A couple years ago my SO brought home a big air filter. Their office had thrown it away because it ‘’didn’t work’’. We plugged it in, turned it on, and it ran fine. We cleaned the filter and put it to work.
I have recently accidentally come into possession of a bunch of old lead acid batteries, ranging from a few months to several years without charging or maintenance. I could just get rid of them, but I would like to recondition and reuse them as additional power storage for my solar array, if possible. I have been looking at desulfator chargers online and I am planning on getting one and hooking it up to the batteries and just seeing what happens.
I was burning a cone incense and left it on the sink, and this stain won’t come off. I tried baking soda, water, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide. I tried letting them sit for multiple interations, and it made no difference.
Either the relay is broken or the thermostat. I know this because I could force the fridge to run by hotwiring 220V across the common and run pins then briefly jumping the start pin to the run pin (thus sending 220V through the start winding for a split second).
Fridge stopped running. Both freezer and fridge do not cool. The compressor is silent and cold. Light comes on when the door is opened, so power is getting to the light and thermostat assembly.
I’m trying to fix a broken washing machine for which I do not know the history. It simply had a note on it: “filter needs cleaning”. The cap to access the filter was jammed by a maxi pad that got tangled with the cap arms, which I was able to clear by removing the drain pump.
Repair cafes are great for getting appliances fixed. But I think they could improve from volunteers just doing the work to a more instructional format. It’s great that you can watch them work and ask questions. It’s almost a teachng experience in that regard, but teaching is merely incidental. The repairer probes around with the DMM¹ quickly because they want to get answers quickly. Understandably so, as there is usually a line of people waiting to get stuff repaired. They don’t generally have time to explain everything.
Unfortunately I have excessive battery drain in the left earbud of my Sony WF XM4 set. I really like these earbuds and I am going to at least try to fix them. Has anyone here done any thing like this before?
A washing machine is trapped in a fault state even though all the components function (AFAICT). The controller board has two ports:
* ISP (to attach an ISP programmer to flash new software)
* USART (4-pin serial port: 0v, TX, RX, 5v)
My washing machine is dying in stages. It started with the same symptoms as this thread. Specifically, after filling the tub for a wash cycle, it would go straight into a high-speed spin (full of water!) for a second or two (instead of the expected slow tumble), then quit. The speculation is that the tachometer is failing.
The linked video shows how to test a water valve to a washing machine. He starts by doing a continuity test on the valve and expects the circuit to be closed. He said an open circuit indicates a bad valve.
I cannot repair my washing machine without documentation. I have no idea how to use my multimeter to check the components. There are parts dealers for Beko in my area, but none of them have the service manual.
Batteries died. It was a puzzle to disassemble it. It was booby-trapped with fragile self-destructing mechanisms like hair-thin wires ready to snap wrapped around the battery which had welded tabs soldered to wires. Requires surgical delicacy but at the same time lots of force to pry 3 plastic clips simultaneously while pulling off an inner casing using 2 hands on a task that needs 4 hands. Had to buy rechargeable batteries with tabs welded on where the tabs were not oriented in the direction the device was designed for so in one joint I had to put the soldering iron directly on the battery terminal. The battery pair costed 1¼ big macs because tabbed nippleless batteries are not a competitive market and only sold at retail prices. A new toothbrush probably would have had the same price but then I would have been suckering into giving them what they want.
I had two basic farberware kitchen knives break in the same way. Both blades had the tang snap back inside the handle. Gluing it back in the grip didn't work, so I set them aside for a bit.
Once you get access to a laser cutter, you start to see all kinds of places you can use it in a project. Our local makerspace has one, and the more I use it, the more I find new applications, whether that’s in fabrication of flat parts, or just adding flair to smaller panels of a large project.
I have a LED lightbulb that starts to flicker. Is there anyway to fix it, or any parts of it that could be useful for other uses(i.e. diodes for use in electrical circuits)?
Step-by-step explanations how to fix a garment using Sashiko and Japanese techniques. This blog features two Sashiko techniques (one explained and one in a step-by-step video)
Arcade cabinets aren't very solarpunk. They were huge items, heavy particle board, plastic, metal and glass and electronics, meant to be used for a couple of years and thrown away. For most of the golden age of arcade gaming, cabs were a bespoke arrangement, each one designed custom for their specific game, so when a particular model failed to sell as well as anticipated, brand new units were often dumped in a landfill rather than repurposed.
For the last few years I've been keeping the parts of any tools or kitchen implements that break with the intent to fix them. We had a rubber scraper/rubber spatula that snapped where the plastic handle thinned to fit inside the rubber head. The actual spatula part was still good, so I turned a new handle for it.
This is a bit simpler than some projects, and I think it would fit https://slrpnk.net/c/zerowaste just as well, but I think it’s nice to show the chance to fix even simple tools that break. I’ve got a few kitchen tools (other knives and a broken rubber scraper) that I plan to fix next.
Sort of posting here with the odd hope of drawing some eyes to this space, and because, uh...I'd really be interested in if anyone that sees this may have insights into fixing up shoes and boots.
This was a more recent project. This lathe belonged to my brother’s girlfriend’s family. They were looking to get rid of it, and knew I had a workshop, so they offered it to me. (I accepted it sight unseen, as the description was vague enough that I honestly wasn’t sure if it was for wood or metal – worst case, I didn’t have a wood lathe yet, but you don’t pass up on the chance to get a metalworking lathe for free!)
When my phone abruptly died a year ago, I stumbled into the world of degoogling and alternative ROMs for android devices while researching my options. Due to a lack of devices to try it on (so far, I’ve used each phone until it completely gave out) I haven’t messed with this yet, but I love the concept and wanted to share it here. This is just scratching the surface of options, and some of you may have more experience here, just wanted to share a resource for eking more life from devices which are no longer receiving security updates.
Hi! I’m Jacob, it looks like I’m going to be taking over as mod for this community. It looks like the original intent was to celebrate/talk about repairing stuff/the right to repair stuff, and perhaps the intersection of tech and solarpunk ideals and how to mix them. I’m a big believer in using what we have, including technology, to try to build a better, more environmentally just world (never been one to let the perfect be the enemy of the good). I like fixing things and making them last long past any planned obsolescence or sane expectation of the lifespan of a product.
The event will consist of workshops and panels on regeneration and ReFi to foster the movement forward, and a hackathon to ideate and build SolarPunk tech in the Crypto Commons Hub!
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