Stupid Amazon Return Box Thing I put this here as a spoiler saver, by the way. People get very annoyed if the top comment is "you idiot, you broke everything" or similar. Gives the game away, I guess.
It's a Sustainable hobby. In our 'throw-away' society with so much unnecessary landfill, this, for me, is a hugely enjoyable video. And it also unintentionally provides basic tuition, which gives me the confidence to try to fix some of MY broken stuff. I've subscribed 👍🏼
I agree that it's better than throwing it away, but let's be honest: Most of this is - and always has been - pure e-waste. Almost none of these things should have been produced in the first place.
Your right but most of this stuff its still a polished turd when u have fixed it. With all the shipping an stuff, prob not so sustainable. Companies should just make better quality stuff, thats less profitable tho. Profit>sustainability
As someone who worked in PCB manufacturing for a decade, I can tell you that the small metal shavings you had in the streaming box are extremely common, especially with cheap manufacturers. For the grounded parts of the connector, check for the largest soldering tip you can get. As ground is a large layer and you also heat up the whole connector when soldering, you really need a lot of heat that's hard to dissipate by either one of them. Depending on the soldering iron, you can get some very thick spade types you can also use for BGA reballing. Otherwise a thick chisel tip will work okay. Makes everything so much easier. Little edit: I've been working with a Weller RT station and their tips, I'd highly suggest that, as it makes working extremely comfortable. But the price might be a little much. Completely worth it though. You can even find DIY versions of an arduino soldering station for the tips, which only causes you to have to buy the expensive tips. However, it's absolutely worth it, can't recommend them enough.
"As ground is a large layer" 15 years with Honeywell ('77 to '91) repairing multi layer PCB's and PWB's for mainframes and peripherals. Faulty IC's especially difficult soldering them in and was a task but with the PACE soldering station it wasn't too bad once you got used to it. Of course Weller was used as well mainly for in the field.
For me, getting a JBC soldering station with theT245 handle was already a game changer to rework boards with heavy copper planes. And the selection of tips they offer has something for every issue. I really like the very wide tips to change out broken connectors, as you can just heat up the full row of pins at once, and it has the power to actually not struggle with the pins attached to power planes. They have square ones as well to desolder ICs, really nice that you don't need to heat up all of the board to just swap one component. If that would not be enough, you could even get the heavy duty station with the biggerT470 handle that has a 250W heating element. These tools are not cheap tho, so it really makes more sense in the professional work where you need them almost every day. The Weller RT tips with a little "DIY" solderin station are not bad either, we have some of them as well on some other desks. When it comes to soldering tweezers, i actually prefer the Weller over the JBC tweezers for the handling.
Well done Steve! Excellent video with multiple fixes, which as far as I'm concerened is a BONUS! With an Extra BONUS: Most of these types of videos when completed say "I've made (X) profit"! Which absolutely infuriates me as there is ZERO profit unless you have actually sold the items. You on the other hand Steve are correct when you said that the profit would be if you sold them, which might be a tiny difference to some, but for me is EXACTLY how to do these repair and profit videos. Love ya brother 👍💖
Very true indeed. Who wants to actually buy second hand ear buds, some unknown persons ear wax is coming your way soon..🤢🤮 Plus, nobody seems to "factor in" the time spent trying to sell items. The UA-camr known as "My Mate Vince" tends not to sell stuff he has repaired because , he states, isn't qualified to repair. That's fair enough, but then it's only an earner from UA-cam and a fast track to the landfill site.🤷🏼♂!
You shouldn't test a speaker without assembling it completely. That's the easiest way to burn the voice coil or tear the cone. Source: been there done that.
@@chuckschillingvideos Because he's not running it as a business? It's a hobby that he loves and if he breaks even then his hobby costs are better than most. The real money is coming from Patrons that enjoy his content and his UA-cam views.
@@chantalwiebe534 I'm sure that's where ALL they money is - in UA-cam. But he's not presenting this as a hobby - he's presenting it as a viable profit/loss business. So I think it's valid to point out that this is NOT a workable business model.
@@chuckschillingvideoshe was already in profit based on 25 percent resale before he fixed the new items though. And you'd need to have at least 20-30 of these boxes to find out what the averages were. I used to do this but with pallet loads not boxes and there is money to be made.
I volunteer at Repair Cafes, and am one of the few people there to tackle electronics. Until you've changed Micro USB and USB C ports (including the evil Switch ones with an extra row of pins only hot air can reach) on a wobbly bench at a community centre, you haven't lived the SMD rework high life! I have also done repairs to ear buds and it's the hardest soldering I have ever done.
The problem is manufacturers using the electrical port's signal connections soldered to the pcb, as a mechanical connection - that is holding it in place without screws. So the manufacturer saves 10 pence not using screws and the ports fail sooner rather than later.
Aw cool that 2nd item, the earbuds with power bank, i have those exact earbuds for years. They're awesome, great sound, but lately the battery is starting to not last so long so now I know how to open them, and what kind of battery it has. Thanks Steve!
As far as quality control goes, my Grandma was a quality assurance lead at IBM. You can't test every piece of a production run if you're making thousands of units. So you test random samples. So it's very likely you'll get a number of production errors from an outside factory.
In my production experience (portugal) it was standard for EVERY unit to be tested. There were some cheap AC controllers(not inverter, ~10€ component cost) which did around 500-800/lot around 8k/year and all of them were tested.
For things with lots of tight clips like on the Sony speaker, I use cheap guitar picks. You get a big pack of them and just put one in each spot with a clip to help release them.
Well done steve, give yourself a hugh patt on the back. Surley you can discount the melted plastic as it was done intentionaly to gain access, not accidentally. Im sure others would agree.
I think that small blob thing was just a glob-top (chip-on-board) hiding some very small IC. You can tell there are traces going into it, so it wasn't a plastic post holding it in. The moment he melted the epoxy and scrubbed in there with the iron whatever was inside was probably destroyed. Not that it really matters, since these things are a nightmare to repair anyways.
