Repair Café

https://repaircafe.org/en/

by fredley • 8 years ago

227 65 8 years ago

repaircafe.org

Gys3• 8 years ago

Its a pity to hear the International Repair Café Week ended exactly today.

fredley2• 8 years ago

I posted it a few days ago, it only just got reupped unfortunately!

Gys3• 8 years ago

Next year maybe post it in the week before and with a direct link to the repair week (2019) instead of the more general repaircafe.org

It seems there is growing sentiment for keeping hardware repairable (while manufacturers more and more want to prevent that). Part of HN will certainly appreciate this initiative.

mrzool2• 8 years ago

There are several of these repair cafes around town where I live. My old Braun blender from the 70s that I got from my grandma got repaired in one of these. I sent an email with brand, model and photo when I registered, the guy got some spare parts on eBay just in time for the day and I managed to repair the blender under the guy’s guidance. Paid for the spare part (5 bucks) plus left 10 bucks as small donation. My blender is as good as new. Overall a great experience, would recommend.

technics256• 8 years ago

Where abouts do you live? Germany?

mrzool2• 8 years ago

Berlin, Germany.

LaundroMat• 8 years ago

Same here. I live in a small village near Ghent, Belgium and the monthly repair café consistently gets a reasonable number of visitors.

stmw• 8 years ago

There needs to be more of these around! Among other things, it helps for people to keep in touch with how things work.

zhrvoj2• 8 years ago

This bad as it can be. While everybody charges for everything, for thin air, repairs should be free...yeah..and repairman should donate their money they didn't earn to the other people.

lavayya• 8 years ago

I go to the local repair cafe about every other month. Almost everything people bring would othersise be thrown out and replaced by a new item, not repaired by a professiinal repairman. The people "working" there do so because repairing is fun for them, they like the puzzles, and they mostly do it for ecological reasons.

I go with my son, who loves seeing what electronics look like on the inside and how they work. We always bring a large cake as a thank you.

known• 8 years ago

Competing with https://www.amazon.com/services ?

adetrest• 8 years ago

How?

holidaygoose2• 8 years ago

I don't understand how this works, so maybe someone can enlighten me. You pay 50 euro in exchange for some banners/logos to start a repair cafe, but they don't help you repair? I would have thought the starter kit would have supplies or something. What would you do when someone comes in with a toaster to repair? Do you just go on Youtube to figure it out together?

lbriner2• 8 years ago

You need to already have or find a network of "experts" to staff the cafe but there are loads of people out there. You can schedule different sorts of repairs on different days but a lot of electrical goods only require some basic faulting-finding and then spares from the internet.

holidaygoose2• 8 years ago

I see. So then this Repair Cafe is basically a branding/marketing tool, so that you can some traffic via people who see their website.

fredley2• 8 years ago

You don't get supplies, you do get tools though. I think item owners are expected to pay for parts. And yes, to start out with maybe you are sitting down with YouTube and figuring out, but over time people will get more experienced.

send you a unique code with which you can order the highly ingenious Repair Café toolkit[1] from iFixit Europe for free, only paying shipping costs (normal price: € 74,95 + shipping costs)

The €50 is buying you (apart from your €75 toolkit) membership, so you get a head start on connections and visibility compared to going it alone.

1: https://repaircafe.org/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03...

justtopost• 8 years ago

How is this anything but unnessary branding? Am I missing something, the website is all marketing, no message, no repair tech.

peterwwillis• 8 years ago

The front page layout sucks, but click the Menu button at top right and you'll find the content.

