Unidentified brands of appliances

[Ghashaan]

I'm from the Maldives.

At our place, a lot of cheap, unbranded Chinese manufactured appliances are used. These sometimes come with a very similar name of a well known brand or a local name that's totally strange. But the name is not the problem. 

The problem is that these products don't come with any proper documents. Sometimes there are small leaflets that show how to do the first time connections or installations with instructions in broken or almost unreadable English. This is not always the case. At other times it's even worse. Whatever the few instructions they provide are presented fully in Chinese and there would not be a single English word. 

Let's put aside the cheap, unbranded products. I know that it's not decent to ask for technical advice on those. But I'm having another problem that I'd like to ask for your advice for a solution. In our local market, there are some decent, high quality appliances that are made from Asian countries, such as Singapore and Malaysia. These appliances are not as famous as the Samsungs, Hitachis, LGs, or Bosches. So let's say these decent Asian-made appliances fall into the mid-class. 

These mid-class appliances comprise 50% of the market. This means a lot to a full time appliance repair technician. 

The problem with these appliances is that it's difficult to get their documents online. The locals are not so aware of the importance of the documents that come with the appliances when they are sold because they are used to PCM repair methodology. So, in most of the cases, they throw away the papers along with the cardboard boxes that conceal the appliances. 

My question is, do you think that I should attempt to repair these ones without the schematics and the wiring diagrams or should I just say a big "no" and leave? I'm asking this because, as I said, it's 50% of the game. 

I hope someone would pop with good advice and extra tips to help me make a decision. 

 

 

 

[J5*]

Tech info is useful

what is  more important is understanding how things work

You can fix a lot of things without tech data if you understand how things work 

although you can get caught out with some dishwashers for example that do things a little differently 

if there is 50% of these fakename products out there you only have a couple of choices 

I would also be looking at what brand name products you can get there as replacement options 

what can you do ?

any tech data you come across then try and photo and catalogue it in your iPad etc for future reference for when it’s not available 

start keeping a data base on your experiences for future reference 

Don’t be afraid to give it a go , if you decline everything you will never learn anything 

I’ve done my share of give a go and lost and walk away and I consider it a learning experience , by the same token I’ve given it a go and won 

Remember you will miss 100% of the shots you don’t take 

 

[Ghashaan]

Thanks J5*

[J5*]

33 minutes ago, Ghashaan said:

Thanks J5*

Np

to preface that 

it’s not that often that i go looking for a diagram 

not draining , blocked pump check

not filling slow valve check

it might be 5% you are looking for a diagram imho 

give it a go 

[Ghashaan]

4 minutes ago, J5* said:

it’s not that often that i go looking for a diagram 

it might be 5% you are looking for a diagram imho 

give it a go 

From what I've read, I know Samurai won't approve me to go ahead without the schematics. 

But I guess my situation is different. In the US, it looks like that all of the appliances used are branded and of top class (I don't know for sure). So finding the documents won't be a problem at all. 

If our local market (in Maldives) is infiltrated by low end products that don't really fit into any category, and if these products are making 50% of the market, I guess I just can't walk away on them. 

I agree that troubleshooting without schematics is boring and time consuming and it's unprofessional too. I'm gonna have to do a lot of pattern recognition instead of real troubleshooting. 

I'm already a certified electrician. I am working in a vehicle and heavy equipment repair workshop where I have to deal with lots of industrial machines. Huge three phase motors are on the top of my repair list. But I'm considering to becoming a full time appliance technician. 

When it comes to troubleshooting electrical problems in vehicles, I'm facing similar frustrations. My company won't provide any documents to go with. They'll just describe the problem and ask me solve it. To top that off, there'll always be a close deadline. The time constraint causes to multiply my frustrations.

I hope people's mindset will change someday soon. In my view, the main reason for spreading of the epidemic of PCM repair is the lack of knowledge on part of the technicians. The industry is flooded with uneducated employees to whom schematics look like the remains of a lost language.

