Chromobeat

Hello there,

I am a 14 yo kid that just has bought his "Fix the World" bundle. I am looking to buy an soldering iron, SMD rework station, and and consumables (Flux, Solder, wick, etc.) to start my own repair business. I go to a really expensive school where everyone has an iPhone and replaces it if the screen breaks, so I thought that that gives me a good standing point.

I was able to replace an iPhone 6 battery and screen for 60 bucks and still make a good 10$ out of it, and this was all done because of your guides and awesome toolkit.

I collected money from the whole year to buy my tools, and I am ordering all of the stuff I need in this week tops. Thanks for your tools, and comprehensive guides.

So, my 2 questions:

Is there any potential to lower the prices of your items and shipping? The shipping cost me close to 20 dollars since I live in Greece, and that would have really screwed me over if you didn't have that "No shipping over 80$" promo.

If you are still repairing, or frequently talk to people that do, how do you find schematics and board views for your repairs?

Thanks a lot for the giant help you have been giving us over the lifetime of iFixit!

Edit: Thanks a lot to u/kwiens for offering me a Repair Business Toolkit, and all the people offering me the massive heaps of help! Always loved the repair community, everybody supports everyone, no matter the problem!

This comment also marked my 1000th comment karma point! Never expected that, but thanks a lot!

Oh my, thank you very much! I'll PM you as soon as I finish writing this! Thank you a lot for the link to the business advice, but I am too young to even start considering opening up a business, I just do this as a hobby. I'd love it, but I am more of a "Actually Design the PCBs" kind of guy, so EEE for me in Uni.

As I said, I am looking to start microsoldering, to get my hands and mind trained, and as a hobby for myself. I like to think that we are kind of the "Sherlock Holmes of Repair", because repair problems have many roots, such as no backlight on a macbook air, or even a lock button not working on an iPhone 4S, and it is up to us to find out what has happened and how to fix it.

I have started a campaign advertising the whole thing apple has done with their devices and offering battery replacements with 20EUR insted of the 30 apple charges. Looking to get a lot of iPhones in, I want to train myself.

About schematics, from my whole tinkering hobby I have learnt to google correctly, and this has not been much of a hassle for most iPhones and iPads. The hard stuff for me at least are the MacBooks and most iPod variations (The iPod Nano for example).

I have been looking at the "Right to Repair" movement for a while now, but I believe that because of the big companies wanting to keep product repairs (and their profits) to themselves, there will not be much happening. Our only hope is the EU, because usually if there isn't much controversy they will try to act to be the good guys at least once.

But do not forget, if this becomes reality in one country, this means the whole world, since I can send a text file (this comment) from my desk (Athens) to you (California) in less than a minute.

Thanks for the comment, as always!

Wel, Greece essentially kills any Economic growth.

Because my parents own a business, we know what owning a business means.

Just to have the right of opening a business, you will need to pay up the govt. 700 damn Euros A MONTH. Not looking to get into debt, I'm not even 15 yet!

But in any country that has a basic respect for its citizent, I would consider that in 2-3 years time.

Don't forget, I still have heaps of homework each day!

That's what I already do ;)

I'd love to be a regular, registered business, doing this full-time, but school is life until 2022 for me :D

I'm not your pal, dude