something non-conductive. A plastic stick or an old marker pen. And then just remember to turn it off before you start handing it. And discharging capacitors is another one I found if there’s a lot of capacitors in the device. I’ve been caught in the videos, in fact. On my opening sequence, I’d see… There’s a shock. Yeah, where I get a genuine shock off a power supply. It wasn’t even plugged in, it just stored charge on it. But yeah, actually captured that live on camera. So that was one. I didn’t have to recreate that one. That was a genuine…
Neale 14:18
We’ve talked about the ending process before, but you can make yourself look really good. I’ve never been shocked as they just cut it out of the edit.
Mark 14:27
I thought about that but I think something I came to realize when I started my channel to be fair was Very much good. It’s trying to work out What is it I want to do because I’ve got a fan of watching the repair shop on the BBC program. Love that. Yeah, but I felt It was getting for me too much about the story and not about the repair. I’d rather I want to get into a nitty gritty I want to learn from that. Like how do you shop do all this?
Neale 14:52
Yeah, I was saying what’s in the back of the telly, the original childhood inspiration.
Mark 14:57
Yeah then I was trying to work out and I thought well I don’t want to come across as some sort of genius because I’m not. I’ll just persevere like that’s how I get through and I just trying to work out how the channel channel was and I just found myself saying stranger with the theme tune it’s like there’s a bit off topic here but and I started with the channel and one of the things I thought well I do need an opening sequence and I need a theme tune. Basically I need a channel identity and from nowhere and I remember looking for like royalty free music and I was on there just I thought don’t like it don’t like it and I came across this old tune that was very different to anything else and it just made me smile and I thought that’s great that is and I thought that’s slightly a bit clown like that is. Oh yeah yeah.
Neale 15:39
the arches when you were the start of your videos it’s that kind of gentle yes old-fashioned is the wrong word but more of a vintage kind of feel that makes you feel very it’s like a bit of a hug isn’t it and it’s got some
Mark 15:51
It just made me smile, when I heard it and I played it back and I took a cut of it just about 12 seconds long and I played it back to my daughter and said, what do you think of this? She went, that’s good. I thought it just makes me smile. It sets the mood and that just made the channel because I was thinking, you know, who is Mendic Mark? It’s a slightly amplified version of myself, a bit happier than I really am. Yeah. And it’s just resonated, it just works. Yeah, it sounds really good. I get like one in a hundred thousand comments, so I can’t stand your theme tune, please change it. No, not happening. Always avoid the comments, always avoid the comments. I do avoid comments, I have to say. It’s a shame because most of them, general stats I found, only one percent of viewers actually comment at all and then from the one percent of comments, they probably submit slightly negative, but everything else is very positive. But they tell you what, the one that sticks in your mind is that negative one that sticks in your mind. I don’t want to ruin it for everybody else.
Neale 16:51
Well people tend to leave reviews and comments and stuff if they really like it or they’ve taken a dislike to it but you know yourself it’s overwhelmingly positive why would you be bogged down because the negatives of stuff stick.
Mark 17:04
It does, they do quite a lot of damage really, psychologically, it’s funny I’ll read one comment or one will just come up on the app and it’ll be just sort of sticky because it’s real criticism and as a content creator or YouTuber it can’t be anything but personal, it really is. Well it’s you isn’t it, it’s you.
Neale 17:24
It’s your own personal brand. The theme tune you just said resonates with you. It’s your passion for, it’s just, it’s you. So you’re obviously gonna take it to heart. I think listening to negative, so what you do obviously works really well. And in my opinion, you know, if you’re not doing it for you, you’re the most important audience member really. I know I mentioned before, I write and play music and stuff. I don’t really write that to please other people. I write it because I want to hear it. And my wife will tell you, I annoyingly listen to my own music more than any other music. But I think that’s the most important thing you’ve got to do for you at the end of the day.
Mark 18:00
you have you have I do like the little quips I throw in I mean they are they are just me that is they are natural because I’ll be filming I only use I have several cameras but I generally just film using one camera and I’ll be showing it to the bench when I’m doing then I’ll and people have seen the channel see the cutaways I’ll go back to the camera and look at the camera but although it’ll be slightly um sort of manufactured because I have to move the camera and frame it again but the content of what I say is is very much real of those at the time and I don’t don’t script it I don’t it just comes out naturally yeah and I think that’s what’s really come off from the channel and I had no idea it would gain such an audience because I looked at I’ve watched other repair channels I don’t watch a lot of them but um what I did find I I think there’s an I think because the big ones have been going for like 10 years or more they’re in the 900s so I think that’s the sort of the ceiling for it and I had no idea if I was going to make it or not
Neale 19:07
So I know your background, you’re an industrial engineer working a lot of robotics and then the further you got into management you were doing less and less engineering and less and less hands-on and then you rediscovered the love and you started a YouTube channel. What point of that YouTube journey did it become a viable career?
