State of repairs...

[Uncle Bulgaria]

My mother was just making masks and her 1960s sewing machine, given as a 21st birthday present, started running at full pelt without the pedal depressed. In the time it took her to make a cup of tea, I had the pedal apart, found the original snubber capacitor had failed short, replaced it and had it running.

It got me thinking that, for most people, that would be a reason to put the machine on Freecycle or throw it away because there is so little awareness of repair techniques or, in modern equipment, no possibility to dismantle something because of manufacturing methods.

What a sad thought! Can't basic troubleshooting and generally applicable fault-finding be taught in schools?

[GrimJosef]

You've hit the nail on the head when you say that much modern domestic equipment isn't designed to be repaired. So people need repair skills much less often than they once did. Schools are busy places and persuading them to ditch the things they do teach to make room for things which people rarely need wouldn't be easy. Once upon a time every boy scout, and quite a few girls too no doubt, knew how to get a stone out of a horse's hoof.

EDIT: To be fair, there are 'repair cafes' where people who have general repair skills will have a go at fixing kit for the inexperienced. So the ability to put at least some stuff back into service hasn't disappeared altogether.

Cheers,

GJ

[turretslug]

I'm sure that the notorious Rifas must be responsible for many tons of landfill- to the uninformed, the typical loud pop and spectacular amount of smoke must be quite alarming and you can certainly understand that many folk would be mistrustful of any appliance so afflicted. 'Tis folly to be wise and all that. It's a cliche, but many things really aren't made like they used to be and that '60s sewing machine obviously had sentimental as well as practical value.

I do think that the blame and litigation culture makes the fault-finding and troubleshooting training idea unlikely, though- it only takes one short-cutting cowboy and a high-profile consequence to put the mockers on that sort of thing for everyone else.

[Hartley118]

Time, surely, for someone to start producing capacitors that do the job of a Rifa suppressor but actually last as well as a modern polyester capacitor.

I wonder how many designers throw in Rifa capacitors out of habit that they’re assumed to be necessary in order to conform to EMC specs. Their practical reliability is really pretty disgraceful. Fortunately, once the Rifa has released its magic smoke, it can be ignored and life can carry on as before.

Martin

[AC/HL]

The level of affluence we've attained in recent years, the reducing cost of ever more featured goods, and the dearth of the high street repair shops are the proverbial perfect storm. Like most of our members I can turn my hand to most things, but it's not like that in wider society. Arguably many like us are members of this and similar practical forums, we see things differently.

[paulsherwin]

Classic electric sewing machine fault in any machine built before about 1970. The suppression caps in my 1934 Singer pedal lasted until 2013 before failing like this, not bad going.

I wouldn't want somebody completely clueless to try to fix a sewing machine pedal though

I've also been using mine to make a few masks

[Ed_Dinning]

Sadly, many children do not have access to a father's, or grandfather's shed these days where they can learn how not to smack a thumb when driving a nail in or the gentle art of taking things to bits.
It has been going on for at least a generation; I remember taking my son (7 at the time) to the motorists discount store to get some paint for a bike he was building and some of the old boys there were surprised to see him doing something so constructive.
He is making sure his son (now 4) is being shown all these techniques. We bought him his own hammer a year ago and he is now proficient at nailing.
The Meccano set awaits and he is fully proficient in Lego as well as stripping down and rebuilding a model car he was bought (designed for this to be done).

It is up to Forum members to train all their relatives (male and female) in these things.
My daughter taught her husband how to do oil changes on his car.

I am a member of a professional engineers group who try to encourage children into Engineering as a career (as does the IET) and we are often pleasantly surprised at the insight some of these children have. It compensates for all those who have extended thumbs.

It looks as if there will always be a limited supply of Engineers, but that leaves plenty of good, interesting jobs for those of us who can do these things.

Ed

[Uncle Bulgaria]

Originally Posted by turretslug

I'm sure that the notorious Rifas must be responsible for many tons of landfill

It wasn't a RIFA - a 'YDK' or 'CP-C Japan'! I was intrigued that it was an 'X', as it's between the switch contacts (separated by the carbon piles) so when it fails short it's as if the pedal is full on. I would have thought a better option would have been to have it fail open.

It's certainly rare among my generation that people have the confidence to dismantle something. I suppose the rise of objects that have no visible fixings, and are presented as a gesamtkunstwerk (I'm looking at you, Apple!) means that the idea that they had any humans involved in their preparation at all is alien. Therefore, the idea that you as an individual at your kitchen table could possibly attempt to bring it back to life is quite a leap of faith.

Luckily, my brothers and I played with my grandparents' ancient Meccano (with the parts to make rotary engined aeroplanes!) and often 'took things apart' with my grandfather, like HDDs or printers, which certainly made the idea of 'looking under the bonnet' rather less of a scary thought. His welder he built inside a packing case to repair his Riley 9 is still in the garage - I just cannot imagine that sort of thing happening today, as it's just not worth it because of the artificial cheapness of such machines based on horrendous environmental and human rights damage in the Far East. Some of the magazines I see clippings of on this site have instructions on 'things a boy can do' which many members reminisce about doing, such as making radios and valve equipment as young teenagers. I don't think any of that goes on now as it's considered far too dangerous.

