7 ms·

We Fix: A DIY Manifesto (2014)

82 points by wallflower 6y ago

_0o6v 6y ago
iFixit is so great. I recently paid £200 to a charlatan who bodged a phone repair, so I took the leap and attempted to fix the bodge. iFixit had simple photo guides, it was a piece of cake, and I'll never send my phone away to get fixed again.
- bserge 6y ago
  You think they're "professionals"... but they're likely just like you and me, learning on the fly and doing their best. I don't trust my stuff with others, but that's probably because I can fix everything myself heh. Last couple of times I had computers fixed, I got a missing RAM stick and a piss poor BGA reball job that failed within a month. They probably didn't have the best tools, but I paid a lot and they didn't even fix it for free a second time. I just replaced the system board.
  - Jack_Hacker 6y ago
    >they're likely just like you and me, learning on the fly and doing their best Correct. In my experience of working at a cellphone repair shop, we looked up most Android repairs on iFixit and/or YouTube before quoting a price. If a tutorial suggested that there was a high likelihood of breaking a given part (usually the screen) during the replacement of an unrelated one, we would throw the cost of that part into the initial quote. Apple products are standard enough that the repairs which can be done were well known to everybody, and we didn't have to research those before giving a quote.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I agree. Devices deserve to live as long as they'll function. This is why I love the Web so much. A properly designed site will still work with a 20-year-old device.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Unfortunately, those are few and far between.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    It's true, we're currently in a valley of compatibility. I think it's only up from here. More and more people talk about making the Web accessible again.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  That’s somewhat debatable. A site which uses https and requires TLS 1.2 or later, as is common/good practice today, will not work with a 13 year old device. (TLS 1.2 RFC was published Aug 2008.)
woahAcademia 6y ago
"Where Apple leads, other follows". I wonder how long it's going to take for Apple to get backlash. Their customers (or at least online presence) is unusually apologetic.
xenocyon 6y ago
On this topic: I recently learned that if you possess a soldering iron, you have all the tools you need to weld plastic! Since a lot of household objects are made from plastic (or partially plastic) this is extremely useful. I had a couple bike lights where the plastic clip had broken at a stress point. Instead of having to throw them away and buy new ones, I just plastic-welded them back to functionality. I did a rough and ready job without regard to esthetics - the results work just fine for me - but if you want to do it more thoughtfully here's a blog post on how: https://www.circuitspecialists.com/blog/welding-plastic-with-soldering-iron/ https://www.circuitspecialists.com/blog/welding-plastic-with...
- bserge 6y ago
  You can also use a screwdriver or a nail heated up by a gas stove, blowtorch, even a lighter... yeah, I love MacGyvering shit out of nothing :D
  - coolgeek 6y ago
    The screwdriver on a stove (even electric) technique was needed for building plastic models (e.g. Revell) back in the day.
- thisisbrians 6y ago
  If you do this, ideally do it outdoors and with a fan to blow the fumes away from your face. Burning plastic creates some pretty nasty gasses that you definitely don't want to be breathing in; I learned this the hard way, unfortunately.
- jfim 6y ago
  Are there any particular reasons to use a soldering iron? Cyanoacrylate glue seems to work well for parts that mate cleanly.
  - analog31 6y ago
    Two issues. First is they have to mate cleanly, which is a matter of luck when some materials break. The other is that cyanoacrylate (aka Super Glue) does not stick to some things at all such as polyethylene. In addition to attaching pieces together, you can sometimes also weld on additional plastic to buttress the repair.
qppo 6y ago
Whenever I hear of right-to-repair I'm reminded of Farenheit 451 - one of often missed points that Bradbury made was that it was the willingness of the people in society to ditch books and information ; it was about populist mandate, not fascist overreach. With right-to-repair, these things aren't hard to take apart and put back together because of some cabal of greedy corporate overlords. Customers genuinely do not care about the repair of these products.
- teachrdan 6y ago
  Apathy is an expression of helplessness. Consumers rightfully understand they have virtually no power over whether companies make do things like make products impossible to repair. This is a problem to be fixed at the level of government.
  - qppo 6y ago