"I can see clearly now the solders gone" Just gold haha. Appreciate your humor and mindset going into these projects, keep up the great work my friend 🤘 love your content.
nice fixes, as always. The thing that always gets me with this Amazon returns is the audacity some people have. They are using a product for months and then kill the USB port. And since it's still in the warranty time, they just return it for whatever reason (stopped working) and it just goes straight to these returns resellers or into the trash, because Amazon surely doesn't care about them being fixed. So good job, giving those products a second life because some people are just too careless with their stuff and Amazon also doesn't give a damn about our planet's resources. I hope you get your money plus a good bonus back from ebay for those items!
I bought that CAT thermal phone as customer return. It was rated as "perfect". It was a good deal for me as I've never would've bought it, but it was like 1/4 priced. It arrived and I was really happy to see it powerup and seemingly working. But after I installed SIM card I noticed after like few mins that I'm not getting operator logo's or anything. Luckily I just send message to this webshop with their claim form and stated that I would rather have it fixed than refunded if possible. It worked just fine. It was on repairs for like couple weeks, but got it back now fully working. I think it was prime example how they don't test items 100% throughly, which of course makes a lot of sense. Big webshop it would take ages to actually do phone call with returned item. It's weird to see stuff returned.
I absolutely love all your videos. Been watching your channel for a couple months now, and im glad i found it. I watch them as i troubleshoot electronic repairs at the thrift store i work at 😊 and learn a ton
Aside from being the totally wrong smartwatch than the one shown on the box (probably someone ended up with a new watch and returned the old one), there are 2 metal disks on the bottom of the watch, and the missing charger pad has 2 spring loaded contacts. You could try putting 5V and around 100mA on those disks (mind the polarity lol) to check if it works at all, it should at least turn on with some voltage coming through...
Actually these cheap "smart" watches use a very simple USB cable with magnetic contacts for the watch. Can be had for about $3 USD on the usual Chinese sites.
Welldone, favourite fix was the Sony speaker - I have a headphone amp somewhere that was doing similar they were meant to send a replacement but it hasn't arrived, you gotta love our far east friends - it could still be in the post somewhere, if not I can console myself with some of their sweet n sour pork Cantonese, but that aside I might as well have a look at the port on the knackered one I have and see if I can do anything about it. Keep it up, your still one of the most wholesome British 'entertainers' on UA-cam. Thanks, Stefan, Jersey, Channel Islands
He didn’t even stop to wipe the blood away. That’s commitment. Everyones Gotta give a ‘Like’ to this one. The man bled to bring you premium content for f*cks sake! 😂 Yet another great video, Steve
Those Artfones are basically designed for the elderly who just need something to call and send texts, with big buttons, and sometimes have an SOS button (calls and texts people on a certain white list) and torch button on the sides. My nan who passed very recently (at the time of writing) used to have one. They're definitely handy.
Ohhh I like the sound of this! Going to watch it later, trying to finish off a video to publish, this can be like my relaxing dessert while it uploads :D I am halfway through my amazon returns video, started filming in November! I messed up the whole 'profit' part of it as half of the stuff I gave to family as Xmas presents haha.
Thanks for putting up videos like this one, Steve! It's so satisfying to see you putting things to work properly again, and you do it with great ease! Keep up the great work!
When I write stuff in spreadsheets like this I like to add the cost of acquiring the item (plus if there was shipping involved in per item breakdown), add a column where I write the parts that were needed for the repair and calculate the profit by substracting the costs from the final actual selling price. I'm doing this as a hobby too but it involves a lot of number-pushing in a spreadsheet, I like to see if I'm getting any money back from wasting my time with all these junk rescuing.
Yeah, it's odd because most of it (over 75%) is absolutely fine and could easily be resold. I guess it's just not worth their time to go through it all and sort out what works and what doesn't!
I bought an earbud from Amazon, different brand, but similar in price to this HyperX and after a few months of use the left side stopped working, exactly like this one. No sound, but touch controls were working fine. Right side was working perfectly. I tried to factory reset according to the user manual and it didn't work. Because it was still under warranty I contacted Amazon through their customer service channel and they provided me a different factory reset procedure. According to them, there were two versions of the same product but with different settings. I tried the alternative solution and It worked like a charm. It has been 3 years now and it still works fine.
Some things do get returned just so people can get discounts at the store they return it to. Kohls for example gave us 10% off in store for bringing an Amazon return to them
The reason the digital display looked so strange through your camera is because of the difference in refresh rate between your camera and the display. Your camera refresh rate is whatever frame rate you're running, 30fps/60fps usually, but the display on the wireless earbuds will be different. The different refresh rates means you're capturing the display screen in different states of refreshing which is why sometimes you don't see it illuminated. If you switch your camera settings to auto and increase/decrease your shutter speed you can usually match the speeds so you can see the display better, although this usually lets in a lot of light so it will be whitewashed too! Great video by the way. You're my new binge channel 😂
I do something similar to you but with sewing machines. one came in the other day it cost £1800 4 years ago and even the manufacturer was extremely unhelpful and claimed they could not get the part. In the end the part cost 94pence to fix it. Love your channel your and witty humour.
Hi Steve, That copper sheet inside the DAB radio looked more like screening than an antenna. Some radio devices use headphones or cables plugged into them for antennas. I can't say that for sure in this case, but as that copper sheet was sandwiched between the radio pcb and battery, it wasn't in a good spot for an antenna.
I have stumbled here for no reason other than one of your videos appeared on my feed. My goodness, brilliant! Love the songs and love the tinkering. Subscribed good sir.
I have that Sony BT Speaker. I got it for few euros from my mobile service provider as gift card. I'm glad I selected it. I've been really happy at work with it. Quite nice audio quality and battery last for like 5h on almost maxed volume. Good to know that it's port is pain to replace if it comes up someday.
