22 ms·

Repair cafés waging war on throwaway culture

571 points by wcunning 9y ago

arl_blk 9y ago
that is awesome, now can you fix my laptop & old storage stuff .... i have so many files that need to be recovered on them...
- feikname 9y ago
  Rmoving your notebook HDD and retrieving the files with a SATA-USB adapter connect to a 2nd device should be fairly straightforward for most models. Not a fix though.
  - arl_blk 9y ago
    i have a laptop, toshiba working... but my other laptop is broke & wouldnt turn on. I also have old storage devices that have files on it & it will not give me anything. most of the op sys were orginal windows to xp. this laptop has win10
    - tomcooks 9y ago
      look up the model on youtube, there is a huge chance you will have a video tutorial on how to repair it.
      - arl_blk 9y ago
        where do you live??? haha, can you come over & fix it??? lol (kidding)
        arl_blk 9y ago
        Hello, again ;) I figure out what you were telling me to do on the data recovery on laptop or desk top drives. I am now needing some advise on how to unformat old storage (seagate) devices? I also have a iomega small storage device that locks up when i try to extract files i put on it, the power & usb cord for it doesnt seem to work.
        arl_blk 9y ago
        ok, ill utube...
        arl_blk 9y ago
        i looked on youtube, there are lots of ways & applications to use to un-format external storage devices... please can i get a free app that will help me out, as i don't know which one to use. thanks much
        arl_blk 9y ago
        I downloaded EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard app but they wanted me to pay, it wasnt free. do you know of an app that is totally free? the 185gig were found then I could get them to recover
alant 9y ago
Buy less stuff but nicer stuff. And fixing them instead of throwing them away if they’re broken. If you can’t fix it you never owned it.
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  > If you can’t fix it you never owned it. That's what I am going to tell the people I'll be keeping stuff from next time I fix something at my local repair café.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  Exclusions apply. Garage door opening mechanisisms, pull chords for starting petrol powered tools, window blind slats, really old plumbing that is cast iron or lead. I’m sure there are more but I won’t be touching those things again.
  - mrcsparker 9y ago
    Garage doors in general are a pain. I have installed and repaired a few and that is one thing that I pay someone else to do now. I don’t find it fun to tinker with a garage door at all.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  The nicer stuff companies sold their brand name to junk companies.
fvdessen 9y ago
In my experience, the main draw of repair cafes is not actually repairing things, but the social experience. The fact that things are repaired in the open, with drinks & snacks available creates a small community setting that is attractive for many people regardless of the actual purpose of the gathering.
- johnchristopher 9y ago
  Same thing with my local "buying vegetables from the producer" group. It's not working locally, short term or long term but it is a really good social playground with like-minded people. Incidentally both attract the same kind.
snarfy 9y ago
I've fixed 3 out of 4 dead 27" LCD monitors and 2 of 2 dead 47" TVs by opening them up, finding the power board, and replacing all of the large capacitors. No diagnosis or testing at all.
- keithpeter 9y ago
  That used to be a good recipe for fixing radios back in the 1960s/70s as well! Used to just unsolder one lead and check the resistance of the capacitor. Quick kick then fall back to infinity good/swing over to low bad
  - natch 9y ago
    >Quick kick then fall back to infinity good/swing over to low bad What does all that mean? Quick kick = apply some voltage? So with a capacitor you are looking for infinite resistance (no current flow) as a sign that it’s good, or some current flow (low resistance) as a sign it’s bad? Did I get that right?
    - namanyayg 9y ago
      Not OP but yes that is correct, capacitors work by building potential. A functioning capacitor starts at 0 and moves to ∞.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Doxin 9y ago
      You apply a multimeter on resistance mode. Generally if the cap grows in resistance it's good, if resistance goes down or stays steady it's bad.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    The increasing reliance on ICs seems to put a really big wrench in the system. Seeing a relative, that loved working on cars, swearing over a broken wiper because the engine is just fine but the IC studded control board clearly is not doing its job, is disheartening.
Faaak 9y ago
As a repair café volunteer, I've found two drawbacks to being a volunteer/having repair cafés: - A small subset of people buy shitty products (1$ bicycle lamps, lights, cheap-as-shit appliances like clocks, hoovers, …). I have no problem fixing stuff, and showing them how to fix stuff, but I always refuse to try to repair really cheap stuff. It's not even repairing at this point, but more sticking it back together. When this case happens, I explain in good term that they should buy a slightly better quality next time; it'll last them longer - these cafés attract in general "alternative" people. I've got no problem with that, but I'm a bit fed up with conspirationists, anti-nuclear, really left-wing people. But in general, it's a really rewarding experience !
- keithpeter 9y ago
  I'm surprised that the decline of sturdy individualists in the UK. Perhaps some outreach to local pensioner's groups &c might broaden the range of people. You might recruit a few more volunteers out of their sheds as well.
- acover 9y ago
  That's really interesting. I always assumed it was difficult to see a difference in quality. What parts usually break in the cheap stuff?
  - briandear 9y ago
    Plastic anything. Low quality screws getting stripped. Flimsy wiring. (I'm not the OP, but I'm speaking from my experience.)
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Those all seem like things you could fix
      - convolvatron 9y ago
        sometimes there isn't enough plastic. but for slightly higher quality goods the threaded standoffs will often have enough material to take a wider machine thread, and enough strength to keep them for several cycles.
warmcat 9y ago
One major hurdle that I face regularly when something is broken is getting the tools I need to fix it. Buying tools that I may not need for another 5 years and won't likely be used anywhere else just does not make any sense to my mind even though replacing the device will be likelier more expensive. Also, there aren't guides to repair all devices/equipment online. If I open it, I am afraid I won't be able to put it back together. I love the idea of Repair cafe and would likely make a few visits if there is one nearby. (Any repair cafes in NYC?)
- sanderjd 9y ago
  You also have to store all those tools somewhere. That's the bigger issue for me.
  - jotm 9y ago
    It's about 5 screwdrivers for a laptop/smartphone/TV (of course, that makes it 15 for all three) and around 10 screwdrivers/spanners for home appliances. You can fit all that in a purse :D
- remir 9y ago
  That's the thing I don't like about Apple products. I swapped the HDD for a SSD in my father's Mac Mini and had to order a kit with all the right special screwdrivers and special tools just for that.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    I agree it’s annoying they are different, but I’m yet to buy an HD or replacement part that didn’t ship with the screw drivers for free or almost free. Now I have loads of them and I can’t bring myself to throw away screw drivers.
  - starsinspace 9y ago
    Similar thoughts on Apple products here. Looking at the iFixit guide for the current iMacs kills all my wishes for owning one (I considered it, but not after seeing the teardown...). And it's so unnecessary! They could have easily made it much more upgrade- and repairable without compromising the visual design.
tapanjk 9y ago
There is merit in having the mindset to be able to repair things. It encourages one to at least attempt at fixing something that is broken before throwing it away. Also, if done by enough people, manufacturers will see the benefit of making their products repairable. Sometime in the future, we will look back at how it was impossible to repair things, and wonder what made manufacturers think that throwing away was the right choice.
natch 9y ago
We have some repair cafe events about every one or two months in Silicon Valley. Here’s one such organization that holds them on a quarterly basis, for anyone interested: http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org
lorenzsell 9y ago
Recently I almost threw away our stove because one of the burners melted. I was about 2 seconds away from submitting an order online for a new stove when my wife asked how we were going to dispose of the current one. Suddenly, I realized how tragic it is to throw something so massive. I got my screw driver out and tinkered behind the stove for 20 minutes, ordered a couple parts, soldered a little here and there, and had the whole thing 100% operational with a total output of about 2 hours. I honestly could hardly believe it myself. I did the same thing with a broken chainsaw too. And it’s so rewarding to actually fix something. If you’re even remotely handy it’s remarkable how easy it is to fix things that you might otherwise just throw away and replace.
- cgriswald 9y ago
  Even if you can't fix it, there is value in tinkering with it. Over the years I've gotten to the point where I understand my limits, when I might be able to stretch those limits, and when to call in the professionals or just chuck it and buy a new one. Even when I can't fix it myself, I have a general idea of what's wrong so I can be much more confident in my decision to replace it; and if I end up calling in a professional, I can be confident I won't be getting ripped off. The internet has also helped a lot. Specifically, a lot of howto videos show common gotchas, which in the past are the things that have usually caused me to either give up or to turn a $10 repair into a $500 replacement by making things worse...
