I do board-level repairs on my own stuff (most recently replaced a shorted IC on a laptop motherboard) as it saves them from landfill and is an interesting debu

I do board-level repairs on my own stuff (most recently replaced a shorted IC on a laptop motherboard) as it saves them from landfill and is an interesting debugging exercise. It can take a lot of time and effort and complex repairs may not be worth it due to the chance for failure (I've destroyed PCB traces and chips) as well as the fact that some parts simply aren't cost-effective to replace. In the laptop example the many evenings spent reading datasheets and probing circuits definitely cost more than a replacement unit if I billed the hours per my engineer's salary. When I was a student friends and relatives would give me (nice) broken electronics that they were going to throw out anyways, and if I liked the item (e.g. an expensive camera that I couldn't afford) I would put a lot of effort into fixing it.