Mark 19:31
a very good question and I’ll be honest there’s a couple things that went on. I actually started trying to expand from just doing the YouTube videos to experimenting with could I do live things could I get extra value from the audience would they pay to see me and what I learned was the vast majority of viewers would not pay too much but there was enough who would. Another reason for the focusing on that, I had a bit of help with a marketing company and we set up a community and it’s built a revenue stream and it’s and I’m still working on it I’ve created a lot of work and it’s made me very very busy so there is that but at the same time as all this I had the day job the long career 18 years I was with the same company and got into a fairly senior management position I was actually responsible for cast iron products made in China for the quality of life to configure I had complaints from customers which are quite valid I’m trying to fix problems in China that out of my hands way beyond your control and well I didn’t realize I did a week-long live show that we’d sold tickets for and this also came at the point we had a Lloyd’s audit all coming up and then we had a royal visit off the CEO and this all came together a lot of pressure and at the end of that week I handed my notice in I resigned it’s only afterwards I realized that I didn’t know I actually I actually had burnout I literally pretty much had a breakdown and when in fact I remember phoned my boss I emailed my notice to him and he very supportive and he phoned me up and he said so what’s what’s this about tell me all about it and I couldn’t I burst into tears and I just thought this is so heavy and emotional for me and I look back and I thought oh you actually broke down there that was all this burnout stuff they’re talking about
Neale 21:26
And you don’t realise it until it happens sometimes. No. You don’t see what the trees do.
Mark 21:29
But just through, because I had to give it a three-month notice, so I had a few months to wind down and get away from there, so it gave me quite a bit of time to prepare, launched a course more formally, and I’ve been very fortunate, it’s all gone well. So I’ve managed to replace the original income, which was the big risk. It helped that we’d managed to get rid of big life debts, mortgages paid off through other reasons. And it’s the time to do it, and I’ve looked back now and it’s just gone from strength to strength. I’m really pleased for you. Definitely deserve it. But yeah, so it’s now, I have to pinch myself sometimes to realise that I basically work part-time for a full-time income, and yeah, and it’s great fun, it’s great fun. I feel very fortunate to be able to do it.
Neale 22:18
if you could give any advice for anyone who’s considering jumping off the bridge and launching the jump off the bridge, probably the best analogy, jumping headfirst and starting their own YouTube channel or following a passion that they want to do.
Mark 22:31
it’s difficult, I think I’ve been fortunate and I went to a YouTube convention last year, they call it the Hi-Fi Creator I forget what it was called now, Creator Collective, and it’s a lovely dude, met up with lots of about a hundred other YouTubers who were invited in a swanky Manchester hotel great fun date, but they were YouTubers from all channels from all sizes you know, from a couple thousand subscribers to a couple million subscribers all different
Neale 23:01
Like, imagine cookery videos. Oh, absolutely. Oh, just a whole host of them. Absolutely. That was really interesting. We’ll be right back.
Mark 23:07
and for me it’s very I had no idea who else would be there or nobody knew who else would be there and you all sort of measure yourself against everybody and of course if you don’t know who’s there you have no idea so I was thinking I think at the time I had 90 000 subscribers and I thought I don’t know if I’m going to be the little baby in the room or or where it turned out with the mix that I think I was doing quite well and I was on the at this point I’d already handed my notice in so I was working my notice period so I was able to actually say I’m living the dream it’s it’s happening and but the one thing that YouTube that we all agreed on is nobody understands the audience that the audience everybody out there I mean obviously they’re all just people but what people resonate people mention that we’ve said a few times this viral moment the video that goes viral is never the one you expect and it’s just that is the takeaway even the people with two million subscribers I spoke to a guy Elliot Forbes in he does um he’s a barber so he cuts hair and his channel he’s he got his viral video he’s doing all sorts of things and he did it for his business so when he started it was purely as a sort of advert for his barbershop so we’d show various trims he’s doing beard trims and that and then he did a video where he didn’t um do any talking he just did close up and shaved a guy in our old-fashioned coat raising you know very well shot edited beautiful job not a word and it went absolutely viable like millions of views it’s interesting and it was this uh the market was an ASMR
Neale 24:41
Oh, you have to… sounds and people…
Mark 24:44
he’s now a really big asmr channel and i was talking to him i said that is great because i’ve had people mention to me that my channel the background noise of the oscilloscope fans and all that it is is there and i thought well i can’t help the noise the oscilloscopes make so i just i try and keep them on just for consistency yeah because i’ve been caught before
Neale 25:04
Why should we sound on Soundoff yet?