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    Youtube is a fantastic resource for any repairs, even if I'm comfortable with doing something I'll often watch a couple of videos first to spot common gotchas.
  - scarecrowbob 9y ago
    Lemme second this comment. Everything you say is good. One thing to keep in mind is that you need to understand when things can be dangerous. Like old tube-based equipment. I still have a screwdriver that has divots scarred into it from discharging a couple of 500V can capacitors in an old (solid-state) stereo. Now, that's a great lesson... discharge caps if you're not sure about them, and I am glad I learned it. I'm also quite glad that I did that on purpose with a screwdriver and not on accident with my finger. I'm even more glad that I did some basic research to know that giant caps ougtta at least be thought about if you're gonna peek around in that kind of stuff.
denysonique 9y ago
There is no such thing as 'throwaway culture' instead there is economics. In developed countries it simply is cheaper for the consumer to purchase a new LCD monitor than simply pay for a skilled engineer's labour which would arrive at the same price in addition to the uncertainty and time this takes. In less economically developed countries, it is exactly the other way around, electronics are rarely being thrown away, in this case the repair engineer's time is significantly lower than the price of most western electronic products.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  The economics you are describing create throwaway culture. The problem with this is that economics cannot override ecology.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    > economics cannot override ecology The annoyance is that economics should reflect ecology.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Yes, perhaps, but there is no reason to expect that they will without heavy intervention to make it so.
    - dade_ 9y ago
      We have an environmental levy on electronics that supposedly covers the cost of recycling the product. However, I have never seen any reports on whether it truly covers the recycling cost or if it has improved landfill diversion.
      - adrianN 9y ago
        "Recycling" electronics means shipping them to Africa where they're first dumped and then burned to recover some of the metals. The results are as disastrous as you would imagine, both for the environment and the people. This is what it looks like: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2014/feb/27/agbogbloshie-worlds-largest-e-waste-dump-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2014/feb/27/...
fanzhang 9y ago
What if our intuition is wrong about the relative costs, both economical and environmental of some repairs? In particular, just because a small part of a larger whole is broken, doesn't mean repair is the more economical or environmentally friendly act. To take a facetious example, suppose I broke 300 random pixels of a 1000x1000 LCD display that cost $100. On visual rough intuition, it's seems clear that less than 1% of the screen is broken, it intuitively would seem absurd to toss the LCD screen versus fix it. But automated manufacturing technology is so good that it really doesn't cost a lot to make a totally new one. On the other hand, your time is relatively valuable, as are some replacement parts. Suppose you spend 10 hours ordering parts, soldering wires, debugging, testing, etc to get it to fully functional. Why not spend a fraction of that time at work, and another fraction of time volunteering at park cleanups or buying carbon offsets? The numbers above may be off in one way or another, and depends on the product, your pay, and belief of environmental impact of things like throwing stuff away vs volunteering / carbon offsets. But one point seems clear to me -- which is that if I broke what visually seems like 10% of a $100 product, the fully-burdened real economic and environmental cost is a lot more than $10 to repair it. And the lynchpin is the automated production makes new stuff relatively cheap.
- sharpercoder 9y ago
  You make a fair point. The same is observed in lowering quality of produce; this intuitively reasons that "the throwaway economy is bad". However, cheap produce with considerable lower product lifetime can be better as it may typically endure the intended lifetime, whereas overengineered products may last far longer, the invested energy does not pay itself back (the product may be thrown away much earlier). The cost for newly produced items is almost always underappreciated in popular economics. That's because many factors such as environmental impact, logistics (and its side-effects), resource-mining are not included. Your LCD panel may cost $100 in store, but the government in the country it is produced may pay decades long to cleanup production sites. The government of the country producing minerals may pay years-long in healthcare for badly treated workers.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  People understand opportunity cost: thats why they repair their car and not buy a new one. The repair obsession is not economical, its moral. People perceive that you protect the environment this way, and thus find any excuse to do it.
NikolaeVarius 9y ago
On this topic, today (3/17) is a world create day via hackaday https://hackaday.com/2018/03/15/get-together-and-hack-this-saturday-at-world-create-day/ https://hackaday.com/2018/03/15/get-together-and-hack-this-s... Not exactly, the same thing, but definitely brings together like minded people
jimnotgym 9y ago
There is a great feeling from being able to fix your own stuff. I encourage everyone to learn. I have spent half of my life not being able to afford to buy new and as a result I learned to fix things. One of my favorite fixes is the LCD TV in front of me. It came to me with a wide black bar down the screen. I skim read something about this on other TV's, opened the back up, looked for the board that had a ribbon cable to the screen as the bit that would need replacement. The board looked fine visually (no dry joints, burning or exploded caps). I wiggled the ribbon cable and the black bar disappeared! This was on Black Friday two years ago, so while everyone else bought new TV's I got one for free.
kashyapc 9y ago
Although straightforward, I'm still proud of how I replaced the "un-replaceable" battery of my 4-year old Nexus 5 (still in mint condition). /me even made an opening pry "tool" by cutting an eraser holder into two[+], which worked perfectly well. (Still have to install Lineage OS, though, as Google stopped security updates.) [+] https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Eraser-holder-turned-opening-pry.jpg https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Eraser-holder-turned-openi...
YTGRK 9y ago
https://youtu.be/YxnsCkAoXOI https://youtu.be/YxnsCkAoXOI
crispyambulance 9y ago
I absolutely do enjoy repair cafes, they "pop-up" in my town sometimes using a borrowed facility and folks just show up with tools and/or stuff they want fixed. It is amazing, sometimes, how simple the repairs are. More often, however, repairs certainly are possible but parts, tools or information just isn't available during the very short time-span of the repair clinc. People end up getting turned away with a diagnosis of what's wrong but there's no practical way to repair it on the spot. I see these more as an affective exercise that shows people that, yes, it is possible to take stuff apart, figure out what's wrong and probably fix it. For these things to be practical, they would have to be more permanent or regular and take-on additional services such as a tool-library (like a regular library except you check out power-tools instead of books). But actually, if you look for it, there certainly is some serious repair-culture going on in SOME neighborhoods in the USA and in many other places in the world. Once you get away from big box stores, many independent hardware, appliance and electronics stores have people that regularly fix things. In the USA it might be frowned upon as ghetto or scammy (and sometimes they are), but many of you would be surprised what folks are able to do with basic equipment, a little knowledge, and some willpower.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tzakrajs 9y ago
I'd love the right or even ability to to repair my Western Digital hard drives when they fail just days outside of warranty.
kqr 9y ago
This is slightly off-topic, but I suspect the title attracts the right people and nobody else has been able to answer: I came across an old PS/2 keyboard I'd really like to get working. I can best describe its symptoms as "it appears to be stuck in a boot loop." The LEDs go on for what could be the time it takes to run the self-test, then briefly go dark before it repeats. It does this indefinitely, as far as I can tell. At first I thought it was an old capacitor across the power lines ( I assume as a low pass filter for unstable PS/2 power supplies) that had started leaking, causing it to brown out after some duration. However, replacing the cap did not appears to have changed nothing. I don't know what to do next and I have very little equipment to play with. Anyone have any ideas on where to turn to?
- userbinator 9y ago
  Old keyboards may use a lot more power than newer PC's motherboards are able to supply. geekhack.org has a forum full of keyboard enthusiasts that might know better.
  - UncleSlacky 9y ago
    The "mechanicalkeyboards" subreddit might be able to help too: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/
- sigstoat 9y ago