Now see, I think deliberately melting plastic shouldn't count - it was a legitimate action during a repair... I think I speak for the entire internet when I say you can put it back. Right? Like this comment if you agree. (farming likes on a YT video... how distasteful.). Anyway thanks for the bumper episode, next I think you should visit your local waste disposal site and procure some broken toasters.... 😂
I didn't realise how strongly people felt about the melted-plastic counter! Let's see if the rest of the internet agree, and I'll roll it back! 😂 ...and I've already placed toasters on my list of "never, ever, ever am I going to attempt to fix" things. It's right behind printer and coffee machine... 🤣🤣
@@StezStixFix I'm with not counting deliberately melted plastic. Toasters? Those were my specialities to fix when I was a kid. But that was back in the day when they were purely electromechanical! I have two coffee machines, one filter, one bean to cup, which I need to fix, but I haven't psyched myself up enough to start tacking them yet. My kitchen table is currently full with amateur radio stuff.
@@StezStixFix Dude, I was like "what did you melt? Have I missed something" That deliberately melt does not count man. Put your counter back on track. This counter is only for stupid mistakes, allright?!
I came to the comments section looking for something along the lines of this comment, not disappointed :D Also, there are a few other later other comments stating the same. Plastic rivets are the devil, they don't count!
That was a great episode. I’m going to have to attempt a repair of my jammed bug a salt gun. I’m dreading parts flying everywhere when I unscrew it. I need some of your confidence 👍🏴🇬🇧
Presume for that earbud you just need to find and initiate their pairing procedure sequence or the reset to factory settings procedure. Try these methods before open bluetooth earbuds. Thank you for sharing here your work, skills and servicing electronics hobby!
Steve, we have the same luck. Everytime I work on anything I always end up cutting one of my fingers. I will be 30 minutes into a project and I have to stop and get a Band-Aid. Anyways keep up the awesome videos!
That was brilliant Ste. Forget the 25%. Go for 50% resell ! Everything will be snapped up and you've made a tidy profit. Maybe an idea to do this kind of Amazon thing once a month? Really good for the variety. Looking forward to seeing the TV brackets assembled. Hahahah
"You've made a tidy profit" Excluded hours spent on fixing it. He could have earned 137.17GBP (£) in 4-7 hours working a job in retail that doesn't require forward investment (£34-19.5/h this is why the repair industry is dying). Second hand job I would quote £40-£70 per started hour due to equipment cost, my brother that work with certified electrical engineers they quote $100-$175 per started hour. it's a £1 job material wise, if you know the issue it's a 1-2 minute fix with a £260k re-flow station and a 5 axis soldering robot. if you pay somebody it would cost between £40-£70 to be worth it for this ONE speaker, if you pay them by industry standards it would be at least $200 to fix it. over all getting "£200 potential retail value out of £849 new value" sounds about right (if you ignore fixing time and hourly rate) And then you either have to ignore customer complains that can tarnish your reseller reputation or pay somebody to manage that... for money
It's not remotely a "tidy profit". 29 items x £3 delivery = £87 Business seller Ebay fees on £208 (10.9%) = £22.67 Price paid for stock = £66 Total cost of business = £175.67 Assuming everything sells (It won't) and assuming you get no returns or scammers, you have earned a total of £33 for what I can only assume is at least 20-30 hours of work (Cleaning, picture, listing, packaging, replying). Even if the lot sold at 50% of RRP (£416) you're looking at £209 profit - or less than the minimum wage....assuming you sell everything and have no problems. The vast majority of this stock is worthless and won't even sell for 10%, never mind 25%. There's a reason the Ebay seller sold it as a job lot - they know their job.
Said it before but it never ceases to amaze me how hamfisted some people are. I have literally never broken a USB port but some people seem incapable of understanding one way connectors. Nice fixes Ste - I might try and have a go at this stuff myself except for two reasons. 1) You need to factor in your time, I doubt you made money after the repair costs are taken out and b) I have no idea how to get a box of returns from Amazon.
Third item is a magic eye for allowing remote access to a SKY Plus box from a second tv from the RF out! You need to turn on the voltage using the engineer code in services on the Sky box. They're about 35 quid in the shops.
Hey Steve!! Love the videos man! You have a knack for keeping us entertained while we watch you go about doing your thing. I actually learned a lot from your videos and hope to keep learning. I live in the States and my "favorite color is blue... no, yelloAAAHHHH!!!!"
I’m glad I discovered your channel most entertaining repair guy on UA-cam I’ve seen so far, realising that you was singing with your patreon members along with the items in your video is very creative and fun made me laugh. Also where do you buy these returns from as I’ve been wanting to do something similar (selling what works)
Fyi, for the future. The light looks like it's flickering due to camera shutter speed. You can see it on most lighting sources through a lens, like flourecent tubs and such. If it's affecting the video, you can try fiddling around with the exposure settings, setting the right "wave length" with the shutter speed and compensate with the aperture and Iso. I'm sure there's some available charts to use.
Nice collection of fixes I like them. I wish I could find a DAB radio like that but digital radio never took off in the US. That android TV box is pretty cool Could see hooking one to my TV and putting some streaming TV apps on it.
the alternating LEDs on the ear buds is how those things are drawn usually with a common Vcc or GND and then pulses each segment very quickly This way you can control many LEDs "at once" without a ton of current on the common pin.
I always write the same thing on these „can I make a profit?“-videos: What pound-number do you enter in the equation for the time you spent on it? And I mean ALL the time, including the selling hustle… but fun video and for you part of the profit obviously comes from the fun of making a good video about it 👍😊
Seeing these comments is like trying to understand a foreign language to the layperson mind boggling very stressful if you can't understand ah well everyone is good at something i found this guys calm approach very therapeutic cos im a stress head he made it all look very easy but it really isn't you know your stuff m8 great to watch
I would revisit those earbuds. It is almost certainly just one or both of the driver wires detached. If you warm up that small pcb, it would probably all come out in one piece. Looked like it was just glued in along with one plastic melted pin.
