I had a VCR that I had to toss, many years ago, because some crappy little plastic gear had lost teeth. Replacing it would’ve cost almost as much as a new VCR. I could see someone with a 3D printer could build one without a lot of effort now.
The concept of these repair cafes are great. I’ve volunteered in a couple. But some of the things that people bring in… pair of 10$ flats that the sole has fully fallen of. The damn glue costs more than the shoes. A run of the mill blender from the 90s that just should be retired. Damn t shirts with holes. Please just use the shirt as a rag at this point.
Other things made sense. Laptop hinges, bikes, outdoor power equipment. Holes and buttons in jackets and sweaters.
What does pitching a zipper even mean?
A new euphemism for seeing a hot woman on the bus? “Man she really makes me pitch my zipper!”
Checks out
It’s an old racist term for when English sailors would throw an Asian person overboard. This came from old English doctrine that thought they brought jaundice, and this was the best solution. I’m just messing, this is all BS.
A computer shop once laughed in my mom’s face for asking if they’d repair her printer. The accepted practice is to just throw the whole thing out when you want new ink or it stops working.
Eventually she tracked down a guy in another town who fixed printers, and he fixed the printer (a bottle cap was jammed inside, in case you were wondering. He returned the bottle cap).
That was 20 years ago and things aren’t better.
Thinking now of the old SNL sketch where John Candy has a repair shop for fixing things most people throw away. Two women come in with a piece of toast they dropped that landed butter-side down on the rug. He decides to freeze it down in some liquid nitrogen and take off the fuzzy side with a belt-sander. Missin’ you, Johnny boy!
This reminds me that I just repaired my old Eastern bloc made speakers, a pair of Videoton DCR 2520A. The woofers have out-of-spec surrounds now since the now for real co-op (?) that bought the tools from Videoton during the robber-privatization worn out the tool needed to make the up-to-spec surrounds. They still had the tooling for the midrange speakers, and after some modification I could use some general purpose surrounds from Aliexpress.
Radical as fuck
I would love to do this. I’m great at changing out motorcycle tires and changing out brake pads, but I would love to learn how to solder or even diagnose bad diodes on a board.
It would be a great exchange of knowledge.
Know anyone that’s into gaming? Modding old consoles is a great way to get into diagnosing board problems and fixing the crap PCBs in small electronics is fantastic for learning to solder. Two weeks ago I didn’t know shit about the eldrich slab of charms and runes inside electronics. Last week I successfully tested two power units for a playstation 4 and correctly diagnosed that mine has died due to APU overheating. Took about 2 hours, two videos, and a $15 continuity tester.
Unfortunately, mine’s dead in the water until I find someone who can reball the APU for less than the cost of a new system. In the mean time, I’m doing a tear down and mod on my Xbox 360.
Be the exchange you wish to see!!!
I absolutely lament the enshitification of youtube. It used to be easy to find a video on how to fix nearly anything, but that’s bad for the algorithm, because then you turn the screen off and go about fixing the thing, as opposed to watching more videos :(
It seems these repair cafes are very popular these days. Even my village of 7000 has one.
First I’ve ever heard of it.
If I can’t fix something…instead of throwing it away, I save it to bludgeon the people responsible for creating something I can’t fix.
You better make sure I’m gone when you go into the bunker. I’m looking for air vents with company logos on them. I’ll have my deluxe HP ready, hung on a leather strap slung around my back.
…when “Squint” & “Cheesecurd” drag you from the depths of Mt. Florida, it’ll be me, “Ink Cartridge Empty” bringing the full weight of my HP2500XLRS down upon thine head!!!
“Anticonsumerist”… kinda a shocking/clickbait way to put it. I wouldn’t call myself an “anticonsumerist” just because I’m cheap, I don’t want to pollute the environment with more tech waste, and I expect the stuff I buy to last. I mean, these people bought it in the first place, right? Maybe just anti-disposable tech?
No they kick you in the shin and make slurs at you the entire time you are trying to fix your stuff. They really want you to feel bad about being a consumer.
I read this as “broken sphincter?” for some reason