  the cap across the power lines also provides a reservoir of power closer to the little microcontroller and other bits inside of the keyboard. an old keyboard might actually expect to be able to draw more power than a modern ps/2 port cares to provide, which would cause the microcontroller to reset at some point during its initialization process. you could try to check that by putting a fast voltmeter across the power lines at the keyboard end and checking for drops. you could also just try to fix it by replacing the cap with a higher capacitance one. maybe double or triple whatever capacitance is already in there. (can't go too high or the motherboard might think you've shorted the power line.) might also check the resistance between power and ground in the keyboard (when it is disconnected, of course) and make sure that it hasn't developed any shorts or otherwise inappropriately low resistance between the power rails. seeing how it behaves on different motherboards or some usb<->ps/2 converters might be informative, too. in the unlikely event you're in the vicinity of boulder colorado, i'd be happy to look at it.
alehul 9y ago
While I imagine most people won't care enough to repair their objects, maybe there could be room for a business that would offer money for objects one would otherwise throw away, and then re-sell them to those who don't mind second-hand items? Maybe it's just me, but I think more people would be more incentivized with cold, hard cash.
- masklinn 9y ago
  Thrift stores, junk stores, surpluses, record shops, used book stores, many video game stores and (to an extent) pawn shops work on that model.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    Not to mention eBay and the various other online markets.
    - alehul 9y ago
      While this is true, I think eBay is very labor-intensive both on the side of listing goods and having to continuously bid on them, and I'm unsure of the size of people who buy electronics in need of repair and then resell; it would involve at least two shipping periods for a relatively small gain, not to mention the time investment and being unsure if the item is repairable, having not seen it in person.
  - alehul 9y ago
    While this is true, do any of those buy electronics / mechanical goods and repair them for resale? It seems like it would be a different space than most of what you listed, though admittedly I'm not familiar with junk stores or surpluses.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  That adds transaction costs that make it unprofitable
Lunatic666 9y ago
Those cafes are a great idea! I recently opened a high quality blender (forgot the brand) and found a cog made partially of metal with one small part made of plastic which will break first due to wear and tear. Otherwise this little motor would run forever. Is it normal these days to put in breaking points to artificially shorten the life of appliances or does this have a purpose?
- sevensor 9y ago
  That little cog might be more like a fuse -- a part of the system that's relatively easily replaced and designed to fail first.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    And so the company send a spare one in the box when you buy it, yes? Because they wouldn't be so crass as to make you hunt down a part that cost them a few pennies and disables the machine would they? Same issue for me with food mixer, mostly metal, key part is plastic and gets stripped, can't be replaced. Same with bread maker, rubber belt decays and company don't make the part available.
    - sevensor 9y ago
      Right, that's a fair criticism of the business practice, but from an engineering perspective it might not be a terribly unreasonable design. It's a good idea to design a system to fail predictably. Electrical engineers use fuses, mechanical engineers use shear pins, and so on.
    - lopmotr 9y ago
      Perhaps it was to protect the user, not the machine. If you drop a spoon in, it might break the fuse before pinging it into your face? Or it might have been a sliding contact that needed better wear performance than metal on metal, or it might have been an odd shape that was expensive to make from metal.
  - rdeboo 9y ago
astura 9y ago
Bad charging ports drive me bananas!! Ports should be designed to outlast all other components! It seems like the most fragile part of half of electronics. I have had micro USB ports crap out on me on several different products. The low tech solution - high purity rubbing alcohol to clean and and tweezers to remove debris and move the prongs back in place did the trick all but once.
wetpaws 9y ago
My anecdotal story is a smartphone that I poured beer over and volume/onoff buttons stopped working. Replacement buttons costed me $7 on eBay including shipping.
partycoder 9y ago
Cubans were forced to become acquainted with DIY repair due to embargos. This video shows some interesting perspectives on that: https://youtu.be/v-XS4aueDUg?t=3m49s https://youtu.be/v-XS4aueDUg?t=3m49s I think DIY repair is always a good skill to have.
pasbesoin 9y ago
I get longer life out of things than most people. My Subaru is 18 years old and still going just fine. Unfortunately, its gas tank -- residing above both the power train and parts of the suspension, is otherwise intact but starting to leak at its horizontal seam. An open-ended, expensive job to replace -- you have to drop everything below it and its unclear how many of those suspension parts would have to be replaced due to age and deterioration. I'd like to spray a fuel-tolerant liner into it. If I can find the product and someone -- or the tools -- to do it. Anyway, the point I wanted to make: We are making so damned much of this stuff. And I also think we may become "energy rich" as solar and other "next generation" power come online. In my opinion, as much of this stuff as possible should be made to be as fully recycle-able as possible. If it can be made a matter of just having enough energy, then melt it down wholesale and separate, ensuring that ensuing volatiles are stripped of their metals and then heated into component atoms or molecules we can collect or tolerate the release of. We can't do it, yet. And certainly not at scale. But, especially with control of the inputs, maybe we are closer than we think. Closed loop use would also mean less mining and destruction of the environment from production (as opposed to disposal). Meantime, DRM and the like that artificially limits recycling? A pox. Counterbalanced against real needs for security, e.g. those replacement iPhone and Android screens that have spyware written into their firmware. P.S. And are the last two concerns really in opposition to each other, or the same? If it's open and we can confirm what it is, then we can assess its security.
- Baeocystin 9y ago
  >I'd like to spray a fuel-tolerant liner into it. If I can find the product and someone -- or the tools -- to do it. For a liner to work, you'd need to drop the tank anyway, as you need to thoroughly clean and strip the inside, then roll the tank around to evenly distribute the liquid liner. At that point, for cars, anyway, you're better off just replacing it. FWIW. For smaller projects, like motorcycles, I have used Red Kote for years, with excellent success. It's the only single-part lining I've tried that holds up. http://damonq.com/red-kote.html http://damonq.com/red-kote.html [edit] This is me cleaning out a rusty motorcycle tank with some chain, solvent, and an old Jeep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEwIxWUJjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEwIxWUJjU The lining I installed afterwards is still holding up, 5 years later.
97s 9y ago
My fridge went out several years ago. It was one that we got when we bought our house from the previous homeowners. We made an agreement when we put in a bid. When it went out I was like man, we are going to have to pay to have this repaired. I called some companies and the estimations were in the $500-600 range. Being in a hard time I decided to just tinker, for the first time in my life. About 4 hours later of research and testing I determined I just needed a fuse. I went to a shop about 30 minutes away and bought a fuse for $5. Put it in and saved the fridge, and thank goodness for the dry ice tip that saved all my food in the freezer. Tinkering is now my go-to for anything that breaks. I hope that it rubs off on my son as I think I missed out on life not knowing how to tinker as much as I should have. It is really refreshing to fix something that is important to you.
- jotm 9y ago
  Yeah some repair companies will quote the maximum amount they may actually need to charge (replacing the compressor and regassing, for example), and then actually charge that even if they replaced a simple fuse :/
diego_moita 9y ago
Also, we should praise companies that actually encourage and support repairing behavior. Case in point: Baratza coffee grinders. They establish repairing as one of the companies top priorities and part of their mission.[0] They sell almost every part necessary for fixing their grinders[1]. They deliberately make them easy do disassemble and reassemble and provide lots of instructions on how to fix most problems, both in print and in video.[2] They also have a program of buying used grinders to resell them refurbished. Whenever a model is upgraded they also sell the upgrading kit for owners of old models. [0] https://www.baratza.com/social-responsibility/ https://www.baratza.com/social-responsibility/ [1] https://www.baratza.com/product-category/parts/ https://www.baratza.com/product-category/parts/ [2] https://www.baratza.com/troubleshooting/ https://www.baratza.com/troubleshooting/
- cangencer 9y ago
  Another company which is similar in coffee space is Technivorm, you can buy / replace all the parts, and I actually bought a 10+ years old machine which works flawless after replacing a few minor parts.
- dorian-graph 9y ago
  In a slightly similar way, Nudie Jeans [1] have free repairs for life in their many repair shops around the world. They also have some posts on DIY repairs [2]. It's not that their jeans are low-quality either, that they offer this. I've had jeans repaired in Australia, UK, and Norwray. [1] https://www.nudiejeans.com/ https://www.nudiejeans.com/ [2] https://www.nudiejeans.com/blog/28-friday-january-25-2013 https://www.nudiejeans.com/blog/28-friday-january-25-2013
