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 !
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sennheiser sells lots of replacement parts for their headphones. In fact, it looks like I could nearly rebuild my entire pair of headphones from their spare parts:
Assos (cycling clothes) are good at repairing too. They not only last long, but they offer repair services.
Had a crash wearing 5 year bibs. Emailed them just in case.. Long story short, I had to pay for shipping one way only. Came back a week later, good as new.
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.
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.
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.
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?)
A lot of specialised tools can be replaced by elbow grease and ingenuity. In fact, that's half the fun and victory if you manage to fix something. Usually a set of appropriately sized screwdrivers and various pliers is all you need.
> If I open it, I am afraid I won't be able to put it back together.
That happens, but: the thing was broken anyway, and, now it's twice broken and disassembled, so you can throw it away in good conscience, hopefully having figured out how to approach it correctly the next time, so it's not even a waste of time.
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.
Tools generally don't depreciate very much. You can resell them years later and still get most of your money back. With inflation as bad as it is you might even sell them for more than you bought them. A garage full of tools is like gold in a vault, except this gold is useful.
You might be interested in seeing if you have a local Tool Library. They allow their patrons to borrow tools for a membership fee. A quick Google search shows quite a few in NYC.
Personally, I don't find it all that bad. The digitizer on our tablet our tablet crapped out a few months back. I found a YouTube video on how to replace it. The tools cost like $7 off of Amazon and the digitizer was about $20. A few minutes of fooling around and viola working touchscreen again. Overtime basic electronics tools are very cheap.
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.
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.
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 :/
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.
empirically, no. people are absolutely not efficient about this. its because they dont know that there are tons of things that are 5 minutes on youtube and a screwdriver away from being fixed. that is the culture that you might call "throwaway culture". if our culture changed and everyone knew about how to fix stuff, and how to go about learning how to fix stuff, they would all do it. to me you sound silly because i have dozens of real life counter examples that undermine your claim. im not exaggerating, there are countless "broken" things that you can repair by googling for 2 minutes, buying the replacement part on amazon or ebay, and then using a screwdriver to install in 1 minute.
This is more about ecology than economy. But anyway, too many people think "meh, might as well buy a new one" and throw away something that could've been easily fixed for a fraction of the cost.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Yes. As others said, it could be a mechanical fuse. However, engineered obsolescence is a real possibility. A friend of mine had a product manufactured in China. He said the factory he partnered with asked him straight-up "Where do you want the weak part? When do you want it to break?" So, I guess it is pretty standard practice to do this (admitted anecdote here, but still)
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.)
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.
[+] [-] Faaak|8 years ago|reply
- 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 !
[+] [-] diego_moita|8 years ago|reply
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/
[1] https://www.baratza.com/product-category/parts/
[2] https://www.baratza.com/troubleshooting/
[+] [-] biztos|8 years ago|reply
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/
[1]: http://www.celebiaviation.com/en/yazi.php?id=75
[+] [-] dorian-graph|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.nudiejeans.com/ [2] https://www.nudiejeans.com/blog/28-friday-january-25-2013
[+] [-] cangencer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redsparrow|8 years ago|reply
https://spares.sennheiser.co.uk/search?q=hd+280
[+] [-] mantas|8 years ago|reply
Had a crash wearing 5 year bibs. Emailed them just in case.. Long story short, I had to pay for shipping one way only. Came back a week later, good as new.
[+] [-] lorenzsell|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mulmen|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] warmcat|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigsmansion|8 years ago|reply
> If I open it, I am afraid I won't be able to put it back together.
That happens, but: the thing was broken anyway, and, now it's twice broken and disassembled, so you can throw it away in good conscience, hopefully having figured out how to approach it correctly the next time, so it's not even a waste of time.
[+] [-] sanderjd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] remir|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarfy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhavas33|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flogic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snarfy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 97s|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] denysonique|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] the_cat_kittles|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jotm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fvdessen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
Incidentally both attract the same kind.
[+] [-] fanzhang|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Lunatic666|8 years ago|reply
Is it normal these days to put in breaking points to artificially shorten the life of appliances or does this have a purpose?
[+] [-] sevensor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klunger|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KamiCrit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] voxadam|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimnotgym|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] beefsack|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shoo|8 years ago|reply
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].
[1] - https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Climate-Change/Documents/GEM%20...[2] - 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/wee...
[4] - http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&plugin=1...
[+] [-] 0xdeafcafe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kqr|8 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] sigstoat|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] userbinator|8 years ago|reply
geekhack.org has a forum full of keyboard enthusiasts that might know better.
[+] [-] crispyambulance|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pasbesoin|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
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
[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
The lining I installed afterwards is still holding up, 5 years later.
[+] [-] natch|8 years ago|reply
Here’s one such organization that holds them on a quarterly basis, for anyone interested:
http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org
[+] [-] alant|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
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|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fjsolwmv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kashyapc|8 years ago|reply
[+] https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/Eraser-holder-turned-openi...
[+] [-] otterpro|8 years ago|reply
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.