I might not know the theory as well as I should, but a certain amount of bloodymindedness helps (this broke and I'm not going to chuck it because if someone made it someone can fix it...grumble grumble). I'm sure a bit of general knowledge about oiling bearings, spotting blown components, identifying capacitors and resistors and so on could be integrated into school physics or design (if you're lucky enough to have a workshop any more...).

[Joe_Lorenz]

Hello,

over here in Germany I see that part of the problem is that teachers are no engineers. They learn a lot of skills in teaching and mostly know their subjects well. But, honestly, does anyone know a teacher who would be able to exchange a shock absorber in a washing machine or replace an x-capacitor in a power supply? Beware, not over here. The vast majority of these folks would be suicide-prone if they put their fingers in something electrical.
I have many teachers in my family ...
So how can we dare to think of children learning a positive attitude towards "I will fix it all" skills in school? What we need are school subjects like "Fixing machines and appliances" and "Doing your income tax declaration" and "Buying or building a house" in my opinion.

Regards, Joe

[high_vacuum_house]

I repaired a Halfords combined blower and tyre air compressor that I found sitting next to a dustbin in Rugby last Sunday. It had an obvious fractured solder joint in the plug where someone had pulled the cable and not the plug and all of 5 minutes unscrewing the back of the plug and a simple resoldering job and it was away fully working. A shame that it could have been dumped in landfill for such a simple repair.

Christopher Capener

[mark_in_manc]

(Slightly tangential - but my 15 year old daughter is so used to me - and sometimes her - going through skips and finding useful materials, that she asked me seriously the other day 'Dad - do people _buy_ wood?' )

[dave walsh]

Very well said Joe. A great example Christopher. Was that the daughter with the Cello or the Saxaphone [maybe violin] Mark? I can't remember from the time I called round with my brother to collect a Ferrograph Tape Recorder My daughter had some very bright and hot lights on a trendy stainless steel fitting in her low ceiling room but she continually left them on, even in sweltering summer I moved them to the top of our tall kitchen were this is not an issue. It also heats the place in winter and we still have a box of 35 watt lights to use up, plus the kitchen lights won't be on all the time in the same way! The next day we walked past a skip from which she rapidly extracted a redundant simple bowl fitting which matched her decorating scheme perfectly. I replaced the missing mount with a couple of Meccano pieces and fitted a low energy 100 [really 28] watt bulb. Job done

Dave

[rontech]

Originally Posted by Ed_Dinning

Sadly, many children do not have access to a father's, or grandfather's shed these days where they can learn how not to smack a thumb when driving a nail in or the gentle art of taking things to bits.
It has been going on for at least a generation; I remember taking my son (7 at the time) to the motorists discount store to get some paint for a bike he was building and some of the old boys there were surprised to see him doing something so constructive.
He is making sure his son (now 4) is being shown all these techniques. We bought him his own hammer a year ago and he is now proficient at nailing.
The Meccano set awaits and he is fully proficient in Lego as well as stripping down and rebuilding a model car he was bought (designed for this to be done).

It is up to Forum members to train all their relatives (male and female) in these things.
My daughter taught her husband how to do oil changes on his car.

I am a member of a professional engineers group who try to encourage children into Engineering as a career (as does the IET) and we are often pleasantly surprised at the insight some of these children have. It compensates for all those who have extended thumbs.

It looks as if there will always be a limited supply of Engineers, but that leaves plenty of good, interesting jobs for those of us who can do these things.

Ed

Can you still get Meccano sets?

I started in about 1945 with some second hand bits and a 20 volt Meccano motor my dad brought home from somewhere. Became major interest for the next 10 yrs.

[slidertogrid]

My Mate is always finding stuff in skips, sometimes almost new. He found one of those expensive toasters not so long ago still a current model, Nothing wrong with it, just needing a clean.
Another was fairly new Dyson ball cleaner blocked with a sock.
Another prize was a washing machine from one of my neighbours it was immaculate still with the barcode sticker on it. My neighbour had put it out for the scrap collectors .
When I asked her why she was dumping such a new machine she said it needed a circuit board and the manufacture's engineer had quoted silly money.
Apparently the 5 year guarantee covered parts or labour but not both, (I can't remember which way round it was) she said they had bought another make and would never buy that brand again... It was a famous maker with a site in Peterborough...
I rang my mate who fetched the machine, I suggested we had a quick look to see if we could get a second hand board on ebay, thinking it was a micro processor fault or something.
When we took the front off we found it was fitted with a small plastic on off switch which didn't look man enough for the job to be honest.. With a massive dry joint on one of the pins . I re-soldered all four pins and the mounting pins which were fractured and away it went.
I suppose the factory engineer wasn't allowed to repair panels at component level for liability reasons?
The problem is that everything is made so cheaply these days with virtually no backup, factories are churning out new product and most people want the latest item cheap and NOW!
So the waste just builds and builds...

