The answer depends on your skill level, access to tools, parts, etc. and understanding of the work required.
Working on your own equipment can be very rewarding and can save money and enhance the ownership experience. For some, basic maintenance may be quite straightforward and yet for others, the results can be disastrous, so as always, pick your battles!
Know What You Are Doing!
There’s a simple truth that I believe applies to all situations like this and is eloquently expressed by one of my favourite YouTubers:
If you know what you are are doing, you have a tendancy to KNOW that you know what you are doing!
Ed Ting
If you know that you know what you are doing, excellent. Be aware though that most owners do not know what they are doing and most dangerous of all, don’t know that they don’t know.
Skills
Working on electronics requires very specific knowledge, skills and tools that the average person simply won’t possess. The particular skill sets needed to do a job well take years to acquire. Desoldering, for example, is done poorly by most technicians, let alone first-timers. Bad re-work can quickly destroy a piece of equipment.
Tougher jobs, requiring access to mission-critical information, experience, tools and techniques can slow you down, increase the risk of inflicting damage and place you at the mercy of the forums and armchair experts. This is where things can really go wrong and one piece of bad advice can turn things upside down.
Horses for Courses
It’s sensible to get the best and most experienced person to do a job. This guarantees the best result, assuming you go to someone good, and it frees you up to earn money doing what you are good at. We all want to save money, yet paradoxically, attempting highly specialised work like electronics repair can often end up costing a lot more money in the long run.