Mark 25:05
Yeah, so I’ve learned a few tricks with the editing software now, I’m getting a bit better. But it’s just that fact that he, but the one thing that we said, we both aware, the ASMR effect, you know, the tingling back, I don’t get that, nor does he. Right. And this is one of those moments, we’ve got an audience, there’s a part of the audience who are really into this part that we just can’t understand, we just don’t see it. No. But we appreciate it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so the audience, I wouldn’t say I was the best person to give advice, but all I can say is, really, is just look at who you watch, who the people you like watching, because you’ll find that the channels you watch, it’s not as good or bad as they are at what they’re showing you. It is ultimately, it’s the person themselves that you fall in love with. That’s what I would say is, everyone I watch on YouTube, I don’t mind if they do a video that I’m particularly interested in that topic, but I’ll watch it anyway, because it’s just nice to see them. Yeah.
Neale 26:04
You said you watch the repair programmes like yourself and you’re interested in the repair. Obviously you’re making this channel to satisfy you. Why do you think other people come in and watch it? What’s the other one drawn to?
Mark 26:19
watch me yeah sort of things I think it’s because I take the I’d say that this USP of the channel is I’m not just electronics electronics is my main training and but I’m also into you know a bit of machining and engineering so I’ll do anything and the restoration so you’re a pair of guitar as well yeah yes so I manufacture parts about missing knobs and switches and I’ve machined new parts hint broken hinges are machined out of solid aluminium replacements for broken plastic parts and these things just I think they separate I sort of differentiate the channel it’s like going that extra mile and I think I’m also quite handy when it comes to sort of refinishing parts yeah like getting the right finish just a bit of spray paint and whatever but it looks it looks good
Neale 27:04
I think as well there’s a certain satisfaction where you because it’s a story at the end of the day isn’t it? It’s a complete story so you have something, it’s broken, you find out where you go on an adventure and at the end again just reference that Xbox video, I have watched more, you press play and the Xbox comes on and it’s been brought to life but you’ve gone through that whole practice story within itself.
Mark 27:28
I think it does it does now. That’s inadvertent again. I’m not a professional diet. I suppose I might move am I? I make a living from it. So I probably I am not So I do see like that. He asked the video has to have a start And you know and a middle as a journey and it should end in some way and occasionally because I can’t I can’t predict How the repairs gonna go I do have some videos which I’m not happy with them. They don’t end satisfactorily I did a Sony Giga Duke earlier a few months ago and That one I initially had a look for. Oh power supply problems And it looked quite interesting for a power supply bomb So I went and film that one and at the end it was very disappointing It was the thing ended up sort of even more broken than it was originally And they’re a great advertisement for your services. No, so then we fact then someone actually commented I’ll send back occasionally comments are useful that someone actually nailed it I mean they must have downloaded the service manual and Studded it. They must watch the video with the service manual and track everything I do on there Which I think is that’s amazing But they actually captured and my time stamps the exact moment where I wiped a tiny surface mount resistor off the board Did the solving line? Okay, and I went back over the footage That was there and I was watching it in 4k the original film It’s like how did you see that and that is where and I looked they were absolutely correct So I then did a part to follow up or I might get to fix this now So I did that repair and then got the display back working in the end It’s still was it, you know still couldn’t fix it. I did two videos on the same repair Yeah, and it still didn’t end well, but and it’s I for me those I try not to do those too often but but strangely my first say viral video the one that sort of Catapulted me a bit was the videos the first video I did that I failed to repair something. Oh, really that’s it Yeah, it’s I think I had about five thousand subscribers at the time and I I needed a video to put out So I was quite mindful that I need to get a video out every regular content Yeah People interested and what I was and what I was working on whatever it was at the time was was dragging on Waiting for parts and inspiration. So I thought I need I was walking in the garage where I keep all the repairs They’re waiting to go for. Oh, what can I pick out here? And I thought oh this then an amplifier? Oh, that’ll be that’ll be dry joints or something. We’ll just get that one an easy easy video Filmed it did they do power supply parts and then found it still wouldn’t boots boots up and it was An FPGA right that was refusing to start up. Mm-hmm. So again, that was enough for me. That was a horror of a video I saw so I just filmed it dying about Yeah, we can’t do it. Yeah, and that video just went for me went viral Interesting and I don’t think so within a couple days of that which I come out I can then add 10,000 subscribers doubles overnight So the video I thought was not going to going anywhere and was just a sort of an emergency fill-in piece It’s the one
Neale 30:27
that kickstart a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah. It is interesting. We spoke to a chap called Paul Northall to Longo and he was like, he makes YouTube content and he’d say, you know, sometimes you work really hard and something get really polished and this is really going to connect with people. Nothing. And then you put something out and all of a sudden, you know, it just captures that magic. Yes, absolutely does. Right. I want to switch back. We’ve gone off topic a little bit, which is absolutely fine. We’re talking about people who want to get into electronics and electronic repair. So we’ve pretty much said, depending on what you want to repair, consider your equipment. So that’s the main thing. You mentioned on your channel the three-step process to repair. Would you mind sharing that with us? Because I found that really interesting.