- biztos 9y ago
  I've had a Briggs and Riley[0] suitcase for about 10 years. It came with a "lifetime guarantee" and so on. About 3 years ago it suffered some damage in handling, the normal abuse by Celebi[1] and I would definitely not consider it a manufacturing defect. But the promise was that it could take anything the airlines and their zombie hordes[1] could dish out, so I sent it back for repairs. They repaired it within a weak and returned it at their cost, and I've been traveling with the same suitcase ever since. Had they not offered the repairs I probably would have bought a new suitcase. [0]: https://www.briggs-riley.com/ https://www.briggs-riley.com/ [1]: http://www.celebiaviation.com/en/yazi.php?id=75 http://www.celebiaviation.com/en/yazi.php?id=75
scotch_drinker 9y ago
I'm reminded of Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft. We have lost the ability, and sometimes the right when it comes to John Deere or Mercedes, to tinker on our own things. This is exciting news and maybe the next generation won't be so willing to just throw away a piece of crap and buy a new piece of crap.
taeric 9y ago
Laptops and batteries are the mind blowing settings nowdays. A laptop is virtually unusable in about 5 years because the battery is effectively worthless. Buying a new one is expensive, ish. But way cheaper than a new laptop. And typically gets my laptop back to full operations quickly enough.
- hnaccy 9y ago
  Swapping in a new battery and replacing the CD drive with an SSD gave my laptop a new lease on life.
  - taeric 9y ago
    I don't know how to explain this to everyone. It is funny, because it is similar to cars. Folks take the first major expense necessary to maintain something, compare it to a payment for a new thing, and somehow think that justifies a new purchase.
mulmen 9y ago
I ride a 48 year old Honda motorcycle. This baffles some people who didn't know a vehicle of that age could still be on the road. It's not mint or original but it's nice. Everything works fine. The valves need to be adjusted soon. The transmission isn't silky but it shifts, probably a bent shift fork from abusive riding some time in the last 5 decades. Everything about it is designed to be maintained by the average person. With a little mechanical knowledge and some patience anything on that bike can be fixed. It even comes with a tool kit. There are a couple of repair shops in town that rent out spaces to work on bikes like this. They keep a mechanic on staff to provide help and even supply tools. I rent a garage from a friend and a few of us keep our old bikes going there. Not all old things were built like this but this bike is a shining example of how well made things can last lifetimes.
- bfirsh 9y ago
  I just got a 20 year old Land Rover and, after having attempted to repair consumer electronics and modern vehicles, I am stunned at how easy they are to repair. Firstly, it is an entirely mechanical car, which makes everything much simpler. But the truly stunning bit is the documentation and community. All of the workshop manuals are available online. That is good enough for most tasks, but if something particularly complex needs diagnosing, there are forums with all the information you need. When you need to get parts, an exploded diagram of the entire car is available online with part numbers. Both the original manufacturer and several third parties still make parts. Somebody has even made a price comparison website.[0] I wish all the things I owned worked like this. I understand the economics often don’t work out for smaller, cheaper things, and there is no incentive for the original manufacturer to provide these things, but surely there is enough of a community to support common repairs in a similar way. [0] https://www.landroverworkshop.com https://www.landroverworkshop.com
jotm 9y ago
The amount of things people/companies just throw away in the UK (and I reckon the rest of the world) is insane. Working for a e-waste company, I've seen everything from (perfectly working) curved 3D TVs, to hundreds of normal LED TVs, hundreds of ex-corporate laptops (mint condition, can't resell, must scrap) and of course, thousands of smartphones, tablets and home appliances, most of which were still in perfect working condition. That's all in a month's time across the poorer half of the UK! I will never understand this insane consumerism.
beefsack 9y ago
The numbers on e-waste per region but adjusted for population (very rough, with rounding errors): Region % Pop Adj --------------------------- Oceania 0.7 0.038 18.4 Europe 12.3 0.741 16.6 Americas 11.3 1.001 11.3 Asia 18.2 4.436 4.1 Africa 2.2 1.216 1.8 Would have been more interesting with the Americas split too.
- 0xdeafcafe 9y ago
  East and West Europe too.
- shoo 9y ago
  There's more detailed per-country E waste statistics in the "Global E-waste monitor 2017" report, see Annex 3 at the end [1]. Here's per-capita E-waste metrics for a subset of countries that might be interesting (because they produce high levels of per-capita E-waste, or have large populations, or both). I've added a median per-capita income column for reference, from Gallup [2]. Country E-waste Median income kg/inhab. kUSD/inhab. ---------------------------------- Norway 28.5 19.3 UK 24.9 12.4 Denmark 24.8 18.3 Netherlands 23.9 14.5 Australia 23.6 15.0 Germany 22.8 14.1 France 21.3 12.4 Belgium 21.2 10.2 Austria 20.9 12.3 Spain 20.1 7.3 Canada 20.0 15.2 US 19.4 15.5 Japan 16.9 10.8 S. Korea 13.1 11.4 Russia 9.7 4.1 Argentina 8.4 4.1 Mexico 8.2 2.9 Turkey 7.9 2.5 Brazil 7.4 2.2 Thailand 7.4 1.8 S. Africa 5.7 1.2 China 5.2 1.8 Indonesia 4.9 0.5 Philippines 2.8 0.5 Pakistan 1.6 0.5 India 1.5 0.6 Vietnam 1.5 1.1 Bangladesh 0.9 0.6 [1] - https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM%202017/Global-E-waste%20Monitor%202017%20.pdf https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM%20... [2] - http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household-income-000.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househol... Edit: as per the global E waste monitor report, there is a large amount of variability between countries in terms of the rate that e-waste is "collected" versus being disposed of by other methods e.g. in landfill. For example, Norway is at the top of the list in terms of mass of raw e-waste produced per inhabitant, but also has a high e-waste collection rate of 74% . In comparison, Australia only has an e-waste collection rate of 7.5% with the remainder going to landfill. It'd be interesting to know how effective "collection" of waste is after it is produced versus prevention of that waste in the first place. There's a bunch of interesting EU e-waste data here [3]. We can see in [4] that Norway's "recycling rate of e-waste", defined as the "collection rate" multiplied by the "reuse and recycling rate" is 50% . From the above table we know that Norway's collection rate is 74% so the "reuse and recycling rate" must be about 2/3 . But, the "reuse and recyling rate" is "calculated by dividing the weight of the WEEE that enters the recycling/preparing for re-use facility by the weight of total treatment of WEEE" -- i.e. it doesn't appear to measure how efficient the recycling and re-use itself is, in terms of output, it appears to just measures how much loss there is before we get to the recycling / reuse stage. [3] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/key-waste-streams/weee http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/key-waste-streams/wee... [4] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=t2020_rt130 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1...
Whack-kneed 9y ago
Imagine a marketplace where manufacturers had a duty to fairly disclose their longevity specs to the end user.
- lagadu 9y ago
  Don't all products have the MTBF published as part of it's spec sheet (not to be confused with the marketing specs)? edit: never mind, I couldn't find the MTBF for my watch after some search.
coldelectrons 9y ago
Would you please not glorify war in this way? This isn't war, it is work - pushing against cultural norms and entropy.
dhruvparamhans 9y ago
Repair cafés seem like a wonderful idea. However, does anyone of places where one could learn some basic stuff to repair electronics etc? I dont want to hurt myself or blow the fuse in my apartment
otterpro 9y ago
I'd love to see more products that reduce e-waste by: 1. being upgradable without needing to replace. I hate it whenever new generation of Intel CPUs are introduced, because it usually means I have to upgrade the motherboard when I upgrade the CPU. I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance for upgradability and for being future-proof (for at least 5 years). 2. using standardized parts instead of proprietary parts - for example, ATX power supplies are pretty much standard, so one can easily exchange one for another (as long as one meets the power requirements) 3. Reducing the usage of plastics. I've even made a PC case out of cardboard box many years ago when I didn't have a lot of money. I remember seeing few cardboard-based PC cases that were sold commercially but they were more of a novelty. 4. making computers that are easily repairable - laptops like IBM Thinkpad make it easy to replace parts like RAM, HDD, as well as internal parts like screen, keyboard, etc... 5. Choosing quality over quantity (i.e. lower price or cheaply made products). 6. Mandating a longer hardware manufacturer's warranty. Typically it's usually 1 year but I'd love to see 3 to 5 year warranty. I wouldn't mind it, even if it were to increase the price of PC components a little higher. But the long term benefit is that manufacturer will also try to create higher quality products. 7. Using and creating software that works well with older hardware. This is one of my biggest frustration, especially on the phone. Software is often slow and bloated. On Windows, Windows 2000 was the best OS, at least in consideration of performance. I also miss Snow Leopard on Mac.