    They can buy devices that are easier to repair. Shops can refuse to accept devices that they can't repair. Consumers aren't sheep, and I don't believe in legislation predicated on the assumption that they act like bovine. I'm all for regulating tech companies, but not when it harms their ability to create products that fit market demands. When it comes to market demands today, repair-ability is at odds with other areas that companies innovate like device complexity, size, form factor, etc. There is little market pressure for repairable devices. I don't think it's the role of government to create it. The most compelling argument I've heard relates to recycling and reducing landfill usage of electronics. But I'm not sure what levers government can pull in that regard that make repair easier.
    - jfim 6y ago
      The incentive for companies is to design products that are obsolete after a few years, such that they can sell a new one and make money on the new sale. While it's beneficial for customers to be able to repair their devices, their choices are limited by the availability of repairable devices. The government has plenty of levers to use to improve repairability and reducing the amount of discarded electronics. They could mandate a minimum service life for electronics, where the manufacturer has to repair or replace any device that fails during that service life, for free, as long as the repair isn't due to customer negligence. They could mandate having a serviceability score label on electronics, just like the energy star rating or nutritional information label. They could require that manuals and parts are available to third party repair shops, without discriminatory pricing and availability. The list goes on. It's not unlike fuel efficiency and clean air mandates. Once all the manufacturers had to abide by the same rules, unsurprisingly, fleet efficiency and air quality improved.
supernova87a 6y ago
I'm debating a lot whether to reply in this thread, because I hesitate if it's worth my time only to be downvoted by people who use that function to express disapproval with legitimate opinions. I don't work for any of the device manufacturers, but I put myself in their place to think about why I would object. Maybe you should too as you debate over this. It's possible that a certain class of things in modern life are not repairable in the way that they used to be. Things have generally been repairable because their size, complexity, and more importantly, their connectedness related to function is able to operate at the size of a person's hands. Your lawn mower, your car, your refrigerator. These are the things that are self-contained and you can see the parts and handle them competently. Those are the kinds of examples he gives. He doesn't talk about trying to resolder the memory controller on a hard drive. Yet even hard drives have been around for 20 years, and no one talks about how they should be able to self-repair those. Your cellphone is getting farther and farther away even from that. Its parts are microscopic. It takes an advanced factory to put those things together, and you demand at the same time that it be small and light and have good battery life. It relies on communicating with other hardware that are upgrading all the time. You don't play networked Doom II on your old computer for a reason. Do you use a 10 year old cell phone? How many of your friends do? People every day are giving companies the signal that they value new and cool and small and light over the ability to repair and keep hardware around for a decade. Those tiny earbuds are selling like hotcakes. They're impossible to fix, yet people buy them. With your purchasing choices, you are signaling what companies are incentivized to make. Yet at the same time, you wish to tell the companies not to make those things in that way. Are they compatible? I mean, have you really thought about what would result if you imposed requirements that batteries be interchangeable now? If those earbuds had to be maintainable by the user? Would they exist in anywhere near the form they do? I think you have to think about the unintended side effects of what you want, and not just imagine that the one thing you want is all that happens. Very few people who advocate for this stuff seem to be responsible for designing the hardware, which makes you think whether they're completely right.
- duck2 6y ago
  Most sane right-to-repair advocates don't oppose microscopic parts or glued batteries. They oppose deliberate measures against repair, such as: - Parts which are produced by a third party who signed a contract with the manufacturer to not sell the part to other people. So you cannot find whatever $2 power management unit in your phone's main board even if you are willing to use complex equipment to replace it. - Parts which "marry" their devices and refuse to work when you plug them into another device. This kind of behavior actively fights against you repairing the device. I find it unacceptable.
nemosaltat 6y ago
“Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without.” Growing up in a poor (and large) family, we lived by those words and I’ve carried the mentality into adulthood. Of course there’s always a trade-off, but everyone should have the change to experience the joy of bringing something “broken” back to life.