Anyway, I'm taking your advice on this. I'll give it a shot. Thank you!

 

 

[J5*]

As I said above imho it’s not that often you go looking for schematics , it’s only really when you get the odd tricky one and I would doubt it’s even 5% of the time in my experience

What a schematic does help with though is being able to diagnose at the board without pulling an appliance down

eg dishwasher no heat , you can either pull it out and measure the heater directly or do it at the board knowing which pin point  from 

I suffer the same issue down here in Australia , each appliance doesn’t have a  tech sheet or schematic inside the appliance so just have to jump in and use your knowledge 

knowing how to use a meter is important 

[Bintiwangu]

@Ghashaan Although I haven't been around here that long myself, I want to welcome you- as I see you've only been part of Appliantology for a couple of months. So welcome!

It's amazing that people from Australia, Maldives, and North America can interact and help each other!  I have heard of Maldives, but didn't know anything about it other than it's reputation as a beautiful tourist destination. So I looked it up on Wikipedia. Anyway, it sounds like you are in a bit of a dilemna. If you refuse to work on these, "orphan" brands, that don't have documentation, you are missing a large percentage of the machines in your market. I am not nearly as experienced as J5* or others, so I would be terrified to look at something without documentation. (something computerized anyway) 

 But I suppose there are a couple of ways to look at it. You could give it a try on a few of them and see how it goes. You could also just decide to work only on the "higher" brands you can get literature for.  Perhaps there would be enough of that kind of work and you wouldn't need the aggravation of the orphan brands. 

I heard a man say once that no matter what you do,  if you are the best - there will be room for you. I am not the best, but I am working on getting better, and in the meantime I try to care more and try harder.  It sounds like you have a good background of knowledge already. I would encourage you to do what you can in taking courses at MasterSamuraiTech.com and keep on learning!

[Ghashaan]

Thanks @Bintiwangu for the encouragement and suggestions! 

Of course I'm a newbie. In fact, this is the first ever topic that I've posted on the site. 

I'm ready to take the Fundamentals Course now. But I have the habit of exploring all the free materials before committing myself into something. I've already repaired a refrigerator wtih the help of the things that I've learned through MST and Appliantoloty. 

Its problem was that the 78 deg celcius thermal fuse was blown. The apparent symptom was that its evaporator fan wasn't spinning. So I took out my meter and went ahead for continuity testing. It took only a matter of minutes to get down to the culprit. Since that kind of fuse wasn't available to buy from my island, I solved the problem by cutting away the fuse and twisting the were ends together. In other words, I by passed the fuse. To my luck, it worked like a charm!

It also had another problem that looked more serious to me. The compressor wasn't working. Sometimes when I turned on the power switch, it made a humming sound and at other times, there was no sound or vibration at all. First, I suspected it to be a problem with the starting capacitor. But to my surprise, a capacitor was not to be found anywhere and by appearance, I could confirm that non of the parts were missing. Then I started fiddling with the two pinned black color thing that was connected to the compressor and through further research, I learned that it was a PTC starter. I measured its resistance and found it to be out of range. Luckily, through the help of a friend, I was able to get another used PTC starter that looked good in shape. With that replacement, the refrigerator came into life and it's still running! 

Yeah! it's great to meet people from the other side of the world and to know that we have similar interests. I might be the only Maldivian guy on this site. But it's really useful. If others learn it, I'm sure they would be eager to join in. It's just a beginning of a long journey that I've planned ahead. I'll be posting new topics as I come across new problems. I hope you all will be there to help me and other newbies who stumble upon here crying for help. 

I am taking your suggestions and the suggestions made by @J5* as well. I'll go both ways to see what serves me best. 

[J5*]

I was a 1 brand bandit for 10 years and then was forced out into the open market so now having to learn other brands and their issues 

even when I was doing the one brand and a new product came along it was always a learning experience , take your time and learn it , what you learn will pay back later 

you might take 2-3 visits 2-3 hours but later it will be a 5 min fix from what you researched and learnt before