571 points by wcunning 9y ago

that is awesome, now can you fix my laptop & old storage stuff .... i have so many files that need to be recovered on them...

feikname 9y ago
Rmoving your notebook HDD and retrieving the files with a SATA-USB adapter connect to a 2nd device should be fairly straightforward for most models. Not a fix though.
- arl_blk 9y ago
  i have a laptop, toshiba working... but my other laptop is broke & wouldnt turn on. I also have old storage devices that have files on it & it will not give me anything. most of the op sys were orginal windows to xp. this laptop has win10
  - tomcooks 9y ago
    look up the model on youtube, there is a huge chance you will have a video tutorial on how to repair it.
    - arl_blk 9y ago
      where do you live??? haha, can you come over & fix it??? lol (kidding)
      - arl_blk 9y ago
        Hello, again ;) I figure out what you were telling me to do on the data recovery on laptop or desk top drives. I am now needing some advise on how to unformat old storage (seagate) devices? I also have a iomega small storage device that locks up when i try to extract files i put on it, the power & usb cord for it doesnt seem to work.
        arl_blk 9y ago
        ok, ill utube...
        arl_blk 9y ago
        i looked on youtube, there are lots of ways & applications to use to un-format external storage devices... please can i get a free app that will help me out, as i don't know which one to use. thanks much
        arl_blk 9y ago
        I downloaded EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard app but they wanted me to pay, it wasnt free. do you know of an app that is totally free? the 185gig were found then I could get them to recover

alant 9y ago

Buy less stuff but nicer stuff. And fixing them instead of throwing them away if they’re broken. If you can’t fix it you never owned it.

johnchristopher 9y ago
> If you can’t fix it you never owned it. That's what I am going to tell the people I'll be keeping stuff from next time I fix something at my local repair café.
lostlogin 9y ago
Exclusions apply. Garage door opening mechanisisms, pull chords for starting petrol powered tools, window blind slats, really old plumbing that is cast iron or lead. I’m sure there are more but I won’t be touching those things again.
- mrcsparker 9y ago
  Garage doors in general are a pain. I have installed and repaired a few and that is one thing that I pay someone else to do now. I don’t find it fun to tinker with a garage door at all.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
The nicer stuff companies sold their brand name to junk companies.

fvdessen 9y ago

In my experience, the main draw of repair cafes is not actually repairing things, but the social experience. The fact that things are repaired in the open, with drinks & snacks available creates a small community setting that is attractive for many people regardless of the actual purpose of the gathering.

johnchristopher 9y ago
Same thing with my local "buying vegetables from the producer" group. It's not working locally, short term or long term but it is a really good social playground with like-minded people. Incidentally both attract the same kind.

snarfy 9y ago

I've fixed 3 out of 4 dead 27" LCD monitors and 2 of 2 dead 47" TVs by opening them up, finding the power board, and replacing all of the large capacitors. No diagnosis or testing at all.

keithpeter 9y ago
That used to be a good recipe for fixing radios back in the 1960s/70s as well! Used to just unsolder one lead and check the resistance of the capacitor. Quick kick then fall back to infinity good/swing over to low bad
- natch 9y ago
  >Quick kick then fall back to infinity good/swing over to low bad What does all that mean? Quick kick = apply some voltage? So with a capacitor you are looking for infinite resistance (no current flow) as a sign that it’s good, or some current flow (low resistance) as a sign it’s bad? Did I get that right?
  - namanyayg 9y ago
    Not OP but yes that is correct, capacitors work by building potential. A functioning capacitor starts at 0 and moves to ∞.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Doxin 9y ago
    You apply a multimeter on resistance mode. Generally if the cap grows in resistance it's good, if resistance goes down or stays steady it's bad.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The increasing reliance on ICs seems to put a really big wrench in the system. Seeing a relative, that loved working on cars, swearing over a broken wiper because the engine is just fine but the IC studded control board clearly is not doing its job, is disheartening.

Faaak 9y ago

As a repair café volunteer, I've found two drawbacks to being a volunteer/having repair cafés: - A small subset of people buy shitty products (1$ bicycle lamps, lights, cheap-as-shit appliances like clocks, hoovers, …). I have no problem fixing stuff, and showing them how to fix stuff, but I always refuse to try to repair really cheap stuff. It's not even repairing at this point, but more sticking it back together. When this case happens, I explain in good term that they should buy a slightly better quality next time; it'll last them longer - these cafés attract in general "alternative" people. I've got no problem with that, but I'm a bit fed up with conspirationists, anti-nuclear, really left-wing people. But in general, it's a really rewarding experience !

keithpeter 9y ago
I'm surprised that the decline of sturdy individualists in the UK. Perhaps some outreach to local pensioner's groups &c might broaden the range of people. You might recruit a few more volunteers out of their sheds as well.
acover 9y ago
That's really interesting. I always assumed it was difficult to see a difference in quality. What parts usually break in the cheap stuff?
- briandear 9y ago
  Plastic anything. Low quality screws getting stripped. Flimsy wiring. (I'm not the OP, but I'm speaking from my experience.)
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Those all seem like things you could fix
    - convolvatron 9y ago
      sometimes there isn't enough plastic. but for slightly higher quality goods the threaded standoffs will often have enough material to take a wider machine thread, and enough strength to keep them for several cycles.

warmcat 9y ago

One major hurdle that I face regularly when something is broken is getting the tools I need to fix it. Buying tools that I may not need for another 5 years and won't likely be used anywhere else just does not make any sense to my mind even though replacing the device will be likelier more expensive. Also, there aren't guides to repair all devices/equipment online. If I open it, I am afraid I won't be able to put it back together. I love the idea of Repair cafe and would likely make a few visits if there is one nearby. (Any repair cafes in NYC?)

sanderjd 9y ago
You also have to store all those tools somewhere. That's the bigger issue for me.
- jotm 9y ago
  It's about 5 screwdrivers for a laptop/smartphone/TV (of course, that makes it 15 for all three) and around 10 screwdrivers/spanners for home appliances. You can fit all that in a purse :D
remir 9y ago
That's the thing I don't like about Apple products. I swapped the HDD for a SSD in my father's Mac Mini and had to order a kit with all the right special screwdrivers and special tools just for that.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  I agree it’s annoying they are different, but I’m yet to buy an HD or replacement part that didn’t ship with the screw drivers for free or almost free. Now I have loads of them and I can’t bring myself to throw away screw drivers.
- starsinspace 9y ago
  Similar thoughts on Apple products here. Looking at the iFixit guide for the current iMacs kills all my wishes for owning one (I considered it, but not after seeing the teardown...). And it's so unnecessary! They could have easily made it much more upgrade- and repairable without compromising the visual design.

tapanjk 9y ago

There is merit in having the mindset to be able to repair things. It encourages one to at least attempt at fixing something that is broken before throwing it away. Also, if done by enough people, manufacturers will see the benefit of making their products repairable. Sometime in the future, we will look back at how it was impossible to repair things, and wonder what made manufacturers think that throwing away was the right choice.

natch 9y ago

We have some repair cafe events about every one or two months in Silicon Valley. Here’s one such organization that holds them on a quarterly basis, for anyone interested: http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org

lorenzsell 9y ago

Recently I almost threw away our stove because one of the burners melted. I was about 2 seconds away from submitting an order online for a new stove when my wife asked how we were going to dispose of the current one. Suddenly, I realized how tragic it is to throw something so massive. I got my screw driver out and tinkered behind the stove for 20 minutes, ordered a couple parts, soldered a little here and there, and had the whole thing 100% operational with a total output of about 2 hours. I honestly could hardly believe it myself. I did the same thing with a broken chainsaw too. And it’s so rewarding to actually fix something. If you’re even remotely handy it’s remarkable how easy it is to fix things that you might otherwise just throw away and replace.

