This year I've really doubled-down on my repair hobby. I've been volunteering at a local repair cafe sharing my abilities to help others and raising money for the Men's Shed that runs it. It's a monthly event and gives me a couple of hours to take some time out and generate some goodwill, which has been great for my mental health. It's also a nice way to meet new people and my specific set of skills has proven in high demand so I usually show up to a queue of things waiting for me.
Laptop with Broken Screen Hinge
A young lad dropped off his old laptop with a badly broken screen hinge. This was my first repair cafe customer so I wanted to give it a go although I didn't rate my chances. I took the whole thing apart finding all the 10 or so screws that held the hinge to the screen were broken clean off. I attempted a repair using gorilla epoxy but it was never going to hold and it didn't survive testing later on. I had to admit defeat and recommend buying a new laptop. It wasn't a good start but in hindsight the success rate is probably about ~70% so I don't feel too bad about it.
iPad Without Power
A repair cafe visitor left this as a last-ditch attempt before throwing it in the bin. I'm not very familiar with iPads but the lightning port looked suspect and I couldn't get a cable to sit securely in it. With a bit of probing I pulled out the tip of a broken lightning cable and after that it was just needing a full charge!
Pyrography Iron Not Getting Hot Enough
This repair cafe customer made art using this iron and it wasn't getting hot enough. I Confirmed this with testing then looked at the iron tip. I took it apart and tested voltage and resistance which appeared normal according to the Internet (I'd no idea what to expect but they are apparently low voltage but high current tips). After reassembly it worked much better so was probably a poor or oxidised connection that just needed reseating.
LG Blu-Ray Writer That Won't Read Discs
Purchased on Vinted for £6 delivered as a broken drive I intended to repair except that when it arrived I found it worked flawlessly.
Honor X8b Tablet That Won't Boot Fully
This was a repair purchase, I was hoping for an easy fix by resetting the battery but on receipt it was much more complicated as I found the battery installed was actually fully charged. After the tear down the screen was also broken so I sold it on as a part donor. The buyer I understand has been able to get something working from it so I feel good about that although I did lose a bit of money on this deal but so it goes.
In hindsight I'll probably avoid this kind of repair in future as tablets are even harder to disassemble than I remember them being, I'll just leave these to the specialists.
Laptop with Locked BIOS
An old boy brought in his laptop which he'd received back from a computer shop still not working. He claimed they wiped windows from it and now it was asking for a password. The password was the UEFI security lock and it wouldn't boot without it. I researched any potential bypasses and tried a few without any luck, eventually I had to admit defeat on this one.
There was something suspicious about the owners story though and it sounded like he was exploited by the PC shop who may have returned the laptop to him in that state intentionally.
The Most Blocked Vacuum I Ever Saw
A lady brought her Shark vacuum in, a model I see often at the repair cafes. It worked from handheld mode but didn't pick anything up from the floor. The roller was spinning so the first thing I did was remove the foot using the button to which she was gobsmacked because she didn't realise it came apart there.
Inside was completely clogged up, I ended up utilising 3 different tools of increasing length to clear out the debris before we tested it again and it was fully working. She was very pleased about this one and a little embarrassed but I reassured her it wasn't the most obvious repair I'd seen thus far.
Electric Drying Rack with Damaged Mains Cable
An electric drying rack was left for repair which had a damaged power cable. It was stretched too far and the live wire was completely severed. The repair was quite simple, I removed the cable and cut off the damaged part then reconnected the remaining flex cable. I needed some spade connectors for this one though which I didn't take to the repair cafe with me and so I offered to take it home where I did have the correct spare parts. I repaired it that afternoon and returned it to the owner during the week.
Moulinex Aspirateur no.1 with a Broken Switch
This is a vintage handheld vacuum which the owner had bought apparently broken and wanted to see if it could be repaired. The main rocker switch would not budge and replacing it wouldn't be an option so I removed it from the body and pried it apart.
Inside was a small copper contact that pivoted in the middle onto a terminal and it seems like the plastic switch has a stem that was sliding off the contact and getting stuck. After some experimentation I was able to bend the contact in a way that the stem didn't slide off and the switch started working again. During this repair a solder joint came apart so again I took this one home with me and repaired the connection and returned it a few days later to a very pleased owner.
Vintage Premium Laptop
This is a recent Vinted score but I'll just tease it here and leave it for the topic of another post coming up...