Tomasetti Tech Repair · Longmont, CO

Ship it in — from anywhere in the U.S.

Component-level repair by mail: same bench, same prices, same tech. Gear ships in here every week from coast to coast — turntables, receivers, laptops, consoles, the odd stuff.

Diagnosis is $49 and free when you approve the repair. Return shipping is included.

Start the mail-in form Jump to the packing guides

How it works

Six steps, no surprises. You always know where your gear is and what happens next.

Start the form.
Fill out the mail-in form and mark it as shipping. It takes two minutes; the more you tell us about the fault, the faster the diagnosis goes.
Get your RMA by email, with the packing guide for your unit.
Your RMA number arrives by email along with the packing guide that matches what you're shipping. The RMA is how we match your box to your ticket the minute it lands, so it's required.
Pack by the guide — box in a box.
Your unit padded in an inner box, that box inside a second box with two inches of cushioning all the way around. This one habit is the difference between gear that arrives fine and gear that arrives in pieces.
Ship it — RMA on the outside, written on two sides.
Big, permanent marker, both sides of the outer box. Insurance on the inbound trip is your call and purchased on your side; most people insure for replacement value.
We email you the day the box lands. Diagnosis follows in 3–5 business days.
When your shipment arrives we open it, check it against the RMA, and send a confirmation email that same day. The full diagnosis takes 3–5 business days from arrival.
Quote by email — approve, we fix, return label included.
You get the flat quote before any work starts. Approve it and we fix it; the return shipping is already covered. Decline it and we ship it back — return shipping still included.

How to pack it

Pick the card that matches your gear. The base move is always the same: box in a box, two inches of padding on every side, nothing loose in the outer box, RMA written on two sides. These guides are the packing standard this shop packs by — and the standard we ask inbound boxes to meet too.

Turntables

belt drive · direct drive · vintage

Lock the tonearm in its rest and tape the clip down. A tonearm loose in transit lands on the cartridge and that's the stylus gone.
Take the platter off if it lifts out (most belt drives do). Wrap it in its own padding and pack it beside the deck, not stacked on it.
Remove the dust cover and wrap it separately. Hinged covers crack at the hinge when they travel attached.
Bag the belt if it's off the platter, and tape the counterweight on the rear of the arm so it can't spin off.

Receivers & amplifiers

stereo receivers · power amps · integrated

Heavy means double-boxed, no exceptions. A 30-pound receiver in one box gets dropped once and the transformer punches through the chassis. Inner box, outer box, padding between.
Guard the feet and the cabinet. Wood veneer and plastic feet crush flat under other boxes; pad the corners and never let the unit rest on its face.
Removable tubes come out. Pull any tube that pulls by hand, wrap each one in bubble (bag first — bubble directly on glass scuffs the printing), label the bag by position, and pack it inside the inner box.
Knobs and switches ride loose in transit: pad the face with a towel or foam so nothing rattles against the front panel.

CD players, streamers & tape decks

transport gear · DACs · cassette and reel

Install the transport screw if your player shipped with one (a marked screw, usually under the unit, that locks the laser mechanism). Check the manual or the bottom plate.
No disc, no cassette, no reel left inside. Take the media out; a stuck tray in transit is a bent tray.
Deck heads and transports are precision parts — the inner box gets padding above and below the unit, not just around it.
Antennas and remote come out and ride padded in the same box, bagged so they don't scratch anything.

Synths & keyboards

synthesizers · MIDI controllers · drum machines

Pad the keys shut. A strip of foam or a rolled towel across the keybed, light enough not to press keys down, keeps the action from bouncing in transit.
Protect the pitch and mod wheels — they're the first thing to snap off. A pad wedge under the left panel keeps them from taking the weight.
Knobs and sliders face up. Face-down is how shafts bend; if the panel has tall knobs, a foam layer above them in the inner box.
Original box or not, box in a box. Original synths boxes alone are single-wall cardboard and know it.

Phones, tablets & e-readers

small and light — but screen-first

Anti-static bag first. Any board-level device goes in a static bag before any bubble; bubble directly on a bare board is a static risk and the cling film sticks to ports.
Charge it to roughly half before shipping — carriers and bench both prefer a battery that isn't empty, and we may need to power it on the day it arrives.
Screen down on padding, not face-up against bubble. A rigid pad over the face beats bubble-on-glass, which can leave pressure marks on OLED.
Battery rules below apply in full — a swollen phone gets contacted first, not shipped. See the fine print.

Laptops & small desktops

MacBooks · notebooks · SFF · mini PCs

Nothing in the drive bays. Take the disc out of the tray; an SSD caddy or card left loose gets ejected and rattled.
Known-loose GPU or card? Seat it and say so in your RMA notes — we'll open and reseat on arrival before anything powers up.
Close the lid on a foam or cloth layer, not on the keyboard itself; keycaps imprint screens in a day of transit.
Power brick rides padded in the same box, bagged — a loose brick in the outer box is the classic inner-box crusher.

