twstanley, I don't agree that you wandered off track. I think you were dead on. It is often too expensive to pay a high service charge per hour to repair something at the piece part, i.e. component level but it could easily be cost effective for a motivated owner if ONLY the parts were available.

I don't charge me $20-$100 an hour to try to fix something. Even if I have to shotgun or Easter egg something the parts cost (with my free labor) may still be an economial choice over buying new.

I get a lot of personal satisfaction from repairing stuff and that has to be worth something.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]