Susan Brown

[Susan Brown]

“Flat rate” is different from an hourly charge. The rate is for a particular repair task. For example, you need to replace a Jazz board on an Amana refrigerator. There would be a set price for doing that repair. It would not be calculated based on the actual time it took for you to do the repair.

There are various ways to implement a Flat-rate system.

We use the online Blue Book. http://www.appliancebluebook.com/

We also live in a semi-rural area, and we account for the variability of drive time by programming the Blue Book with add-on fees for different towns. So, after our diagnosis, we plug in the various aspects of the job (town the customer is in, make/model of the appliance, part number(s) needed for the repair, any extra tasks such as a second man required) and the total rate for the repair is calculated for us so we can present it to the customer and get their decision.

We’ve seen other service companies who develop their own flat-rate system. For example, having a one-page laminated sheet that shows various categories of repairs and what the flat-rate labor price would be for each. That takes a certain amount of experience to develop, however, because you have to know how to cover all of your fixed and variable costs of doing the repair.

That’s why we just pay for a service that does all of those calculations for us. Occasionally we think the Blue Book quote is either too high or too low, based on our experience, and we’ll make an adjustment, but most of the time, we agree with it. It’s at least a reliable starting point for a new business.

[Susan Brown]

There are two different answers that involve the heater – which one did you choose?

This is a question where you need to look at both the timing chart and the schematic to confirm the answer.

[Susan Brown]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for letting us know your concerns.

As we were developing Fundamentals, I basically went through and took the course myself, so I understand how you feel! I have a bit of a technical background, but it did not include schematic reading, etc., and I completely know what you mean by feeling overwhelmed when first looking at a schematic.

To me, learning to read schematics is a lot like learning to read music. You can see someone present music theory, the names and quality of the notes on the staff, etc., and it makes sense while they are explaining it, but the sheet of music still looks like gibberish to you. Then you slowly start figuring out the music one note at a time. You gradually gain competence until one day you realize that you can look at a sheet of music and read it as well as you can words on a page. But the initial part of the learning curve is pretty steep.

The Fundamentals course gives you the raw material you need to become adept at reading schematics, but it definitely takes practice to gain proficiency. That’s a lot why we developed the Advanced Schematics course, to give students more in-depth instruction as well as the opportunity to practice more.

That being said, Team Samurai is now brainstorming about what we can offer to you and any other Fundamentals students who might feel the same way to help you in the meantime! Maybe a webinar, for example. Stay tuned!

Also – in terms of Voltage measurements, drops, etc. – do you listen to our podcast? There have been a few episodes where Scott talks about voltage measurements in various ways. Hearing him talk about it might be helpful to you. https://mastersamuraitech.com/category/mst-podcast/

[Susan Brown]

We didn’t read Figure 7-19 the way you did, but agree overall that it confuses things a bit by labeling neg and pos ends. The complication/confusion mainly stems from the actual vs. conventional current flow issue. We changed the writeup a little bit in this unit, as well as quiz questions 6 and 7, to (hopefully!) avoid confusion.

[Susan Brown]

Yep, every year that goes by, more and more people are “googling” rather than looking in phone books or other print media. It’s very important to have a good online presence, including a mobile-friendly website, since more and more people are searching using devices. It doesn’t have to be a complicated site – just make it easy for them to call you!

Google AdWords can be very effective, too.

[Susan Brown]

Hi Igor and Mark,

Very sorry for the delay in answering this post! We’ve just realized there is an occasional glitch in our software that sometimes prevents us being notified of a post – we are gonna get that fixed!

We do have a section in Mod 4 Unit 4 of the course on legal structures with info on the most commonly used one for small businesses, the LLC.

At this point we do not include any detailed info on growing a business to include multiple techs. That is a topic we are planning to address eventually, but our focus at the moment is developing more technical courses.

A current resource that I can think of if you have immediate questions about growing your business would be connecting with other business owners in the Tech forums at Appliantology.

Thanks for the question!

[Susan Brown]

Hi Igor,

Basically what we are saying is if you are a self-employed professional tech, are any of the items in that list things that shouldn’t be factored into your pricing so that you are compensated for them?

