Component-level board repair
Tracking down and replacing the one failed part on a logic, control or audio board — a cracked resistor, a dead driver, a failed op-amp — instead of the whole board.
// logic, control, audio repaired
Home/Electronics Repairs
RETRO · ROBOTICS · CUSTOM
Repairs, revival and custom builds
Repairs aren't our whole business — designing and building bespoke electronics is. But the same bench does both, so we happily bring back the gear we know best: retro and vintage kit, DJ decks and mixers (Pioneer and Technics especially), robotics, and one-off custom devices — all at board and component level. And when a repair genuinely isn't worth it, we'll often just build you a better one instead.
Retro & vintage — our favourite
Bringing old gear the world gave up on back to working life is the job we enjoy most.
DJ kit is a specialism
Pioneer CDJs and DJM mixers, Technics turntables — the gear that gets gigged hard.
Robotics & custom devices
Robots, motion and bespoke one-offs — repaired, upgraded, or rebuilt better.
Down to the component
We find and replace the one part that failed, rather than swap the whole board — the engineering a swap-shop can't offer.
We'll take on desktops and some laptop work too — but phones and tablets we leave to the high street, where you'll beat any price we could offer.
WHAT WE TAKE ON
The work we love
Board- and component-level work — retro, audio, robotics and custom — so one failed part doesn't mean the whole unit in the bin.
Fault-finding beyond the swap-out
Plenty of repairs stop at "replace the mainboard". We go further: reading the schematic, tracing the signal and finding the one component that actually failed. Where there's no schematic, we work it out from the board itself.
- Signal tracing with a bench scope and logic analyser
- Microscope and hot-air rework for fine surface-mount work
- Careful, current-limited bring-up and testing on the bench
- A plain-English write-up: what failed, why, and what we changed
Retro & vintage electronics
Old audio, computers, synths and test gear — brought back to working life.
DJ & audio kit
Pioneer and Technics decks and mixers — faders, jog wheels, motors and more.
Robotics & motion
Robots, arms, motion control and the electronics that drive them.
Hobby & maker gear
3D-printer boards, Arduino and Pi projects, synths, drones and one-offs.
Custom & one-off devices
Bespoke kit we or others built — fixed, upgraded, or remade better.
Our own products
Anything Red Queen designs and builds — we repair what we make, for as long as you run it.
WHAT WE'RE KNOWN FOR
Old gear revived, and DJ kit back in the mix
Two things bring people to us again and again: hardware everyone else gave up on, and the decks and mixers that take a real beating.
Old hardware, working again
Age isn't a write-off. We recap tired boards, replace parts that haven't been made in decades with modern equivalents, rebuild worn connectors and — where the original chip is long gone — work out what it did and drop in something that behaves the same. The goal is simple: it switches on and works like it did, and keeps working.
- Recapping and board-level refurb on ageing kit
- Modern replacements for obsolete, unobtainable parts
- New interfaces and control so old machines fit today's setup
- Vintage audio, test gear, synths and more
DJ & studio kit — Pioneer and Technics
Our founder has spent fifteen years as a working DJ and is an expert Pioneer and Technics repairer, so this is home turf. Decks and mixers live a hard life — spilt drinks, road cases, thousands of hours under the fingers: Pioneer CDJs and DJM mixers, and Technics SL-1200 / 1210 turntables. Scratchy faders and crossfaders, dead jog wheels, worn pitch faders, sticky buttons and pots, tonearm and motor issues — the faults that stop a set, sorted properly.
- Pioneer CDJ & DJM — jog wheels, faders, screens, buttons
- Technics SL-1200 / 1210 — pitch faders, tonearms, motors, recaps
- Crossfaders, pots and switches cleaned or replaced
- Full service so the kit is gig-ready, not just limping on
How a repair works
01
Send it in or bring it
Drop it to us near Aztec West or post it over with a note on the fault and how it happened. The more you can tell us, the faster we find it.
02
Diagnose & quote
We power it up safely, find the actual fault and tell you what it'll cost — and whether it's worth doing — before any work starts.
03
Repair
Component-level work at the bench: rework, replacement parts, connector and trace repair, firmware where it's needed.
04
Test
We put it back on the bench and prove it works — under load and over time, not just a quick switch-on.
05
Return
Back to you working, with a note of what failed and what we did. Kept the same, minus the fault.
COMMON JOBS
The repairs that come across the bench
A cross-section of what we take on. If your fault isn't here, ask — the odd ones are often the ones we most enjoy.
Reflow & rework
Hot-air and reflow work on surface-mount and BGA parts — reseating chips, reballing, and lifting and replacing components without cooking the board.
// SMD + BGA rework
Connector & port repair
Torn USB and HDMI sockets, DC jacks, ribbon connectors and headers — the parts that take the physical abuse and pull the pads with them.
// ports + sockets rebuilt
Robotics & motion
Robots, arms and motion rigs that have stopped behaving — controllers, drivers, sensors and wiring, traced and put right.
// motion + control fixed
Firmware recovery
Bricked updates, corrupted flash and dead bootloaders. Where the board's fine and the software isn't, we reflash, recover or rebuild it.
// flash + bootloader restored
Reverse-engineering a part
When a component is discontinued and there's no replacement, we work out what it did and build a modern equivalent that drops straight in.
// obsolete parts remade
STRAIGHT ANSWERS
Not everything's worth repairing — and we'll say so
Some boards are cheaper to replace than to fix, some faults do too much damage to bring back reliably, and some parts simply can't be sourced any more. When that's the case, we'll tell you plainly rather than run up a bill on a lost cause.
You get an honest diagnosis first and a quote before we touch anything, so you always decide with the full picture in front of you. If we can't fix it, we'll say why — and point you at the sensible next step.
Quote before we start
Apart from the diagnostic, you approve every cost before any work happens.
We'll say when it's not worth it
No repairs done just to make the invoice bigger.
Genuine or equivalent parts
Correct components, matched to spec, not the cheapest close-enough.
Your kit back either way
Fixed or not, you get it back — with an honest write-up.
Fair diagnostics
No fix, no fee — how the diagnostic works
Finding the fault takes real time, so there's a small diagnostic fee — but in almost every case you'll never actually pay it. Here's exactly when it applies.
Can't fix it? No charge.
If it turns out it can't be sensibly repaired, the diagnostic fee is waived — you pay nothing at all.
// fee waived
We fix it? It's included.
Go ahead with the repair and the diagnostic is rolled into the job, not added on top — one price, agreed before we start.
// fee included
Repairable, but you'd rather not?
If we can fix it and you decide not to go ahead, the diagnostic fee applies — it covers the time spent finding the fault.
// fee payable
Collecting your item. Any fee that's due is settled before your item comes home. You have one month from us letting you know it's ready to pay and collect it — after that, uncollected items are disposed of.
Got something that's stopped working?
Send us a photo of the board and a line or two on the fault. We'll tell you whether it's fixable, roughly what it'll take, and whether it's worth doing — before you commit to anything.
Start a project →