cgriswald 9y ago
Even if you can't fix it, there is value in tinkering with it. Over the years I've gotten to the point where I understand my limits, when I might be able to stretch those limits, and when to call in the professionals or just chuck it and buy a new one. Even when I can't fix it myself, I have a general idea of what's wrong so I can be much more confident in my decision to replace it; and if I end up calling in a professional, I can be confident I won't be getting ripped off. The internet has also helped a lot. Specifically, a lot of howto videos show common gotchas, which in the past are the things that have usually caused me to either give up or to turn a $10 repair into a $500 replacement by making things worse...
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  Youtube is a fantastic resource for any repairs, even if I'm comfortable with doing something I'll often watch a couple of videos first to spot common gotchas.
- scarecrowbob 9y ago
  Lemme second this comment. Everything you say is good. One thing to keep in mind is that you need to understand when things can be dangerous. Like old tube-based equipment. I still have a screwdriver that has divots scarred into it from discharging a couple of 500V can capacitors in an old (solid-state) stereo. Now, that's a great lesson... discharge caps if you're not sure about them, and I am glad I learned it. I'm also quite glad that I did that on purpose with a screwdriver and not on accident with my finger. I'm even more glad that I did some basic research to know that giant caps ougtta at least be thought about if you're gonna peek around in that kind of stuff.

denysonique 9y ago

There is no such thing as 'throwaway culture' instead there is economics. In developed countries it simply is cheaper for the consumer to purchase a new LCD monitor than simply pay for a skilled engineer's labour which would arrive at the same price in addition to the uncertainty and time this takes. In less economically developed countries, it is exactly the other way around, electronics are rarely being thrown away, in this case the repair engineer's time is significantly lower than the price of most western electronic products.

emodendroket 9y ago
The economics you are describing create throwaway culture. The problem with this is that economics cannot override ecology.
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  > economics cannot override ecology The annoyance is that economics should reflect ecology.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Yes, perhaps, but there is no reason to expect that they will without heavy intervention to make it so.
  - dade_ 9y ago
    We have an environmental levy on electronics that supposedly covers the cost of recycling the product. However, I have never seen any reports on whether it truly covers the recycling cost or if it has improved landfill diversion.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      "Recycling" electronics means shipping them to Africa where they're first dumped and then burned to recover some of the metals. The results are as disastrous as you would imagine, both for the environment and the people. This is what it looks like: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2014/feb/27/agbogbloshie-worlds-largest-e-waste-dump-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2014/feb/27/...

fanzhang 9y ago

What if our intuition is wrong about the relative costs, both economical and environmental of some repairs? In particular, just because a small part of a larger whole is broken, doesn't mean repair is the more economical or environmentally friendly act. To take a facetious example, suppose I broke 300 random pixels of a 1000x1000 LCD display that cost $100. On visual rough intuition, it's seems clear that less than 1% of the screen is broken, it intuitively would seem absurd to toss the LCD screen versus fix it. But automated manufacturing technology is so good that it really doesn't cost a lot to make a totally new one. On the other hand, your time is relatively valuable, as are some replacement parts. Suppose you spend 10 hours ordering parts, soldering wires, debugging, testing, etc to get it to fully functional. Why not spend a fraction of that time at work, and another fraction of time volunteering at park cleanups or buying carbon offsets? The numbers above may be off in one way or another, and depends on the product, your pay, and belief of environmental impact of things like throwing stuff away vs volunteering / carbon offsets. But one point seems clear to me -- which is that if I broke what visually seems like 10% of a $100 product, the fully-burdened real economic and environmental cost is a lot more than $10 to repair it. And the lynchpin is the automated production makes new stuff relatively cheap.

sharpercoder 9y ago
You make a fair point. The same is observed in lowering quality of produce; this intuitively reasons that "the throwaway economy is bad". However, cheap produce with considerable lower product lifetime can be better as it may typically endure the intended lifetime, whereas overengineered products may last far longer, the invested energy does not pay itself back (the product may be thrown away much earlier). The cost for newly produced items is almost always underappreciated in popular economics. That's because many factors such as environmental impact, logistics (and its side-effects), resource-mining are not included. Your LCD panel may cost $100 in store, but the government in the country it is produced may pay decades long to cleanup production sites. The government of the country producing minerals may pay years-long in healthcare for badly treated workers.
conanbatt 9y ago
People understand opportunity cost: thats why they repair their car and not buy a new one. The repair obsession is not economical, its moral. People perceive that you protect the environment this way, and thus find any excuse to do it.

NikolaeVarius 9y ago

On this topic, today (3/17) is a world create day via hackaday https://hackaday.com/2018/03/15/get-together-and-hack-this-saturday-at-world-create-day/ https://hackaday.com/2018/03/15/get-together-and-hack-this-s... Not exactly, the same thing, but definitely brings together like minded people

jimnotgym 9y ago

There is a great feeling from being able to fix your own stuff. I encourage everyone to learn. I have spent half of my life not being able to afford to buy new and as a result I learned to fix things. One of my favorite fixes is the LCD TV in front of me. It came to me with a wide black bar down the screen. I skim read something about this on other TV's, opened the back up, looked for the board that had a ribbon cable to the screen as the bit that would need replacement. The board looked fine visually (no dry joints, burning or exploded caps). I wiggled the ribbon cable and the black bar disappeared! This was on Black Friday two years ago, so while everyone else bought new TV's I got one for free.

kashyapc 9y ago

Although straightforward, I'm still proud of how I replaced the "un-replaceable" battery of my 4-year old Nexus 5 (still in mint condition). /me even made an opening pry "tool" by cutting an eraser holder into two[+], which worked perfectly well. (Still have to install Lineage OS, though, as Google stopped security updates.) [+] https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Eraser-holder-turned-opening-pry.jpg https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Eraser-holder-turned-openi...

YTGRK 9y ago

https://youtu.be/YxnsCkAoXOI https://youtu.be/YxnsCkAoXOI

crispyambulance 9y ago

I absolutely do enjoy repair cafes, they "pop-up" in my town sometimes using a borrowed facility and folks just show up with tools and/or stuff they want fixed. It is amazing, sometimes, how simple the repairs are. More often, however, repairs certainly are possible but parts, tools or information just isn't available during the very short time-span of the repair clinc. People end up getting turned away with a diagnosis of what's wrong but there's no practical way to repair it on the spot. I see these more as an affective exercise that shows people that, yes, it is possible to take stuff apart, figure out what's wrong and probably fix it. For these things to be practical, they would have to be more permanent or regular and take-on additional services such as a tool-library (like a regular library except you check out power-tools instead of books). But actually, if you look for it, there certainly is some serious repair-culture going on in SOME neighborhoods in the USA and in many other places in the world. Once you get away from big box stores, many independent hardware, appliance and electronics stores have people that regularly fix things. In the USA it might be frowned upon as ghetto or scammy (and sometimes they are), but many of you would be surprised what folks are able to do with basic equipment, a little knowledge, and some willpower.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tzakrajs 9y ago

I'd love the right or even ability to to repair my Western Digital hard drives when they fail just days outside of warranty.

kqr 9y ago

This is slightly off-topic, but I suspect the title attracts the right people and nobody else has been able to answer: I came across an old PS/2 keyboard I'd really like to get working. I can best describe its symptoms as "it appears to be stuck in a boot loop." The LEDs go on for what could be the time it takes to run the self-test, then briefly go dark before it repeats. It does this indefinitely, as far as I can tell. At first I thought it was an old capacitor across the power lines ( I assume as a low pass filter for unstable PS/2 power supplies) that had started leaking, causing it to brown out after some duration. However, replacing the cap did not appears to have changed nothing. I don't know what to do next and I have very little equipment to play with. Anyone have any ideas on where to turn to?

userbinator 9y ago
Old keyboards may use a lot more power than newer PC's motherboards are able to supply. geekhack.org has a forum full of keyboard enthusiasts that might know better.
- UncleSlacky 9y ago
  The "mechanicalkeyboards" subreddit might be able to help too: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/
sigstoat 9y ago
the cap across the power lines also provides a reservoir of power closer to the little microcontroller and other bits inside of the keyboard. an old keyboard might actually expect to be able to draw more power than a modern ps/2 port cares to provide, which would cause the microcontroller to reset at some point during its initialization process. you could try to check that by putting a fast voltmeter across the power lines at the keyboard end and checking for drops. you could also just try to fix it by replacing the cap with a higher capacitance one. maybe double or triple whatever capacitance is already in there. (can't go too high or the motherboard might think you've shorted the power line.) might also check the resistance between power and ground in the keyboard (when it is disconnected, of course) and make sure that it hasn't developed any shorts or otherwise inappropriately low resistance between the power rails. seeing how it behaves on different motherboards or some usb<->ps/2 converters might be informative, too. in the unlikely event you're in the vicinity of boulder colorado, i'd be happy to look at it.

