Should manufacturers provide circuit schematics & parts list?


Consumers often use home audio gear for a long time—often longer than the lifespan of the company who made the gear. A lot of threads on the Forum are devoted to trying to repair audio gear and requests for circuit schematics. A lot of these requests are futile and go unfulfilled because the original audio gear manufacturer is no longer in business. 

Should manufacturers adopt the practice of providing circuit schematics and parts list as part of their products’ owner’s manuals? How about upon request from the original owner?

Obviously, some manufacturers might balk at this suggestion if their designs are patented or protected by some trade secret. But I suspect those who do would be a small number and is moot in any event for a defunct company.
128x128celander

Showing 1 response by monoogan

From the service manual for my new oscilloscope -

5 Replacing Assemblies
The service policy for XXXXX Series oscilloscopes is unit replacement, so there are
no instructions for replacing internal assemblies in this service guide.

6 Replaceable Parts
Because the service policy for XXXXX-Series oscilloscopes is unit replacement, no
replaceable parts are available for the XXXXX-Series oscilloscopes.

You'd probably get a lot of that.

I'd like to see the manuals and parts lists available for a reasonable fee. Especially for older pieces.