82 points by wallflower 6y ago

iFixit is so great. I recently paid £200 to a charlatan who bodged a phone repair, so I took the leap and attempted to fix the bodge. iFixit had simple photo guides, it was a piece of cake, and I'll never send my phone away to get fixed again.

bserge 6y ago
You think they're "professionals"... but they're likely just like you and me, learning on the fly and doing their best. I don't trust my stuff with others, but that's probably because I can fix everything myself heh. Last couple of times I had computers fixed, I got a missing RAM stick and a piss poor BGA reball job that failed within a month. They probably didn't have the best tools, but I paid a lot and they didn't even fix it for free a second time. I just replaced the system board.
- Jack_Hacker 6y ago
  >they're likely just like you and me, learning on the fly and doing their best Correct. In my experience of working at a cellphone repair shop, we looked up most Android repairs on iFixit and/or YouTube before quoting a price. If a tutorial suggested that there was a high likelihood of breaking a given part (usually the screen) during the replacement of an unrelated one, we would throw the cost of that part into the initial quote. Apple products are standard enough that the repairs which can be done were well known to everybody, and we didn't have to research those before giving a quote.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I agree. Devices deserve to live as long as they'll function. This is why I love the Web so much. A properly designed site will still work with a 20-year-old device.

Koshkin 6y ago
Unfortunately, those are few and far between.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  It's true, we're currently in a valley of compatibility. I think it's only up from here. More and more people talk about making the Web accessible again.
sokoloff 6y ago
That’s somewhat debatable. A site which uses https and requires TLS 1.2 or later, as is common/good practice today, will not work with a 13 year old device. (TLS 1.2 RFC was published Aug 2008.)

woahAcademia 6y ago

"Where Apple leads, other follows". I wonder how long it's going to take for Apple to get backlash. Their customers (or at least online presence) is unusually apologetic.

xenocyon 6y ago

On this topic: I recently learned that if you possess a soldering iron, you have all the tools you need to weld plastic! Since a lot of household objects are made from plastic (or partially plastic) this is extremely useful. I had a couple bike lights where the plastic clip had broken at a stress point. Instead of having to throw them away and buy new ones, I just plastic-welded them back to functionality. I did a rough and ready job without regard to esthetics - the results work just fine for me - but if you want to do it more thoughtfully here's a blog post on how: https://www.circuitspecialists.com/blog/welding-plastic-with-soldering-iron/ https://www.circuitspecialists.com/blog/welding-plastic-with...

bserge 6y ago
You can also use a screwdriver or a nail heated up by a gas stove, blowtorch, even a lighter... yeah, I love MacGyvering shit out of nothing :D
- coolgeek 6y ago
  The screwdriver on a stove (even electric) technique was needed for building plastic models (e.g. Revell) back in the day.
thisisbrians 6y ago
If you do this, ideally do it outdoors and with a fan to blow the fumes away from your face. Burning plastic creates some pretty nasty gasses that you definitely don't want to be breathing in; I learned this the hard way, unfortunately.
jfim 6y ago
Are there any particular reasons to use a soldering iron? Cyanoacrylate glue seems to work well for parts that mate cleanly.
- analog31 6y ago
  Two issues. First is they have to mate cleanly, which is a matter of luck when some materials break. The other is that cyanoacrylate (aka Super Glue) does not stick to some things at all such as polyethylene. In addition to attaching pieces together, you can sometimes also weld on additional plastic to buttress the repair.

qppo 6y ago

Whenever I hear of right-to-repair I'm reminded of Farenheit 451 - one of often missed points that Bradbury made was that it was the willingness of the people in society to ditch books and information ; it was about populist mandate, not fascist overreach. With right-to-repair, these things aren't hard to take apart and put back together because of some cabal of greedy corporate overlords. Customers genuinely do not care about the repair of these products.