alehul 9y ago

While I imagine most people won't care enough to repair their objects, maybe there could be room for a business that would offer money for objects one would otherwise throw away, and then re-sell them to those who don't mind second-hand items? Maybe it's just me, but I think more people would be more incentivized with cold, hard cash.

masklinn 9y ago
Thrift stores, junk stores, surpluses, record shops, used book stores, many video game stores and (to an extent) pawn shops work on that model.
- userbinator 9y ago
  Not to mention eBay and the various other online markets.
  - alehul 9y ago
    While this is true, I think eBay is very labor-intensive both on the side of listing goods and having to continuously bid on them, and I'm unsure of the size of people who buy electronics in need of repair and then resell; it would involve at least two shipping periods for a relatively small gain, not to mention the time investment and being unsure if the item is repairable, having not seen it in person.
- alehul 9y ago
  While this is true, do any of those buy electronics / mechanical goods and repair them for resale? It seems like it would be a different space than most of what you listed, though admittedly I'm not familiar with junk stores or surpluses.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
That adds transaction costs that make it unprofitable

Lunatic666 9y ago

Those cafes are a great idea! I recently opened a high quality blender (forgot the brand) and found a cog made partially of metal with one small part made of plastic which will break first due to wear and tear. Otherwise this little motor would run forever. Is it normal these days to put in breaking points to artificially shorten the life of appliances or does this have a purpose?

sevensor 9y ago
That little cog might be more like a fuse -- a part of the system that's relatively easily replaced and designed to fail first.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  And so the company send a spare one in the box when you buy it, yes? Because they wouldn't be so crass as to make you hunt down a part that cost them a few pennies and disables the machine would they? Same issue for me with food mixer, mostly metal, key part is plastic and gets stripped, can't be replaced. Same with bread maker, rubber belt decays and company don't make the part available.
  - sevensor 9y ago
    Right, that's a fair criticism of the business practice, but from an engineering perspective it might not be a terribly unreasonable design. It's a good idea to design a system to fail predictably. Electrical engineers use fuses, mechanical engineers use shear pins, and so on.
  - lopmotr 9y ago
    Perhaps it was to protect the user, not the machine. If you drop a spoon in, it might break the fuse before pinging it into your face? Or it might have been a sliding contact that needed better wear performance than metal on metal, or it might have been an odd shape that was expensive to make from metal.
- rdeboo 9y ago

astura 9y ago

Bad charging ports drive me bananas!! Ports should be designed to outlast all other components! It seems like the most fragile part of half of electronics. I have had micro USB ports crap out on me on several different products. The low tech solution - high purity rubbing alcohol to clean and and tweezers to remove debris and move the prongs back in place did the trick all but once.

wetpaws 9y ago

My anecdotal story is a smartphone that I poured beer over and volume/onoff buttons stopped working. Replacement buttons costed me $7 on eBay including shipping.

partycoder 9y ago

Cubans were forced to become acquainted with DIY repair due to embargos. This video shows some interesting perspectives on that: https://youtu.be/v-XS4aueDUg?t=3m49s https://youtu.be/v-XS4aueDUg?t=3m49s I think DIY repair is always a good skill to have.

pasbesoin 9y ago

I get longer life out of things than most people. My Subaru is 18 years old and still going just fine. Unfortunately, its gas tank -- residing above both the power train and parts of the suspension, is otherwise intact but starting to leak at its horizontal seam. An open-ended, expensive job to replace -- you have to drop everything below it and its unclear how many of those suspension parts would have to be replaced due to age and deterioration. I'd like to spray a fuel-tolerant liner into it. If I can find the product and someone -- or the tools -- to do it. Anyway, the point I wanted to make: We are making so damned much of this stuff. And I also think we may become "energy rich" as solar and other "next generation" power come online. In my opinion, as much of this stuff as possible should be made to be as fully recycle-able as possible. If it can be made a matter of just having enough energy, then melt it down wholesale and separate, ensuring that ensuing volatiles are stripped of their metals and then heated into component atoms or molecules we can collect or tolerate the release of. We can't do it, yet. And certainly not at scale. But, especially with control of the inputs, maybe we are closer than we think. Closed loop use would also mean less mining and destruction of the environment from production (as opposed to disposal). Meantime, DRM and the like that artificially limits recycling? A pox. Counterbalanced against real needs for security, e.g. those replacement iPhone and Android screens that have spyware written into their firmware. P.S. And are the last two concerns really in opposition to each other, or the same? If it's open and we can confirm what it is, then we can assess its security.

Baeocystin 9y ago
>I'd like to spray a fuel-tolerant liner into it. If I can find the product and someone -- or the tools -- to do it. For a liner to work, you'd need to drop the tank anyway, as you need to thoroughly clean and strip the inside, then roll the tank around to evenly distribute the liquid liner. At that point, for cars, anyway, you're better off just replacing it. FWIW. For smaller projects, like motorcycles, I have used Red Kote for years, with excellent success. It's the only single-part lining I've tried that holds up. http://damonq.com/red-kote.html http://damonq.com/red-kote.html [edit] This is me cleaning out a rusty motorcycle tank with some chain, solvent, and an old Jeep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEwIxWUJjU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNEwIxWUJjU The lining I installed afterwards is still holding up, 5 years later.

97s 9y ago

My fridge went out several years ago. It was one that we got when we bought our house from the previous homeowners. We made an agreement when we put in a bid. When it went out I was like man, we are going to have to pay to have this repaired. I called some companies and the estimations were in the $500-600 range. Being in a hard time I decided to just tinker, for the first time in my life. About 4 hours later of research and testing I determined I just needed a fuse. I went to a shop about 30 minutes away and bought a fuse for $5. Put it in and saved the fridge, and thank goodness for the dry ice tip that saved all my food in the freezer. Tinkering is now my go-to for anything that breaks. I hope that it rubs off on my son as I think I missed out on life not knowing how to tinker as much as I should have. It is really refreshing to fix something that is important to you.

jotm 9y ago
Yeah some repair companies will quote the maximum amount they may actually need to charge (replacing the compressor and regassing, for example), and then actually charge that even if they replaced a simple fuse :/

diego_moita 9y ago

Also, we should praise companies that actually encourage and support repairing behavior. Case in point: Baratza coffee grinders. They establish repairing as one of the companies top priorities and part of their mission.[0] They sell almost every part necessary for fixing their grinders[1]. They deliberately make them easy do disassemble and reassemble and provide lots of instructions on how to fix most problems, both in print and in video.[2] They also have a program of buying used grinders to resell them refurbished. Whenever a model is upgraded they also sell the upgrading kit for owners of old models. [0] https://www.baratza.com/social-responsibility/ https://www.baratza.com/social-responsibility/ [1] https://www.baratza.com/product-category/parts/ https://www.baratza.com/product-category/parts/ [2] https://www.baratza.com/troubleshooting/ https://www.baratza.com/troubleshooting/

cangencer 9y ago
Another company which is similar in coffee space is Technivorm, you can buy / replace all the parts, and I actually bought a 10+ years old machine which works flawless after replacing a few minor parts.
dorian-graph 9y ago
In a slightly similar way, Nudie Jeans [1] have free repairs for life in their many repair shops around the world. They also have some posts on DIY repairs [2]. It's not that their jeans are low-quality either, that they offer this. I've had jeans repaired in Australia, UK, and Norwray. [1] https://www.nudiejeans.com/ https://www.nudiejeans.com/ [2] https://www.nudiejeans.com/blog/28-friday-january-25-2013 https://www.nudiejeans.com/blog/28-friday-january-25-2013
biztos 9y ago
I've had a Briggs and Riley[0] suitcase for about 10 years. It came with a "lifetime guarantee" and so on. About 3 years ago it suffered some damage in handling, the normal abuse by Celebi[1] and I would definitely not consider it a manufacturing defect. But the promise was that it could take anything the airlines and their zombie hordes[1] could dish out, so I sent it back for repairs. They repaired it within a weak and returned it at their cost, and I've been traveling with the same suitcase ever since. Had they not offered the repairs I probably would have bought a new suitcase. [0]: https://www.briggs-riley.com/ https://www.briggs-riley.com/ [1]: http://www.celebiaviation.com/en/yazi.php?id=75 http://www.celebiaviation.com/en/yazi.php?id=75

scotch_drinker 9y ago

I'm reminded of Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft. We have lost the ability, and sometimes the right when it comes to John Deere or Mercedes, to tinker on our own things. This is exciting news and maybe the next generation won't be so willing to just throw away a piece of crap and buy a new piece of crap.