At 27:20 when he says it's all one piece of plastic you can see a mold line around the tip where the driver is. It would have to split there. Gotta remember it has a battery and a driver in it too. The pcb he shows is probably just the charging circuit, which needs to pop up from the housing and slide out the top
That pcb is all the circuitry in there. You can see the antenna trace on the pcb. I would bet the tiny battery is soldered to the other side of the pcb, leaving just the driver in the head.
that j tip is better for smaller component work. for something as large as hdmi legs maybe switch to a k tip or something slightly bigger than that j tip so that it transfers more heat faster. love your videos btw!
Hi Steve! This was the first video I watched and the synth music and the Jeff Bridges joke got me to subscribe. What's the synth music you use on this video?.. did you compose it. Is there a longer version. If so you should put it on a second channel dedicated to music 🎉👏🏼 I would subscribe to that!!
I really like this style of video! I hope you do more like it. I've been watching your videos for quite a while, I am also an amateur fixer ;) and I have learned quite a few tricks from you.
just came across this video in my recommendations, not sure why as it not my normal type of video, but I really enjoyed it and subscribed. thanks for the video
I purchased one of the tough built scraper utility knifes from howdens a few weeks back and it's brilliant but the only draw back is that its not compatible with normal Stanley blades.
There are videos showing how to make broken ear buds into bt speakers. Could be a fun project to do for a video with the pair that are unfixable. Nice job and glad you are able to make your money back.
18:58 That is for power saving. Its fast enough that human persistence of vision shows a solid digit but the camera captures faster so it can see the segments cycling on and off
Those Item 2 earbuds look just like the £10 Poundland‘s I’ve been using with Sennheiser Momentum silicone tips that improve the sound/bass/fit incredibly well.
Where would one get one of these returns boxes in the UK? I found place online, but they have a £250 minimum spend, so assuming you didnt get it from there.
Pretty sweet fix average there, Steve - good work ;) So tough you didn't even stop to put a band aid on that jag you scored while trying to open those cheap ear buds! good luck with the resale - recon you could get more than 1/4 value for some of those items.
Loved this video, you done well with the repairs there, not surprised the earphones were a fail, like you say they aren't built to be repaired, built to be binned if they break.
I don't think the "Days Since Melted Plastic" counter needed to be reset because a) you did it itentionally and b) you didn't have a choice. So it wasn't an accident. I'm enjoying your videos. It's great to see hardware brought back to life instead of ending up in the bin. I can't fault you for not being able to fix one set of earbuds. They are so small and not packaged for repair, there's not much you can do with them.
You know, from a content point of view at least I think this is a really creative interesting direction to go. Just forever repair amazon? return boxes :-)
Just a heads up Steve, if you had heated up that blade a lot more when trying to open the ear buds, it would have been serialized when you stuck it in your finger.😊
Stupid Amazon Return Box Thing
I put this here as a spoiler saver, by the way. People get very annoyed if the top comment is "you idiot, you broke everything" or similar. Gives the game away, I guess.
You could of course just stop breaking everything, but still, nice gesture. :P
It’s like playing the game “Mouse Trap”. Spend all that time building the contraption to either see if it works or not
Yes Hello! This is the closest I’ve come to watching an just up loaded video! Hi and thank you! Also I brought a bill big bass because of you!!! Lol
well done on the haircut, looks fresh!
Is my phone glitching or it says 3 days ago
It's a Sustainable hobby. In our 'throw-away' society with so much unnecessary landfill, this, for me, is a hugely enjoyable video. And it also unintentionally provides basic tuition, which gives me the confidence to try to fix some of MY broken stuff. I've subscribed 👍🏼
I agree that it's better than throwing it away, but let's be honest: Most of this is - and always has been - pure e-waste. Almost none of these things should have been produced in the first place.
Same, found it very entertaining and educational. Another sub.
me too
Your right but most of this stuff its still a polished turd when u have fixed it. With all the shipping an stuff, prob not so sustainable. Companies should just make better quality stuff, thats less profitable tho. Profit>sustainability
People do this as a hobby? Really?
Love the "buy a box of unknown crap and see if you can fix it" format!! Let's see another!!
Agree, so good seeing random stuff destined for landfill get a 2nd chance
😂😂
As someone who worked in PCB manufacturing for a decade, I can tell you that the small metal shavings you had in the streaming box are extremely common, especially with cheap manufacturers. For the grounded parts of the connector, check for the largest soldering tip you can get. As ground is a large layer and you also heat up the whole connector when soldering, you really need a lot of heat that's hard to dissipate by either one of them.
Depending on the soldering iron, you can get some very thick spade types you can also use for BGA reballing. Otherwise a thick chisel tip will work okay. Makes everything so much easier.
Little edit: I've been working with a Weller RT station and their tips, I'd highly suggest that, as it makes working extremely comfortable. But the price might be a little much. Completely worth it though. You can even find DIY versions of an arduino soldering station for the tips, which only causes you to have to buy the expensive tips. However, it's absolutely worth it, can't recommend them enough.
"As ground is a large layer" 15 years with Honeywell ('77 to '91) repairing multi layer PCB's and PWB's for mainframes and peripherals. Faulty IC's especially difficult soldering them in and was a task but with the PACE soldering station it wasn't too bad once you got used to it. Of course Weller was used as well mainly for in the field.
Also worth putting a plug in the socket to help prevent the plastics moving things out of alignment...
For me, getting a JBC soldering station with theT245 handle was already a game changer to rework boards with heavy copper planes. And the selection of tips they offer has something for every issue. I really like the very wide tips to change out broken connectors, as you can just heat up the full row of pins at once, and it has the power to actually not struggle with the pins attached to power planes. They have square ones as well to desolder ICs, really nice that you don't need to heat up all of the board to just swap one component. If that would not be enough, you could even get the heavy duty station with the biggerT470 handle that has a 250W heating element.