Mark 31:11
Yes the three steps. The three steps. The three steps. They’re sort of for me a bit obvious because I do it every time I do a repair and the first part is to be able to make sure you can replicate the fault because obviously the worst thing is to start taking that and I’ve learned this because I’ve done this so many times spent a good 15 minutes taking the lid off stripping it down and then powering it on and then I find I can’t find the fault or I’m not sure if it’s you know I need to know how it works.
Neale 31:41
And you need to know how the fault works in conjunction with everything being in situ.
Mark 31:44
And then you have the problem. I’ve had the problem as I’m doing the repair because I’m doing it for people is that It’s now working, but I’ve taken the thing apart. And now it’s not all have I fixed it by Dismantling it was it a loose connection and then what do you charge for what was basically look? It’s a real bad position. So step one is absolutely replicate the fault and if you can’t replicate the fault Don’t go further. It’s That’s part one. So once you’ve got once you’ve replicated the fault, you know what you’re looking for So in your next part is is a diagnosis which is the long part. That’s the big part of it That is where the research comes in if you can find schematics for it You need to not just download the schematics. You also really need to understand them Especially in the context of the fault mean whatever you find the fault to be will give you big clues For example completely dead lack of power. You’re going to be starting with power supplies side So you concentrate on there? if it’s You know, it’s lighting up, but there’s no audio then you’re looking at different areas of the circuit But you sort of get into the diagnostics and work out the likely places where you should be looking
Neale 32:55
Because it’s all modular at the end of the day, it’s the same components, same track, same power supplies. It’s very complicated Lego, I think I was explaining it to you at once. Pretty much, yes.
Mark 33:05
in fact and you can quite often tell what you’re looking at just by what components are clustered together you can just spot oh that’s a power supply there and you know it’s quite quite easy to spot especially if there’s duplicate channels you’ll see and specifically any amplifier there’s they’re always stereo at least so you’ve got left and the right so you can that’s easy to spot exactly yeah and probably only one channel is bad so you’ve got a good point of reference to compare the bad one with a good one it starts to
Neale 33:31
get a bit easier. It’s an education thing then. I mean a lot of school learning is very much you teach how to pass exams. Do you think we’ve lost those skills? Because we’re saying it’s complicated Lego, it’s modular. So you have to be able to identify those parts and those pieces and we just don’t have that information. I mean I don’t have that information. I know a lot of I know don’t have that knowledge.
Mark 33:57
That’s a good point. Yes, whilst we’re talking about steps of your eye. I did a degree in electronic engineering and But before that I was an apprentice electronics engineer doing repairs I think if I hadn’t have been an apprentice Actually hands-on learning how to do repairs the degree would not have been very helpful for doing repairs It’s sort of taught at too high a level and not practically. Yeah, so it’s That’s maybe that’s a part of it because it is
Neale 34:25
If you’re just going back to unscrewing the back of something, I mean, you do it in your videos, you’ll have like a little a little ramekin part, you know, so you take it off, drop the screws in, drop the screws in, that’s just something that you’ve picked up over experience because I imagine at some point, because I know I’ve done it, you unscrew something, it drops on the floor, you say, ah bloody, I need that, you look, that is just a, it’s an education piece.