[Cobaltblue]

Maybe this is a generation thing (hopefully not).

I am often to be found after work or at lunch time using the re-work station repairing some bit of modern tech be it smartphones pcb's from domestic equipment or replacing the batteries in our electric tooth brushes.

I was recently found repairing LED touch dimmers I found in the Weee waste despite the fact new ones are only around £3 each (from China)

I'm not the only one, many of my peers do exactly the same

The younger (20 to 30 age group) seem amazed we do this they feel its "not worth the time". I point out that its not just economics it's about reducing waste. It's not that they are not capable they have the skills they design, they fault find and repair prototypes and pre-production equipment.

It's been said many times on this forum there needs to be a change in attitude if waste is to be reduced but for businesses to survive they have to push the next shiny thing.

Something going wrong is validation that it's time for an upgrade!

Difficult to know where the right balance lies

Cheers

Mike T

[turretslug]

Originally Posted by Cobaltblue

I am often to be found after work or at lunch time using the re-work station repairing some bit of modern tech be it smartphones pcb's from domestic equipment or replacing the batteries in our electric tooth brushes.

I was recently found repairing LED touch dimmers I found in the Weee waste despite the fact new ones are only around £3 each (from China)

That strikes a chord with me- and I very much concur with the whole of Mike's post. One place where I sometimes work often yields good bin-pickings- one time I found an immaculate HP wired optical USB mouse whose lead had been roughly guillotined about a foot from mouse end, victim of a business-premises fire-tight door or somesuch. Fully aware that such things are available new from t'auction site for maybe £3 or £4 delivered, I nonetheless felt it morally wrong for it to be discarded, and re-connected what was an over-long lead anyway. It's been used everyday for years now. The conventional argument of "uneconomic to repair" strikes me as lazy, narrow-minded and unimaginative- especially with the current emphasis on the disaster of ubiquitous plastics pollution. No-one seems to figure in "ing up the planet" in the business-case equation- yet it comes home to roost on all of us in the end.

Colin

[Peter.N.]

It's a lot to do with wealth. When I started in the trade in the '50s pretty well everything was repairable, Irons, toasters, vacuum cleaners and the like were part of our bread and butter. Not so now, these items are relatively cheap to replace and its often cheaper to do that than repair, largely due to labour costs.

I still repair anything I can, I recently bought a new washing machine after having repaired our probably 20 year old one a couple of times, this time it was an electronic fault, panels not available and likely not components either.

I bought a new toaster a couple of years ago which didn't work, I got a free replacement and was told to keep the old one. On dismantling it I found an apparently welded busbar had broken off, I repaired it with the metal part of a chocolate block connector - we now have a spare toaster.

I repair anything I can including the cars - can't afford to do otherwise.

Peter

[Restoration73]

Re #9; Sorry Joe, but speaking as a qualified engineer and teacher of vocational skills it
is government and society that dictate what is taught in schools and colleges. Schools
are very risk averse (a screwdriver is dangerous in unskilled hands) although some
in the independent sector do have maker workshops, amateur radio clubs etc.
My local university ended it's B.Eng/HND Electronics degree in 2001. The UK Electronics Engineering Board (EEB) overseeing training and exams ceased in 2004. 'Nuff said.

[Beardyman]

Where I work there is a great emphasis on repair if possible. We manufacture underwater ROV's so its a bit of a harsh environment, regardless, the companys ethos is if the repair (with labour) costs less than 70% of the cost of a new one then we repair it. What ends up in the scrap bins is minimal & usually way beyond redemption, truly scrap. Other workmates bring things in for us to "have a quick look when you have time", usually we can fix it easily. We've seen a vast array of items from digital clocks to guitar amps! When one of the managers heard there was someone who could repair valve kit he brought in his Dad's Sobell 511 (I think, was a while ago), it took a couple of weeks in tea breaks/ lunchtimes etc. to get it up & running again. Mainly duff caps, poor contacts, dirt & dust. He & his Dad were delighted, now he can't do enough for us! Benefits all round. I was taught from an early age how to us tools by my Father who was always quick to point out that he was a fitter, not an engineer but if its worked before it can work again. I've rebuilt engines, wired entire houses, built kit I can't buy or afford to! As others have said, most modern equipment is not designed for repair, so long as it makes it out of its warranty then all good as far as the manufacturer is concerned, or so it would seem.

[Ted Kendall]

Young son is quite a useful Karter and keeps his chops in shape between events with software and a wheel/pedal set. There are basically three makes for these - two at the reasonable price level which work OK until the ghastly plastic bearing mount breaks, and the other, which the well-heeled use and is by common consent near bullet-proof. When said ghastly bit of plastic breaks an otherwise sound wheel is scrap because the manufacturers (Swiss company, Chinese production) don't do spares. Period. Given the number of armchair Lewis Hamiltons out there, the amount of plastic waste must be mind-boggling.