Has anyone taken the City & Guilds (6958-01)/ Level 2/3 course?

I would like to take the Level 2 Progression Award in Electrical and Electronics
Servicing – Consumer/ Commercial Electronics (6958-01) in September and was wondering if anyone out there has completed the course or if there is a tutor on this forum that could give some advise.

I would like to know how much practical work is involved, would you be able to repair TV's etc.. at the end of the course?

What projects are involved in the course/
Would there be any Electronic projects I could purchase to get ahead of the game- (i.e breadboards IC's etc..)

Being a total novice to Electronics I would like to have some knowledge before commencing.

Any information would be appreciated

Thanks
Steve
Staffordshire, UK

I have done that C & G course. The certificate is valid all over the world. To attend to a job it is valid, or to migrate to another country it is valid. But no more practical experience I have gained from it. I got some few electronic knowledge from that course.

I learned much more about electronics not from courses. It’s from what I did at home.
Making circuits, Measuring, burning etc…..

For my practical exams these were involved
Biasing a transistor, simple opamp-measuring the gain etc…oscilloscope practice…reading resistor values …some times 555 calculation’s.

All the circuits done in the breadboards. No soldering practice. for the computer project there was some small access database. It’s very easy.

I would like to know how much practical work is involved, would you be able to repair TV's etc.. at the end of the course?

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Don’t even think about it. If you want to repair TV’s better go for a TV repair course. Nothing teached about TV’s.

The course was all the time with transistor biasing, Some small op amp calculation’s & some small digital gate circuits. In electrical subject - types of Motors, AC line calculation’s etc.

C & G course 400 US$-no experience in practical but valid all over the world.
TV course 60 US$-all the time with practical.

I partly did C&G 244 (I think that was the number?) ETV (Electronics and Television), the older course was RTV (Radio and Television). Did it on day release from work, but there was really very little practical work, and what there was didn't really apply in the real world. The people setting the practical tests had obviously never actually repaired TV's, so didn't set any 'real' faults - instead they did stupid things like resistors going S/C, which is so rare as to be not worth mentioning!.

Thanks for your replies Gayan and Nigel.

I have tried to find a course in the UK that just concentrates on repairs and doesn't get into too much theroy, however there doesn't appear to be any 3-5 day courses available in the UK only this online course.

**broken link removed**

The only course I know is in Malaysia run by a person who I speak to regularly called Jestine Yong who runs some great courses however doesn't have any collegues in the UK unfortunatly.

http://www.noahtec.com/workshop.htm

I think I will stick to doing the C&C course because with this qualification it would be recognised all over- (ref Gayan) and learn how to do some practical skills some other way

Nigel Goodwin said:

I partly did C&G 244 (I think that was the number?) ETV (Electronics and Television), the older course was RTV (Radio and Television). Did it on day release from work, but there was really very little practical work, and what there was didn't really apply in the real world. The people setting the practical tests had obviously never actually repaired TV's, so didn't set any 'real' faults - instead they did stupid things like resistors going S/C, which is so rare as to be not worth mentioning!.

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Nigel, the course you are reffering to is City & Guilds 224, which I also did (Parts I, II and III). I found the third part very useful, it was a two year course on Digital Electronics and Microprocessors. I think the main reason it was such a useful course was because the lecturer I had was an EXTREMELY knowledgable and enthusiastic man, so his classes were very good and I learnt a lot. It was after that I got into the 6502 processor (and later the Z80, then the motorola 68000 and these days PICs)

Brian

ThermalRunaway said:

Nigel, the course you are reffering to is City & Guilds 224, which I also did (Parts I, II and III). I found the third part very useful, it was a two year course on Digital Electronics and Microprocessors. I think the main reason it was such a useful course was because the lecturer I had was an EXTREMELY knowledgable and enthusiastic man, so his classes were very good and I learnt a lot. It was after that I got into the 6502 processor (and later the Z80, then the motorola 68000 and these days PICs)

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Thanks, I was close!

When I did it, it was a four year day release course - no microprocessors, it was before they were invented. We did once do a 'computer lesson', using a Teletype connected via 110 baud modem to the Open University Computer. There was also a computer at the college, it was valve based if I remember correctly?, and had a room of it's own - but I never saw it running - we were just shown it through the door.

The part III was seperate from the television course altogether. Parts I and II (The TV part) were three years in total if I remember.

I also did the progression award that the others on here are talking about!

Brian

ThermalRunaway said:

The part III was seperate from the television course altogether. Parts I and II (The TV part) were three years in total if I remember.

I also did the progression award that the others on here are talking about!

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I skipped the first year (because I already had Physics O Level), and did years two and three, skipped the fourth year and moved to T3 (a technicians course) based on my exam results in ETV3 (Distinction grade 1), as a number of us did.

I did T3 for a while, but found I was learning nothing more there than I did in ETV2/3 - so dropped out of college, and saved wasting a day of my life every week!

Hey Steve, i'm currently studyin the level 2 course at Bournville college in birmingham, its a good course to do, u will have to do the level 2 course before u can do the level 3, i would recomend this course to any whos looking into servicin and repairs within Electronics, it is hard but there r a fewgood website that will helpo alot, the main 1 i found very useful it the Electronics Club, if u google it and just have a general look around it will show u wot sort of stuff that the course will cover, i got alot of my notes off there,