teachrdan 6y ago
Apathy is an expression of helplessness. Consumers rightfully understand they have virtually no power over whether companies make do things like make products impossible to repair. This is a problem to be fixed at the level of government.
- qppo 6y ago
  They can buy devices that are easier to repair. Shops can refuse to accept devices that they can't repair. Consumers aren't sheep, and I don't believe in legislation predicated on the assumption that they act like bovine. I'm all for regulating tech companies, but not when it harms their ability to create products that fit market demands. When it comes to market demands today, repair-ability is at odds with other areas that companies innovate like device complexity, size, form factor, etc. There is little market pressure for repairable devices. I don't think it's the role of government to create it. The most compelling argument I've heard relates to recycling and reducing landfill usage of electronics. But I'm not sure what levers government can pull in that regard that make repair easier.
  - jfim 6y ago
    The incentive for companies is to design products that are obsolete after a few years, such that they can sell a new one and make money on the new sale. While it's beneficial for customers to be able to repair their devices, their choices are limited by the availability of repairable devices. The government has plenty of levers to use to improve repairability and reducing the amount of discarded electronics. They could mandate a minimum service life for electronics, where the manufacturer has to repair or replace any device that fails during that service life, for free, as long as the repair isn't due to customer negligence. They could mandate having a serviceability score label on electronics, just like the energy star rating or nutritional information label. They could require that manuals and parts are available to third party repair shops, without discriminatory pricing and availability. The list goes on. It's not unlike fuel efficiency and clean air mandates. Once all the manufacturers had to abide by the same rules, unsurprisingly, fleet efficiency and air quality improved.

supernova87a 6y ago

I'm debating a lot whether to reply in this thread, because I hesitate if it's worth my time only to be downvoted by people who use that function to express disapproval with legitimate opinions. I don't work for any of the device manufacturers, but I put myself in their place to think about why I would object. Maybe you should too as you debate over this. It's possible that a certain class of things in modern life are not repairable in the way that they used to be. Things have generally been repairable because their size, complexity, and more importantly, their connectedness related to function is able to operate at the size of a person's hands. Your lawn mower, your car, your refrigerator. These are the things that are self-contained and you can see the parts and handle them competently. Those are the kinds of examples he gives. He doesn't talk about trying to resolder the memory controller on a hard drive. Yet even hard drives have been around for 20 years, and no one talks about how they should be able to self-repair those. Your cellphone is getting farther and farther away even from that. Its parts are microscopic. It takes an advanced factory to put those things together, and you demand at the same time that it be small and light and have good battery life. It relies on communicating with other hardware that are upgrading all the time. You don't play networked Doom II on your old computer for a reason. Do you use a 10 year old cell phone? How many of your friends do? People every day are giving companies the signal that they value new and cool and small and light over the ability to repair and keep hardware around for a decade. Those tiny earbuds are selling like hotcakes. They're impossible to fix, yet people buy them. With your purchasing choices, you are signaling what companies are incentivized to make. Yet at the same time, you wish to tell the companies not to make those things in that way. Are they compatible? I mean, have you really thought about what would result if you imposed requirements that batteries be interchangeable now? If those earbuds had to be maintainable by the user? Would they exist in anywhere near the form they do? I think you have to think about the unintended side effects of what you want, and not just imagine that the one thing you want is all that happens. Very few people who advocate for this stuff seem to be responsible for designing the hardware, which makes you think whether they're completely right.

duck2 6y ago
Most sane right-to-repair advocates don't oppose microscopic parts or glued batteries. They oppose deliberate measures against repair, such as: - Parts which are produced by a third party who signed a contract with the manufacturer to not sell the part to other people. So you cannot find whatever $2 power management unit in your phone's main board even if you are willing to use complex equipment to replace it. - Parts which "marry" their devices and refuse to work when you plug them into another device. This kind of behavior actively fights against you repairing the device. I find it unacceptable.

nemosaltat 6y ago

“Eat it up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without.” Growing up in a poor (and large) family, we lived by those words and I’ve carried the mentality into adulthood. Of course there’s always a trade-off, but everyone should have the change to experience the joy of bringing something “broken” back to life.