These tools are not cheap tho, so it really makes more sense in the professional work where you need them almost every day. The Weller RT tips with a little "DIY" solderin station are not bad either, we have some of them as well on some other desks.
When it comes to soldering tweezers, i actually prefer the Weller over the JBC tweezers for the handling.
Well done Steve!
Excellent video with multiple fixes, which as far as I'm concerened is a BONUS!
With an Extra BONUS:
Most of these types of videos when completed say "I've made (X) profit"!
Which absolutely infuriates me as there is ZERO profit unless you have actually sold the items.
You on the other hand Steve are correct when you said that the profit would be if you sold them, which might be a tiny difference to some, but for me is EXACTLY how to do these repair and profit videos.
Love ya brother 👍💖
Very true indeed. Who wants to actually buy second hand ear buds, some unknown persons ear wax is coming
your way soon..🤢🤮 Plus, nobody seems to "factor in" the time spent trying to sell items.
The UA-camr known as "My Mate Vince" tends not to sell stuff he has repaired because , he states, isn't qualified
to repair.
That's fair enough, but then it's only an earner from UA-cam and a fast track to the landfill site.🤷🏼♂!
I can't believe you re-assembled that Sony speaker before testing it. You're a mad man.
I have no doubt he always tests before re-assembling but appearing not to do so gives it a real Paul Daniels magic feeling
@@chazjamesn There have been a few times when he's reassembled without testing and the device has failed to work.
@@RetroJack yup true good point, there have been a few occasions
You shouldn't test a speaker without assembling it completely. That's the easiest way to burn the voice coil or tear the cone. Source: been there done that.
More like Tommy Cooper!@@chazjamesn
I'd like to see a part 2 of this: "What happened when I tried selling repaired Amazon returns on ebay" or some such.
Yes, I was hoping to see the final result as well.
Yes, we're not seeing ANY of the REAL costs and efforts associated with running a "business" like this.
@@chuckschillingvideos Because he's not running it as a business? It's a hobby that he loves and if he breaks even then his hobby costs are better than most. The real money is coming from Patrons that enjoy his content and his UA-cam views.
@@chantalwiebe534 I'm sure that's where ALL they money is - in UA-cam. But he's not presenting this as a hobby - he's presenting it as a viable profit/loss business. So I think it's valid to point out that this is NOT a workable business model.
@@chuckschillingvideoshe was already in profit based on 25 percent resale before he fixed the new items though. And you'd need to have at least 20-30 of these boxes to find out what the averages were. I used to do this but with pallet loads not boxes and there is money to be made.
Fascinating how many repairs are simply damged ports. I'm learning lots from these videos. 👍
I volunteer at Repair Cafes, and am one of the few people there to tackle electronics. Until you've changed Micro USB and USB C ports (including the evil Switch ones with an extra row of pins only hot air can reach) on a wobbly bench at a community centre, you haven't lived the SMD rework high life! I have also done repairs to ear buds and it's the hardest soldering I have ever done.
The problem is manufacturers using the electrical port's signal connections soldered to the pcb, as a mechanical connection - that is holding it in place without screws. So the manufacturer saves 10 pence not using screws and the ports fail sooner rather than later.
How funny it is to have someone opening one of these boxes and hopping that things actually DON'T work! 😂
Aw cool that 2nd item, the earbuds with power bank, i have those exact earbuds for years. They're awesome, great sound, but lately the battery is starting to not last so long so now I know how to open them, and what kind of battery it has. Thanks Steve!
As far as quality control goes, my Grandma was a quality assurance lead at IBM. You can't test every piece of a production run if you're making thousands of units. So you test random samples. So it's very likely you'll get a number of production errors from an outside factory.
I don’t trust anything your grandma says
In layman's terms: The one, two, skip a few policy 😂
@@Scott-M11 per thousand or so
This goes for a lot of production line including cars
In my production experience (portugal) it was standard for EVERY unit to be tested. There were some cheap AC controllers(not inverter, ~10€ component cost) which did around 500-800/lot around 8k/year and all of them were tested.
For things with lots of tight clips like on the Sony speaker, I use cheap guitar picks. You get a big pack of them and just put one in each spot with a clip to help release them.
Well done steve, give yourself a hugh patt on the back. Surley you can discount the melted plastic as it was done intentionaly to gain access, not accidentally. Im sure others would agree.
I agree. If the only way forward is to melt plastic, you melt plastic.
I think that small blob thing was just a glob-top (chip-on-board) hiding some very small IC. You can tell there are traces going into it, so it wasn't a plastic post holding it in. The moment he melted the epoxy and scrubbed in there with the iron whatever was inside was probably destroyed.
Not that it really matters, since these things are a nightmare to repair anyways.
"I can see clearly now the solders gone"
Just gold haha. Appreciate your humor and mindset going into these projects, keep up the great work my friend 🤘 love your content.
nice fixes, as always.
The thing that always gets me with this Amazon returns is the audacity some people have. They are using a product for months and then kill the USB port. And since it's still in the warranty time, they just return it for whatever reason (stopped working) and it just goes straight to these returns resellers or into the trash, because Amazon surely doesn't care about them being fixed.
So good job, giving those products a second life because some people are just too careless with their stuff and Amazon also doesn't give a damn about our planet's resources. I hope you get your money plus a good bonus back from ebay for those items!
I bought that CAT thermal phone as customer return. It was rated as "perfect". It was a good deal for me as I've never would've bought it, but it was like 1/4 priced. It arrived and I was really happy to see it powerup and seemingly working. But after I installed SIM card I noticed after like few mins that I'm not getting operator logo's or anything. Luckily I just send message to this webshop with their claim form and stated that I would rather have it fixed than refunded if possible. It worked just fine. It was on repairs for like couple weeks, but got it back now fully working. I think it was prime example how they don't test items 100% throughly, which of course makes a lot of sense. Big webshop it would take ages to actually do phone call with returned item. It's weird to see stuff returned.