Mark 34:47
there is that because the other thing I do with the ramekin as well because I’ll be working on several repairs and once because I’ll start a repair then I’ll have to I’ll be waiting for parts so I put that on the shelf but that ramekin will go inside the device so I don’t mix get screws from one job to another but yeah I do get comments actually about how do I know where the screws go and and people say oh do you write it down I put it in separate little bags yeah no they all go in the job but for me when I’m putting back together actually tip the jar out and separate screws into their little clusters and it sort of helps you narrow it down and if they fit who cares
Neale 35:26
if it’s in the
Mark 35:28
It also helps that if I filmed it as well, I can always go back.
Neale 35:30
Rewind where was that was that one piece? Yeah
Mark 35:32
Yes, yes I’ve done that. In the odd video you’ll see that I film myself putting screws back in. Then I’ll have run out, say the copper coloured screws, I’m like oh. But then I’ll have to go back and put that right, but I don’t always film that much.
Neale 35:44
So if we watch any of your videos and there’s a bit in rewind, well you know that’s when you’ve gone back there.
Mark 35:49
But I take the editorial judgements that it’s not that interesting to… I mean, yeah, people like to say that, I was good at your show or your mistakes. I really don’t show all my mistakes.
Neale 35:59
Show you enough personality, but not necessarily with a mistake.
Mark 36:02
I think some of the mistakes, if they add to the story, but yeah, I already get accused of putting too much screwdriver footage in.
Neale 36:10
Let’s go back to stage two then, so yeah.
Mark 36:15
Yeah, so, yeah, diagnostics, that is really the, that is the skill step to the finding the thought, first of all, narrowing it down where it might be and sort of honing in on it. So that way you’re not doing things like just randomly just changing every capacitor in the whole thing in the hope that it’s going to fix it. I’ve read on the internet all the capacitors are bad and it’s like, well, I also hear quite a lot of times I’ve changed all the capacitors and it’s still not working. It’s all the capacitors then. Yeah, so that’s where the skill is zooming in on that little part of the circuit. And then, I mean, sometimes you’ll find is that you’ll fix one problem, especially if something’s dead. There’s another minefield, you’ll now restore power, power is restored, but you’ll find, oh, it’s still not working right. There’s further faults that weren’t apparent in the first time. That’s where perseverance comes in. So you have to sort of really stick with it. And if you get fed up with a job, I mean, take a walk.
Neale 37:07
Yeah, just walk away from it, take a breath.
Mark 37:09
at least I do give a bit of my community a bit of sort of the occasional bit of therapy on that. It’s like we all get stuck and it’s like these are the bits that we edit out of videos. It happens everywhere. Yes so sometimes I put the repair to one side and the affection of we want to work on it whilst I have a think about it and invariably I’ll be on a walk with Jane talking about stuff then I’ll start talking about the repair and she won’t say a word probably won’t understand what I’m telling her and all of a sudden she’s just told me it’s just come to my straight out of my mind yes yeah so step to the diagnostics is the key and I would say that is 80% of the work it’s sort of and probably 90% of the skill and then the final stage three is actually doing the repair followed up with testing it again so because you replicated the 14 stage one you now know sure you’ve now got an element of quality control which is important because that’s you know free to honestly tell the customer it’s done and I’m confident to charge you appropriately for the work I’ve done
Neale 38:13
Yeah, fantastic. You touched on just then the community which we’ll talk about in a sec because I know you’re taking on groups and encouraging people to do their own repairs and you do that online. Having watched some of your videos and talked to you this morning and you come across to me as someone who wants other people to do well. You said just then you want to be able to charge appropriately, you don’t want to rip people off, you’re passionate about repairing things, you’re encouraging other people to do it. Where does that come from?
Mark 38:46
Probably in multiple places. I’ve always been keen to teach people what I know. I think it’s just natural to just want to communicate. It’s exciting when you learn something new. I want to tell somebody how to do it. And it’s just, where do you do that? I mean, Jane here has a lot of tips on how to prepare things. But I don’t know if she finds it that useful.
Neale 39:08
Luckily she loves you in spite of the tips.
