​​​​Capstone Electronics, LLC

Getting my thoughts together at the moment...

Lack of Manufacturer Support

This is been something that has been eating at me for a while so I'll get it out here.  What's with the manufacturer's not wanting to help out repair services in servicing their products?  What are you afraid of?  There have been some units that I have worked on that I could see why they don't...They are trying to hide some deficiencies.  A top end manufacturer, who will remain nameless, recently "declined" to send or sell me the schematics for a subwoofer plate amplifier.  These are subs that run in the neighborhood of $4,000 new. They commented that I should be able to "understand" that decision they made.  I'm sorry, but what??  No, I don't understand...So, time to sharpen the pencils and sit to draw out my own schematic and find out what they've got going on.  I was quite surprised to find that the incoming line power to the plate had ZERO fuse(s) protecting the plate, and ultimately your house, from fire if there is a short on the power supply.  This is absolutely unacceptable from any point of view.  I still don't know how they were able to get their UL approval.  Ultimately, it took disassembly to draw out the circuit and figure out what the problem was.  The customer was quite happy in the end, but had quite a high labor rate for the additional time needed to do this.  This is just one example of time that could have been better spent doing other things.

I can understand, to a point, systems that have chips programmed with custom DSP firmware.  That is quite possibly their "secret sauce" to give them a marketing edge and was probably quite labor intensive to develop and test.   They are placing me in the unfortunate position of having to tell the customer that their $2,000 HDMI receiver is not repairable.

Personally, if I spent my money on a product and the manufacturer told me that they could not send me any service literature for a product that I paid them my money for, I would not be going back to them to buy a replacement unit and certainly not recommend their products any time soon.  

Counterfeit Silicon:

OK, this is as much a rant as warning to what has been happening with semiconductors being counterfeited and making their way into the global supply chain.  This is not a new problem, it has been happening for many years now.

There are many unscrupulous individuals out there that have been obtaining electronic components and remarking them with the more popular device part numbers and selling them online for irresistible prices.  In a great majority of cases, the specifications of these devices do not even come close to those of the original part being replaced.  Usually, the fake devices will self-destruct as soon as the circuit is powered on.  Typically it is the power transistors in amplifiers and power supplies that counterfeited since they are usually the more expensive and in demand components.  However, it can happen to capacitors and even smaller integrated circuits.

The unfortunate thing is after you purchase these devices, the vendor and ultimately the counterfeiter, already has your money and you are left with little recourse.  The only saving grace may be if you purchased the devices from a large vendor that supplies manufacturers and assembly houses.  They have pretty strict control and traceability of their supply chain.  It won't be an easy battle on your part to prove to the vendor the device is counterfeit  because you are going to be first reason the device failed..."You made a design error" or "There was something else wrong in the circuit that blew the device", etc.  You'll need to have your ducks in a row first with everything documented before approaching vendors. 

Summary:

If you purchase from a seller on Amazon or eBay you are definitely taking a large gamble.  If the price seems too good to be true, it most likely is.  I'm sure there ARE legit sellers out there...it is not my intention at all to slam you.

Short answer...Buy your devices from the large vendors.  It will cost more up front, but will save you loads of grief and headaches down the road.

Capstone purchases its electronic devices from reliable vendors that we have been using for many years.  Original (silicon) device part numbers and manufacturer are what is ordered for repairs for a large majority of our repairs.  There are times when a device may have been discontinued by its manufacturer and will need to be cross referenced  to another part number.  This can take a while to do since there are many parameters that need to be taken into consideration to meet or exceed the original device's specifications.  There is almost always a device out there somewhere that will work, you just have to do your homework to find it.

(I'll be updating this over the next few weeks)

These are some things that I feel need to be said.  Email with feedback if you wish...