If it's still under warranty, it's fair enough to return it, if the usb port breaks.
I absolutely love all your videos. Been watching your channel for a couple months now, and im glad i found it.
I watch them as i troubleshoot electronic repairs at the thrift store i work at 😊 and learn a ton
Aside from being the totally wrong smartwatch than the one shown on the box (probably someone ended up with a new watch and returned the old one), there are 2 metal disks on the bottom of the watch, and the missing charger pad has 2 spring loaded contacts. You could try putting 5V and around 100mA on those disks (mind the polarity lol) to check if it works at all, it should at least turn on with some voltage coming through...
Great video Steve! I love these longer ones! A nice mix of items aswell!
Actually these cheap "smart" watches use a very simple USB cable with magnetic contacts for the watch. Can be had for about $3 USD on the usual Chinese sites.
Started soldering this week. Thanks for the inspiration
Welldone, favourite fix was the Sony speaker - I have a headphone amp somewhere that was doing similar they were meant to send a replacement but it hasn't arrived, you gotta love our far east friends - it could still be in the post somewhere, if not I can console myself with some of their sweet n sour pork Cantonese, but that aside I might as well have a look at the port on the knackered one I have and see if I can do anything about it. Keep it up, your still one of the most wholesome British 'entertainers' on UA-cam. Thanks, Stefan, Jersey, Channel Islands
I once bought a mystery electronics box. It was full of early 1980s cordless phones with the long telescope antennas. None of them worked
Is your name Del Boy Trotter?
He didn’t even stop to wipe the blood away. That’s commitment. Everyones Gotta give a ‘Like’ to this one. The man bled to bring you premium content for f*cks sake! 😂 Yet another great video, Steve
A real tech would have quaterised with the iron....
Those Artfones are basically designed for the elderly who just need something to call and send texts, with big buttons, and sometimes have an SOS button (calls and texts people on a certain white list) and torch button on the sides. My nan who passed very recently (at the time of writing) used to have one. They're definitely handy.
Ohhh I like the sound of this! Going to watch it later, trying to finish off a video to publish, this can be like my relaxing dessert while it uploads :D
I am halfway through my amazon returns video, started filming in November! I messed up the whole 'profit' part of it as half of the stuff I gave to family as Xmas presents haha.
Thanks for putting up videos like this one, Steve! It's so satisfying to see you putting things to work properly again, and you do it with great ease! Keep up the great work!
When I write stuff in spreadsheets like this I like to add the cost of acquiring the item (plus if there was shipping involved in per item breakdown), add a column where I write the parts that were needed for the repair and calculate the profit by substracting the costs from the final actual selling price. I'm doing this as a hobby too but it involves a lot of number-pushing in a spreadsheet, I like to see if I'm getting any money back from wasting my time with all these junk rescuing.
Those boxes are mostly just returned stuff, eh. Vince too. Great video though, thanks!!
Yeah, it's odd because most of it (over 75%) is absolutely fine and could easily be resold. I guess it's just not worth their time to go through it all and sort out what works and what doesn't!
I bought an earbud from Amazon, different brand, but similar in price to this HyperX and after a few months of use the left side stopped working, exactly like this one. No sound, but touch controls were working fine. Right side was working perfectly. I tried to factory reset according to the user manual and it didn't work. Because it was still under warranty I contacted Amazon through their customer service channel and they provided me a different factory reset procedure. According to them, there were two versions of the same product but with different settings. I tried the alternative solution and It worked like a charm. It has been 3 years now and it still works fine.
Some things do get returned just so people can get discounts at the store they return it to. Kohls for example gave us 10% off in store for bringing an Amazon return to them
What do they want Amazon returns?
@@mattsephton idk some kinda deal with Amazon where they take returns for them I guess
The reason the digital display looked so strange through your camera is because of the difference in refresh rate between your camera and the display. Your camera refresh rate is whatever frame rate you're running, 30fps/60fps usually, but the display on the wireless earbuds will be different. The different refresh rates means you're capturing the display screen in different states of refreshing which is why sometimes you don't see it illuminated. If you switch your camera settings to auto and increase/decrease your shutter speed you can usually match the speeds so you can see the display better, although this usually lets in a lot of light so it will be whitewashed too! Great video by the way. You're my new binge channel 😂
I do something similar to you but with sewing machines. one came in the other day it cost £1800 4 years ago and even the manufacturer was extremely unhelpful and claimed they could not get the part. In the end the part cost 94pence to fix it. Love your channel your and witty humour.
Hi Steve, That copper sheet inside the DAB radio looked more like screening than an antenna. Some radio devices use headphones or cables plugged into them for antennas. I can't say that for sure in this case, but as that copper sheet was sandwiched between the radio pcb and battery, it wasn't in a good spot for an antenna.
I have stumbled here for no reason other than one of your videos appeared on my feed. My goodness, brilliant! Love the songs and love the tinkering. Subscribed good sir.
I did the same
I have that Sony BT Speaker. I got it for few euros from my mobile service provider as gift card. I'm glad I selected it. I've been really happy at work with it. Quite nice audio quality and battery last for like 5h on almost maxed volume. Good to know that it's port is pain to replace if it comes up someday.
Now see, I think deliberately melting plastic shouldn't count - it was a legitimate action during a repair... I think I speak for the entire internet when I say you can put it back. Right? Like this comment if you agree. (farming likes on a YT video... how distasteful.).
Anyway thanks for the bumper episode, next I think you should visit your local waste disposal site and procure some broken toasters.... 😂
I didn't realise how strongly people felt about the melted-plastic counter! Let's see if the rest of the internet agree, and I'll roll it back! 😂
...and I've already placed toasters on my list of "never, ever, ever am I going to attempt to fix" things. It's right behind printer and coffee machine... 🤣🤣
@@StezStixFix I'm with not counting deliberately melted plastic.