(And I’ve unblocked you.)

[Susan Brown]

Hi Walter,

I just wanted to chime in and say that we cover the type of questions you’re asking here – current, voltage, voltage drop, various types of circuits, electrical measurements, etc. – very thoroughly in the Basic Electricity Boot Camp (including a discussion on how “the path of least resistance” is an errant way of thinking when dealing with electrical circuits!).

The BEBC lays a firm foundation for folks to then be able to get the most out of the Advanced Schematics course. We’ve found that techs without a clear understanding of basic electricity can have difficulty really getting their troubleshooting skills where they want them, even if they take Advanced Schematics. Click here to see the topics covered.

Just wanted to throw that out there in case you were interested in taking the BEBC! If you are, I can message you privately to discuss it further. Lemme know!

🙂

[Susan Brown]

Hi Matt!

You can get help with this question over at our tech support site, Appliantology. We keep these Student Forums focused on questions specifically relating to the course material.

I can’t remember if you have a professional membership over there or not (if not, read here about our special offer for STA students!). That would give you access to tech-only forums, downloads, etc. It’s the perfect resource for asking tech questions. You can post in the Kitchen Forum without having a tech membership, however.

See you over at Appliantology!

[Susan Brown]

The answer to question 3 is figured out by studying the schematic and seeing which inputs (sensors) are connected to which boards.

I want to avoid giving out quiz answers on the forum, but I’ll just emphasize that to answer 9 and 10, you need to look at the schematic and the board pin-out diagram.

[Susan Brown]

Ah – that’s just a rounding difference!

1/30 is actually 0.033333….

If you happen to use a calculator that stores the values as you go along (rather than using the rounded-off 0.03), then you get 18.75.

FYI – in practical terms, for appliance repair, there’s no significant difference between 18.75 ohms and 20 ohms.

[Susan Brown]

Hi Brandon,

I’m glad you’re enjoying the course so far!

There’s another Forum question where I stepped through calculating equivalent resistance. The resistance numbers were different, but see if this helps:
https://my.mastersamuraitech.com/appliance-repair-course-support/student-forums/topic/equivalent-resistance/

Also, the most important thing to remember is the basic rule of thumb: the equivalent resistance in a parallel circuit will be something less than the smallest resistance.

Let me know if you’re able to get the correct answer!

[Susan Brown]

As you discovered, your exam was graded shortly after you posted this! (Congratulations!)

It can take anywhere from 1 to 3 days, usually, for an exam to get graded. It happens to be our busy season right now, so sometimes it might take a little longer.

Thanks, and great job on Fundamentals!

We’ll be sending out your certificate soon.

[Susan Brown]

It may not be stated outright, but hopefully you can figure it out based on what you know so far. DC has polarity (+ or -), because it moves in one direction. AC is constantly switching directions. Can you see why measuring DC voltage will result in a positive or negative reading, depending on where you put your leads, whereas measuring AC will not? (It will just be a number with no + or – sign.)

Does that help you figure out the answer?

[Susan Brown]

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for asking questions!

First question – Sometimes it will be as easy as reading the label on a motor, but the main way that you’ll know what type of power a particular component is getting is when you do a load analysis using the schematic diagram for the appliance. You will be learning how to do this as you continue to go through Fundamentals, so be on the lookout for it!

As for your second question, appliance techs never need to measure DC current, that’s why we had this message above the video: “Here’s a quick video showing the use of a digital multi-meter, to help clarify the reading. The amp reading he does at the end is not something you’ll ever need to do so you can stop watching at about 3:30 into the video – I’ll show you in another video how to use a clamp-on ammeter (a picture of which is on page 95 of the Kleinert text).”

However, if you are asking just to try to understand the difference, it is because DC current moves in one direction only, so in order to read it, the meter has to physically be in the circuit. AC current, on the other hand, is constantly changing direction which creates a moving magnetic field that the clamp-on meter can read. Hopefully, you’ll be able to have a better feel for this after you have learned about transformers and motors, later in the course.

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