Mark 39:12
Yes, she let me drive her car the other day, no, I found out a lot of things wrong with her car. So, but yes, it’s not, or sometimes a curse, but wanting to explain how things work, it just seems natural. I’d say in me, but I’m just thinking, people in general, it’s always the way society works is spreading of information. The more you spread a good idea around, the more successful it’ll be. And then someone else will grow on it. And this is how it benefits everyone. Yeah, this is like the utopia of society. And I think it doesn’t matter if it’s you’re doing like repairing a 50 year old product. The fact is, and I get a lot of people want me to fix their 50 year old things because they used to be people fixing them. And they’ve all moved on, they’ve moved on various things. So we need the new generations. Basically, we’re having to relearn all over again. So now quite often, I don’t have a mentor telling me how to fix an old 1930s radio. I’m having to open it and teach myself from scratch. I mean, no one ever taught me how valves work or tubes. I never knew I had to read old books and just researching myself. So now I’ve got a reasonable understanding of how they work. And it’s just that lost knowledge. So I always want to share that with people. And the other aspect to it is a bit selfishly, I have requests from all over the world to repair things. And I cannot cope with the amount of demand on my skills to do it. And it’d be very helpful to me.
Neale 40:46
of helpers.
Mark 40:46
If people out there could fix their own things, I wouldn’t feel so bad having to turn so many people away.
Neale 40:55
No, I think it touches on the right to repair that we spoke of before. If you think about, in particular, when I was in my mid-20s, my insurance dropped. I bought myself a Capri, a 2.8 V6 Capri, the Cologne engine in there. It was 25 years old. It was rotten to pieces. The engine had done 100,000 miles. I was very naive, but it was a baptism of fire. Everything on there was repairable. You had to get the parts and stuff, but I had a very good friend who was a mechanic, and I sat with him, and we had to change the discs on the front brakes and the drums on the back. You lift the engine bay up, there’s loads of space in there. There’s the hydraulic food for the power steering. I could tell you how many things went wrong on that car, but the point being was, it was all accessible. Now, I’ve got an electric BMW. I’ve got no chance of doing anything with that software again. The way it’s manufactured, it’s all contained. You open the boot, and it’s just a plastic cover. You can put washer fluid in it.
Mark 41:54
Yeah, I mean, I just need to touch on software there. I mean, I sort of have an inbuilt loathing of where this is going, especially like service. So things that used to be used to buy your products, for example, you remember that Microsoft Windows came out in the box, you bought the box and you owned it forever. And now it’s, everything’s going as a service and on the subscription. And for me, maybe the younger generations will be used to it. But for me, I just, it just feels, no matter how good the deal is, the fact that you’re continually paying for it just feels unfair.
Neale 42:30
Yeah. Okay, so last question that I’ve got for you, you’ve mentioned loathing subscriptions, you clearly hate modern gaming consoles for various and warranted reasons.
Mark 42:43
Because I’m no good at playing games.
Neale 42:44
That’s the reason, excellent. What’s the best design bit of kit that you’ve had the pleasure to work on?
Mark 42:52
Oh, that’s a difficult question. There’s been the odd piece of kit that I’ve fixed that I’ve been quite impressed with and I’m trying to think what it’d be. I mean at the moment the best piece of kit I think I’ve worked on for, designed actually an old motorbike. Okay. An old BSA A10 I’ve got. Okay. And that’s just a dream but so all that. I just wanted something really old and simple. What year is it? 1962. Oh, very nice. So yeah, it’s a lovely thing. Engine size? 650. It’s the slowest motorbike I’ve had for
Neale 43:33
But it looks good though, it’s going to have a classic design.
Mark 43:36
It’s beautiful. Yeah, I actually bought it because the BSA launched a new like they’ve relaunched their old See the gold star and it’s brand new I think it’s made in India and it’s all fuel injected and all modern and wonderful and which is great You just get on it and ride it. I think it works. Yeah, and I think it was advertised. Oh, it’s 5,000 pounds So I thought oh I got an e-bac foot How much are they selling for second hand all of it? But there weren’t any second in fact the ones that for sale on there were even more expensive. I thought that is crazy Yeah, but whilst I was looking for my phone scrolling through the these new ones And I thought oh Oh, I could afford that. Sorry. I went to bought one. Nice To fix a lot of oil leaks. Yeah, which are basically loose bolts. That’s it My problem is finding spanners that fit it’s all Imperial Right, so I’ve got a set of Imperial spanners and even those don’t fit there must be sizes in between But it’s sort of all the learning curve. So that’s yes So what does an electronics YouTube we get up to in their spare time? Anything
Neale 44:35
fixing old motorbikes. Old motorbikes yes. Well it’ll be fun to arrive around the farm anyway that you’d be able to speak around that that would be great. Absolutely yeah make everything cool. Mark thank you for your time it’s been great. Thank you.