Toasters? Those were my specialities to fix when I was a kid. But that was back in the day when they were purely electromechanical! I have two coffee machines, one filter, one bean to cup, which I need to fix, but I haven't psyched myself up enough to start tacking them yet. My kitchen table is currently full with amateur radio stuff.
@@StezStixFix Dude, I was like "what did you melt? Have I missed something" That deliberately melt does not count man. Put your counter back on track. This counter is only for stupid mistakes, allright?!
@@StezStixFix Nah, that deliberate melting shouldn't count! :)
I came to the comments section looking for something along the lines of this comment, not disappointed :D
Also, there are a few other later other comments stating the same. Plastic rivets are the devil, they don't count!
Very nice bit of soldering I do appreciate the quality.
That was a great episode. I’m going to have to attempt a repair of my jammed bug a salt gun. I’m dreading parts flying everywhere when I unscrew it. I need some of your confidence 👍🏴🇬🇧
What a strange channel. Love it. Random rubbish electronics that don't deserve to be fixed get expertly unf*cked and rapping. Very approved!
Presume for that earbud you just need to find and initiate their pairing procedure sequence or the reset to factory settings procedure. Try these methods before open bluetooth earbuds. Thank you for sharing here your work, skills and servicing electronics hobby!
The No-keea box fix was really impressive, never imagined the connector was the problem. Good one, steve.
HMD Global is using Nokia's brand name to rebrand chinsy shoite. The quality of a brand like Nokia, down the drain.
Steve, we have the same luck. Everytime I work on anything I always end up cutting one of my fingers. I will be 30 minutes into a project and I have to stop and get a Band-Aid. Anyways keep up the awesome videos!
Your solder skills are second to none. Amazing stuff.
I'm very impressed with your micro-soldering skills, especially with that 12-pin port!
Your humour is what keeps me watching your videos.
Nice job on finding the short on the HDMI port. :O
That was brilliant Ste. Forget the 25%. Go for 50% resell ! Everything will be snapped up and you've made a tidy profit. Maybe an idea to do this kind of Amazon thing once a month? Really good for the variety.
Looking forward to seeing the TV brackets assembled. Hahahah
"You've made a tidy profit" Excluded hours spent on fixing it.
He could have earned 137.17GBP (£) in 4-7 hours working a job in retail that doesn't require forward investment (£34-19.5/h this is why the repair industry is dying).
Second hand job I would quote £40-£70 per started hour due to equipment cost, my brother that work with certified electrical engineers they quote $100-$175 per started hour.
it's a £1 job material wise, if you know the issue it's a 1-2 minute fix with a £260k re-flow station and a 5 axis soldering robot.
if you pay somebody it would cost between £40-£70 to be worth it for this ONE speaker, if you pay them by industry standards it would be at least $200 to fix it.
over all getting "£200 potential retail value out of £849 new value" sounds about right (if you ignore fixing time and hourly rate)
And then you either have to ignore customer complains that can tarnish your reseller reputation or pay somebody to manage that... for money
It's not remotely a "tidy profit".
29 items x £3 delivery = £87
Business seller Ebay fees on £208 (10.9%) = £22.67
Price paid for stock = £66
Total cost of business = £175.67
Assuming everything sells (It won't) and assuming you get no returns or scammers, you have earned a total of £33 for what I can only assume is at least 20-30 hours of work (Cleaning, picture, listing, packaging, replying).
Even if the lot sold at 50% of RRP (£416) you're looking at £209 profit - or less than the minimum wage....assuming you sell everything and have no problems.
The vast majority of this stock is worthless and won't even sell for 10%, never mind 25%. There's a reason the Ebay seller sold it as a job lot - they know their job.
Buyer always pays delivery@@Jaymiecain1
I love your soundtrack. 80s synth vibe. You're very good at what you do and your vids are satisfying
Love the new camera angles!❤also loved your „studio“ tour as you called it!😊
Said it before but it never ceases to amaze me how hamfisted some people are. I have literally never broken a USB port but some people seem incapable of understanding one way connectors.
Nice fixes Ste - I might try and have a go at this stuff myself except for two reasons. 1) You need to factor in your time, I doubt you made money after the repair costs are taken out and b) I have no idea how to get a box of returns from Amazon.
11:26 Can't see any Jeffs... Bridges 🤣
i would have already given it the MC by now.
Where can you buy a box like this from?
I want to ask how you get one of this. Can you add a link or something?
Third item is a magic eye for allowing remote access to a SKY Plus box from a second tv from the RF out! You need to turn on the voltage using the engineer code in services on the Sky box. They're about 35 quid in the shops.
Hey Steve!! Love the videos man! You have a knack for keeping us entertained while we watch you go about doing your thing. I actually learned a lot from your videos and hope to keep learning. I live in the States and my "favorite color is blue... no, yelloAAAHHHH!!!!"
I’m glad I discovered your channel most entertaining repair guy on UA-cam I’ve seen so far, realising that you was singing with your patreon members along with the items in your video is very creative and fun made me laugh.
Also where do you buy these returns from as I’ve been wanting to do something similar (selling what works)
Fyi, for the future. The light looks like it's flickering due to camera shutter speed. You can see it on most lighting sources through a lens, like flourecent tubs and such. If it's affecting the video, you can try fiddling around with the exposure settings, setting the right "wave length" with the shutter speed and compensate with the aperture and Iso. I'm sure there's some available charts to use.
iv tried repairing things screwed most things up , you make it look so easy
Nice collection of fixes I like them. I wish I could find a DAB radio like that but digital radio never took off in the US.
That android TV box is pretty cool Could see hooking one to my TV and putting some streaming TV apps on it.
the alternating LEDs on the ear buds is how those things are drawn usually with a common Vcc or GND and then pulses each segment very quickly This way you can control many LEDs "at once" without a ton of current on the common pin.
