What would you do ? Not the TV show!

Went and had a look at it for nearly 2 hours, this is the result:
- machine in pretty good condition,
- plenty of yanked cables and wires, most of them not labelled,
- a huge number of disconnected connectors, not labelled,
- a huge number of detached sensors, wiring connected,
- a huge number of sensors on several pots, no wiring, no labelling,
- 20 to 30 posts with several IR sensors each, disconnected, used as fence around the machine,
- several leaky hydraulic fittings,
- a lot of damage during transport, some bent some crimped and some cut off metal shielded cables,
- no documentation

Send them an invioce for those two hours to get a feel for their attitude to your expertise.

RotarySMP wrote: What would I do? I'm an aircraft engineer, and if someone brought a junk plane to me, and had the attitude that it should be easy to fix, I'd politely decline due to too many commitments, and recommend them to my competition, in the hope that the screw over my competitor

Damn, that is a nice idea !

RotarySMP wrote: Where are you? What is your relationship with the buyers? Do you trust them to pay you weekly, on time, and not dick you around?

I am siting on a big table in my shop !
No relationship. As for trust, i am owed over 45K Euro in the last 20 years, so trust is gone. Last 9 years i am owed only about 6K, the rest i chose to forget. The worst of it was 10 years ago when my father and my brother were ill, i had to borrow 36K in 5 days for my bro, and i paid almost all of it, almost as one who gave me 3k at that time still refuses to take that back, insisting that it was for saving someone so that does not go back. And that is correct, here when we help someone in need, we never expect that back. Non the less, i will continue to insist in paying him back.

RotarySMP wrote: "the other (younger) one wants the machine working and insists it is an easy job !"

That is a warning right there! Unrealistic expectations.

True, it raised all kinds of alarms.

RotarySMP wrote: Do they have the necessary current cash flow to cover your wages + parts for a couple of months?

They should, they also have another line for fence production working, and i am cheap, but not nearly as cheap as some other charlatans that destroyed every machine they put their hands on.
I guestimated around 5 to 7k for time and work only, have not told them yet, i would love to have their faces on camera when i tell them.

RotarySMP wrote: Sounds to me like the buyers are already completely screwed, and you are their only hope. They don't have $350K in value, that junk pile is basically worthless as it stands. Therefore you can set this up as a zero risk prospect for you. As has already been said, you invoice time weekly, and down tools if they don't pay. If you have real concerns about their cash flow, put them on cash up front.

Take no formal responsiblity for the project management, but they have to source any parts necessary that you spec, and if they bauk, you walk.

Yes they are, and yes i am. It is pitiful to say that, but it is the truth. There is another person, a very good friend of mine, who actually knows electronics better than me, but he does not do service at all, and does now work with machines. He is a professor at a faculty in Prishtina. 1.7 Million people, only 2 who know electronics, and some 700 who claim they do but have no efin clue. I tested all of them in the last 20 years! But there are some TV repair shops who know their job, so that is a bonus as that is also electronics.
I never take responsibility for the machines, but still i got coerced into building a big table for a welding robot after i finished the robot and my job was done. Took 9 days for the robot, over 3 months for the table. Got 900 Euro for all of it. Never again. NEVER!!!

RotarySMP wrote: If they play along, and you get this junk pile working for them, there should be a lucrative service contract out of it.

Not happening here, never. I would love to do that, it would make my life much easier. And theirs, too.

RotarySMP wrote: Or you wait, and buy the whole line from the bankrupcy auction for cents on the dollar, and set up you own factory

No such thing here. The old factories from before the war got sold like that here, there are shopping centres in their place now. All got bought for cheap, sold for scrap and made huge profits. Miserable. There was a car parts one with 2200 workers where my dad worked for over 30 years, bicycle factory, industrial led acid batteries, sugar, beer, etc, etc. Roughly 25K families lived from them, sold for scrap.

RotarySMP wrote: Tommy, you are one of the most generous persons with your time and expertise. Please set up a Patreon acount, and let the community start paying you for your help.

I would but my consciousness does not let me. Again, i am a stubborn P.O.Sh.
Thank you very much for the advice and kind words,.... and some very nice videos !

At the moment i am desperate for money, not for work. I invested everything ( as i usually do ) on the machines i have built and decided not to sell them, so i am in a bit of a pickle, but not nearly desperate enough to go that route.

Eh, you mean to say that you have a plasma router for sale?

Aciera wrote:

At the moment i am desperate for money, not for work. I invested everything ( as i usually do ) on the machines i have built and decided not to sell them, so i am in a bit of a pickle, but not nearly desperate enough to go that route.

Eh, you mean to say that you have a plasma router for sale?

No, that is a lie! I have 2 of them for sale!

Aha, I might have a buyer but he is on holiday in greece for another two weeks and we would have to organize transportation to switzerland, if everything else fits of course. He knows a guy who has trucks going from switzerland to serbia with used machinery but I have no idea how easy the border crossing to kosovo is these days given the ongoing tensions and what the export/import formalities would look like.

Anyway let me know if this is of possible interest to you.

Border crossing is no problem at all, cost for us to export to EU is 35 Euro plus transport, that's it!
But Switzerland is not in EU, so i have to check if we have an export contract with them, we should. Hell, we have that with US !
Oh yes, just spoke on the phone with a friend who works for the customs, it is the same for Switzerland.
I am also willing to lower the price by quite a bit.
Thank you very much.