Projectors & cameras

home theater · conference · lenses

Lens cap on, then a pad over the lens — caps pop off in transit, and a padded layer keeps the cap's loss from mattering.
Never stack lens-down. Projectors and cameras ride flat on their base, glass up, every time.
Lamp modules in removable-lamp projectors stay installed but get a foam layer above — a bare lamp rattling in its housing is a lamp that doesn't survive.
Detach lenses and filters from cameras when they unscrew, wrap separately, and note in the RMA what came off.

Drones & RC

drones · RC cars · planes · boats

Props off. Always. A prop that folds in transit strips a motor bell, and props are the cheapest thing on the craft to remove.
Batteries at about 30% charge for shipping (storage charge), terminals taped, each pack bagged separately. See the battery rules in the fine print.
Gimbals locked with the shipped clamp or a foam wedge — a free gimbal is a broken ribbon cable.
Transmitters, chargers and spare parts ride bagged and padded in the same box, listed in the RMA notes.

Test equipment

scopes · meters · supplies · generators

Probe leads and accessories come out and ride bagged in the same box. A BNC connector taking the box's weight in transit is a bent input.
Front panel faces the inner-box wall, padded — knobs and buttons are the fragile face, and the chassis back is the strong one.
Heavy instruments double-box like amps: the inner box carries the instrument snug, the outer box carries the drop.
Note the CRT if it has one in your RMA — tube-face instruments get marked fragile on our side and packed face-protected, and we like knowing before the box opens.

Power tool battery packs

the one thing we ask you not to ship

Packs are a quoted bench rebuild, and swollen or heat-damaged packs are replacement-only — and a damaged lithium pack in a courier network is a fire call we don't want you making.
Contact us first if a pack is swollen, hot, or smells sweet — we'll tell you honestly whether shipping it is the right move.
The tool itself ships fine by these rules (see the battery fine print below); it's loose large-format packs we'd rather talk about before they move. See the power tool battery page.

The fine print, plainly

The rules that protect your gear and this bench, in normal words. Nothing here is boilerplate; every line is a decision we made on purpose.

An RMA is required

The form first, the RMA number on the outside of the box. An unidentified box at the shop is a mystery we can't start a diagnosis on, and gear we can't match to a customer sits, unworked, until someone claims it. The form takes two minutes and it's what makes everything below possible.

The pack-right standard

The guides on this page are the standard. Gear that arrives undersized-packed — loose in a single box, no inner box, nothing padding the face — and arrives damaged, is damage the trip caused, not the bench. We'll still tell you straight what we see. We just can't bill a courier's carelessness to a repair. And the mirror holds: if something breaks on our bench, that's on us — the 90-day warranty covers the repair.

Insurance

Insurance is never included. On the way in, your label and your call — most people insure for replacement value. Return labels ship uninsured by default; if you want the return insured, say so on the quote and we'll add carrier insurance at carrier cost on your invoice. The extra is exactly what the carrier charges, nothing padded on.

Lithium batteries

Removable batteries travel taped on the terminals and bagged separately from the device. Built-in batteries stay installed and charged to about half. A swollen, hot, or damaged pack: contact us first and don't ship it — couriers reject damaged lithium, and so do we, for the same reason. Power tool packs are referred out entirely; see the packing guides.

Your data

We don't browse your files. Bootable devices get worked on as-is and handed back as they came. If a repair needs a reset, we ask first. Drives follow our data-recovery stance: file transfers from working drives are part of a repair; dead or clicking drives are referred to a specialist lab. Back up what you can before it ships, and if you can reset it first, do.

Arrival and diagnosis

The day your box lands we open it, match it to your RMA, and email you a confirmation. The full diagnosis takes 3–5 business days from arrival, and the quote arrives by email. Board-level work and parts orders can add time, and we tell you that with the quote, not after it.

Unclaimed gear: 90 days

Repaired or quoted, gear left with us past 90 days is disposed of per Colorado law. We email before that line gets close — nobody's receiver disappears on a technicality here — but the clock is real and it starts at the quote.

Declined quote

If the quote doesn't make sense to you, we ship it back. No argument, no bench time billed — the diagnosis fee is $49, and the return shipping is still included. "Not worth fixing" is a diagnosis too, and on mail-in, like in the shop, the diagnosis is free when it's not worth fixing.

What it costs

Book prices, same as the shop. Nothing about shipping changes the diagnosis.

Mail-in rates
Item	Rate
Diagnosis	$49 — free when you approve the repair, free when it's not worth fixing
Return shipping, up to 15 lbs packed	Included with every repair
Return shipping, 15–40 lbs packed	$25 flat, added to the quote
Return shipping, 40–70 lbs packed	$49 flat, added to the quote
Return shipping, over 70 lbs	Quoted before we ship anything
Insured return label	On request, at carrier cost on the invoice

Weights are packed weight, the box as it ships. Heavy audio has its own tiers so a receiver's ride home doesn't get decided by a one-size flat rate — the rate is on the quote before you approve anything. Inbound shipping is always arranged on your side, insurance your call.

Ready when you are. The form gets you an RMA in minutes, and the packing guide for your unit comes with it.

Start the mail-in form

Questions first? Call (720) 964-0064 — answered 24/7 — or reply to your RMA email. The terms of service carry the full contract; this page is the plain-words version.