taeric 9y ago

Laptops and batteries are the mind blowing settings nowdays. A laptop is virtually unusable in about 5 years because the battery is effectively worthless. Buying a new one is expensive, ish. But way cheaper than a new laptop. And typically gets my laptop back to full operations quickly enough.

hnaccy 9y ago
Swapping in a new battery and replacing the CD drive with an SSD gave my laptop a new lease on life.
- taeric 9y ago
  I don't know how to explain this to everyone. It is funny, because it is similar to cars. Folks take the first major expense necessary to maintain something, compare it to a payment for a new thing, and somehow think that justifies a new purchase.

mulmen 9y ago

I ride a 48 year old Honda motorcycle. This baffles some people who didn't know a vehicle of that age could still be on the road. It's not mint or original but it's nice. Everything works fine. The valves need to be adjusted soon. The transmission isn't silky but it shifts, probably a bent shift fork from abusive riding some time in the last 5 decades. Everything about it is designed to be maintained by the average person. With a little mechanical knowledge and some patience anything on that bike can be fixed. It even comes with a tool kit. There are a couple of repair shops in town that rent out spaces to work on bikes like this. They keep a mechanic on staff to provide help and even supply tools. I rent a garage from a friend and a few of us keep our old bikes going there. Not all old things were built like this but this bike is a shining example of how well made things can last lifetimes.

bfirsh 9y ago
I just got a 20 year old Land Rover and, after having attempted to repair consumer electronics and modern vehicles, I am stunned at how easy they are to repair. Firstly, it is an entirely mechanical car, which makes everything much simpler. But the truly stunning bit is the documentation and community. All of the workshop manuals are available online. That is good enough for most tasks, but if something particularly complex needs diagnosing, there are forums with all the information you need. When you need to get parts, an exploded diagram of the entire car is available online with part numbers. Both the original manufacturer and several third parties still make parts. Somebody has even made a price comparison website.[0] I wish all the things I owned worked like this. I understand the economics often don’t work out for smaller, cheaper things, and there is no incentive for the original manufacturer to provide these things, but surely there is enough of a community to support common repairs in a similar way. [0] https://www.landroverworkshop.com https://www.landroverworkshop.com

jotm 9y ago

The amount of things people/companies just throw away in the UK (and I reckon the rest of the world) is insane. Working for a e-waste company, I've seen everything from (perfectly working) curved 3D TVs, to hundreds of normal LED TVs, hundreds of ex-corporate laptops (mint condition, can't resell, must scrap) and of course, thousands of smartphones, tablets and home appliances, most of which were still in perfect working condition. That's all in a month's time across the poorer half of the UK! I will never understand this insane consumerism.

beefsack 9y ago

The numbers on e-waste per region but adjusted for population (very rough, with rounding errors): Region % Pop Adj --------------------------- Oceania 0.7 0.038 18.4 Europe 12.3 0.741 16.6 Americas 11.3 1.001 11.3 Asia 18.2 4.436 4.1 Africa 2.2 1.216 1.8 Would have been more interesting with the Americas split too.

0xdeafcafe 9y ago
East and West Europe too.
shoo 9y ago
There's more detailed per-country E waste statistics in the "Global E-waste monitor 2017" report, see Annex 3 at the end [1]. Here's per-capita E-waste metrics for a subset of countries that might be interesting (because they produce high levels of per-capita E-waste, or have large populations, or both). I've added a median per-capita income column for reference, from Gallup [2]. Country E-waste Median income kg/inhab. kUSD/inhab. ---------------------------------- Norway 28.5 19.3 UK 24.9 12.4 Denmark 24.8 18.3 Netherlands 23.9 14.5 Australia 23.6 15.0 Germany 22.8 14.1 France 21.3 12.4 Belgium 21.2 10.2 Austria 20.9 12.3 Spain 20.1 7.3 Canada 20.0 15.2 US 19.4 15.5 Japan 16.9 10.8 S. Korea 13.1 11.4 Russia 9.7 4.1 Argentina 8.4 4.1 Mexico 8.2 2.9 Turkey 7.9 2.5 Brazil 7.4 2.2 Thailand 7.4 1.8 S. Africa 5.7 1.2 China 5.2 1.8 Indonesia 4.9 0.5 Philippines 2.8 0.5 Pakistan 1.6 0.5 India 1.5 0.6 Vietnam 1.5 1.1 Bangladesh 0.9 0.6 [1] - https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM%202017/Global-E-waste%20Monitor%202017%20.pdf https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM%20... [2] - http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household-income-000.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-househol... Edit: as per the global E waste monitor report, there is a large amount of variability between countries in terms of the rate that e-waste is "collected" versus being disposed of by other methods e.g. in landfill. For example, Norway is at the top of the list in terms of mass of raw e-waste produced per inhabitant, but also has a high e-waste collection rate of 74% . In comparison, Australia only has an e-waste collection rate of 7.5% with the remainder going to landfill. It'd be interesting to know how effective "collection" of waste is after it is produced versus prevention of that waste in the first place. There's a bunch of interesting EU e-waste data here [3]. We can see in [4] that Norway's "recycling rate of e-waste", defined as the "collection rate" multiplied by the "reuse and recycling rate" is 50% . From the above table we know that Norway's collection rate is 74% so the "reuse and recycling rate" must be about 2/3 . But, the "reuse and recyling rate" is "calculated by dividing the weight of the WEEE that enters the recycling/preparing for re-use facility by the weight of total treatment of WEEE" -- i.e. it doesn't appear to measure how efficient the recycling and re-use itself is, in terms of output, it appears to just measures how much loss there is before we get to the recycling / reuse stage. [3] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/key-waste-streams/weee http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/key-waste-streams/wee... [4] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=t2020_rt130 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1...

Whack-kneed 9y ago

Imagine a marketplace where manufacturers had a duty to fairly disclose their longevity specs to the end user.

lagadu 9y ago
Don't all products have the MTBF published as part of it's spec sheet (not to be confused with the marketing specs)? edit: never mind, I couldn't find the MTBF for my watch after some search.

coldelectrons 9y ago

Would you please not glorify war in this way? This isn't war, it is work - pushing against cultural norms and entropy.

dhruvparamhans 9y ago

Repair cafés seem like a wonderful idea. However, does anyone of places where one could learn some basic stuff to repair electronics etc? I dont want to hurt myself or blow the fuse in my apartment

otterpro 9y ago

I'd love to see more products that reduce e-waste by: 1. being upgradable without needing to replace. I hate it whenever new generation of Intel CPUs are introduced, because it usually means I have to upgrade the motherboard when I upgrade the CPU. I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of performance for upgradability and for being future-proof (for at least 5 years). 2. using standardized parts instead of proprietary parts - for example, ATX power supplies are pretty much standard, so one can easily exchange one for another (as long as one meets the power requirements) 3. Reducing the usage of plastics. I've even made a PC case out of cardboard box many years ago when I didn't have a lot of money. I remember seeing few cardboard-based PC cases that were sold commercially but they were more of a novelty. 4. making computers that are easily repairable - laptops like IBM Thinkpad make it easy to replace parts like RAM, HDD, as well as internal parts like screen, keyboard, etc... 5. Choosing quality over quantity (i.e. lower price or cheaply made products). 6. Mandating a longer hardware manufacturer's warranty. Typically it's usually 1 year but I'd love to see 3 to 5 year warranty. I wouldn't mind it, even if it were to increase the price of PC components a little higher. But the long term benefit is that manufacturer will also try to create higher quality products. 7. Using and creating software that works well with older hardware. This is one of my biggest frustration, especially on the phone. Software is often slow and bloated. On Windows, Windows 2000 was the best OS, at least in consideration of performance. I also miss Snow Leopard on Mac.