I always write the same thing on these „can I make a profit?“-videos: What pound-number do you enter in the equation for the time you spent on it? And I mean ALL the time, including the selling hustle… but fun video and for you part of the profit obviously comes from the fun of making a good video about it 👍😊
U can open the hyper x earbuds from the speaker side that goes into your ear.. or u can contact hyper x support and they will send you a new 1
Amazing work. You should get a grant from the Dept for the Environment.
Just become a new subscriber. I absolutely love these kind of videos because I love repairing things too. Great video…Brilliant. 👍
Seeing these comments is like trying to understand a foreign language to the layperson mind boggling very stressful if you can't understand ah well everyone is good at something i found this guys calm approach very therapeutic cos im a stress head he made it all look very easy but it really isn't you know your stuff m8 great to watch
Definitely upped the production quality since I last watched, not that it was bad just a noticeable bump up. Kudos❤
I salute you........I wish I had half your technical knowledge and patience
I would revisit those earbuds. It is almost certainly just one or both of the driver wires detached. If you warm up that small pcb, it would probably all come out in one piece. Looked like it was just glued in along with one plastic melted pin.
At 27:20 when he says it's all one piece of plastic you can see a mold line around the tip where the driver is. It would have to split there. Gotta remember it has a battery and a driver in it too. The pcb he shows is probably just the charging circuit, which needs to pop up from the housing and slide out the top
That pcb is all the circuitry in there. You can see the antenna trace on the pcb. I would bet the tiny battery is soldered to the other side of the pcb, leaving just the driver in the head.
that j tip is better for smaller component work. for something as large as hdmi legs maybe switch to a k tip or something slightly bigger than that j tip so that it transfers more heat faster. love your videos btw!
Hi Steve! This was the first video I watched and the synth music and the Jeff Bridges joke got me to subscribe. What's the synth music you use on this video?.. did you compose it. Is there a longer version. If so you should put it on a second channel dedicated to music 🎉👏🏼 I would subscribe to that!!
Excellent I love the customer returns idea, really enjoyed it thanks Steve 😊
Those solders on the port legs were S tier beautiful.
I really like this style of video! I hope you do more like it. I've been watching your videos for quite a while, I am also an amateur fixer ;) and I have learned quite a few tricks from you.
Great content,beautifully presented.
Made me smile throughout.
LOL. He showed the fume extractor. WOOT!
just came across this video in my recommendations, not sure why as it not my normal type of video, but I really enjoyed it and subscribed. thanks for the video
I purchased one of the tough built scraper utility knifes from howdens a few weeks back and it's brilliant but the only draw back is that its not compatible with normal Stanley blades.
You need to decorate that fume extractor as Kirby! It has such Kirby-vibes! 🙂
Bravo Steve! You even spilled blood to try to get into those cursed earbuds. Hats off, and plasters on, to you 👍😀
PS ... did you try offering some power to that watch from your bench supply to see if it is worth getting a charger?
You make my Saturdays with your videos.......
This is great, something different! Now we need to see if you actually did sell the on eBay though!
There are videos showing how to make broken ear buds into bt speakers. Could be a fun project to do for a video with the pair that are unfixable. Nice job and glad you are able to make your money back.
I just randomly found your channel and have to say I love it!
I so want to buy one of those boxes just for the mystery of them lol.
I think that's what makes these exciting! It's boring knowing what you're gonna get! 😂
So you have an eBay page Steve?
18:58 That is for power saving. Its fast enough that human persistence of vision shows a solid digit but the camera captures faster so it can see the segments cycling on and off
Or probably the indicator controller is lazy enough for the camera but not for the human eye.
@@sonickrndboth the camera rolling shutter and led have intermittent black times that were very close. A slower shutter speed would fix it
Those Item 2 earbuds look just like the £10 Poundland‘s I’ve been using with Sennheiser Momentum silicone tips that improve the sound/bass/fit incredibly well.
Really enjoyed this type of video and seeing more of your workshop, keep up the great work 👊🏼
How can someone be so technically competent and such a natural comedian when I fail to be either. It's not really on. Subbed to keep an eye on things.
I love the shot with the lone fumes extractor and the background music🎉
For those hard to melt ground pins you need a bigger tip, so the heat transfers better. Love your videos.
Where would one get one of these returns boxes in the UK? I found place online, but they have a £250 minimum spend, so assuming you didnt get it from there.
Desoldering and resoldering that port without damaging it, that took skill. Tip o' the hat to you, sir!!
Pretty sweet fix average there, Steve - good work ;) So tough you didn't even stop to put a band aid on that jag you scored while trying to open those cheap ear buds! good luck with the resale - recon you could get more than 1/4 value for some of those items.
Steve. On you spreadsheet use =subtotal rather than sum so when you filter it only sums the visible rows. Top content.
Steve will stop the world and melt with you.
Loved this video, you done well with the repairs there, not surprised the earphones were a fail, like you say they aren't built to be repaired, built to be binned if they break.
Great channel discovered it on my night shift, subbed!!
I like these job lot fixes, more like this please Steve
I don't think the "Days Since Melted Plastic" counter needed to be reset because a) you did it itentionally and b) you didn't have a choice. So it wasn't an accident.
I'm enjoying your videos. It's great to see hardware brought back to life instead of ending up in the bin. I can't fault you for not being able to fix one set of earbuds. They are so small and not packaged for repair, there's not much you can do with them.
You know, from a content point of view at least I think this is a really creative interesting direction to go. Just forever repair amazon? return boxes :-)
The F9 earbuds sound great. I've been using them for a couple of years. Best of the cheap no name ones I've found.
Just a heads up Steve, if you had heated up that blade a lot more when trying to open the ear buds, it would have been serialized when you stuck it in your finger.😊
Serialized -> sterilized? Autocorrect? 😉😁
Dude I love this kind of grab bag video. I’d even help fund them so you do moar 😂
“Dave Angle” 🤣🤣🤣
Dave is such a good helper.