justifier6• 8 years ago

i've fantasised about something like this before

my neighbors are consistently throwing away perfectly fine electronics where 90% of the problems are a blown electrolytic capacitor

there is a place in our apartment complex where we place electronic rubbish and just two days ago i noticed a tablet with a destroyed screen

i popped it open and everything inside looked pristine so i bought a new screen for some ~20$ and am now waiting on it to arrive

i've fixed a toaster oven with a busted resistor, 50in plasma tv with a blown capacitor i now use as a monitor for my laptop when working at home, a blender with a broken container and blown capacitor.. an older blender model that actually has a standard thread size so i am able to use mason jars as a, what i think is superior, container

i think repair should be taught in schools, a la 'home ec', educationally its a three`for : repair, basic ee, basic applied maths

when i was living in squats in london part of the squat culture was to slowly accrue enough bike parts in the hope that you could one day open your squat doors as a bike repair cafe

i have thought quite often something similar for basic everyday electronics would be great for educational and environmental concerns

there is so much unneccessary eWaste, even if something is beyond simple component swap repair it can itself be used to source parts for other fixable devices

the idea that we toss away a salvageable device, or even its sometimes hundreds of functioning discreet components, because of a single blown capacitor, frayed wire or dislodged headphone jack is upsetting

chrisseaton6• 8 years ago

there is a place in our apartment complex where we place electronic rubbish and just two days ago i noticed a tablet with a destroyed screen ... i popped it open and everything inside looked pristine so i bought a new screen for some ~20$ and am now waiting on it to arrive

Note that taking someone's rubbish without permission is considered theft in the UK (there is precedent). If you sell it it's even worse because it's handling stolen goods.

mannanj• 8 years ago

So it's theft unless the trash companies do it? Essentially sounds like unless you're a company, i.e. you're doing this personally, you are stealing (unless of course people pay you as a company to steal their stuff).

jjeaff• 8 years ago

In the US, it is legal to take garbage. And there is precedent for that as well. Although there can be trespassing issues if you don't have permission to be there. (like digging through a private dumpster at a business).

nyolfen• 8 years ago

oi mate where's ya rubbish licence

justifier6• 8 years ago

ha! depressing

though i doubt the people i was living with who would break into abandoned buildings to establish residence are all that too concerned with your rubbish 'theft' precedent

the tablet salvage was in the states and unfortunately i'd be unsurprised if there are equally uncharitable precedent here as well

.. as an aside, i would be interested in reading your referenced precedent, i agree going through someone's bin to get personal info or to file false credit card offers on their behalf should be illegal, but i'd be interested to read the ruling if it is literally a broken electronics salvage

briandear2• 8 years ago

Squatting in a residential building is also illegal: https://www.gov.uk/squatting-law

agumonkey• 8 years ago

What I don't get is that the trend is increasing. Every Month i Can find vast amount of things.

aasasd• 8 years ago

Meanwhile, in Russia the repair culture never went away, for obvious reasons. It's inconceivable here that people would just throw away all broken things without attempting to fix them. Repair shops are everywhere―there are even more for phones and laptops now than for other stuff.

QML• 8 years ago

Is most of consumer hardware built on top of open source or on proprietary tools? I would love to see a movement where companies build products and then give away implementation details, but the cynic in me says repair costs is the analog of advertising revenue for these companies.

dbalatero• 8 years ago

A lot of analog synths from the 70s and 80s have full service manuals with complete circuit schematics, so repair is actually very doable. People even clone old hardware from tracing these circuits and laying them out on new modern pcbs.

fraudsyndrome• 8 years ago

This is something I'd love to do except it sounds like you said, it requires some basic knowledge of EE etc. Maybe the basics isn't too hard but with the vast diversity of different types of electronics - it troubles me just thinking about troubleshooting what of the 100s of internal parts could be the issue.

I've done my own repairs for phone screens/boot loop issues etc. but they were considered super easy because they were popular phones (galaxy/iphone) and as such, guides were plentiful on youtube. I can't imagine similar resources would be available for, say, a random branded tv or a blender.

Screen fixes are super easy for phones as it's usually a take apart and replace the cables and put back in deal. Anything remotely difficult was fixing a bootloop issue on a galaxy s4 which required a multimeter to confirm the issue and a soldering iron but again, a guide on the exact issue told me exactly what to do.

justifier6• 8 years ago

i hear you

electricity should be treated with respect

but i made a point to emphasise that the majority of problems are blown capacitors

this is a prevalent problem(o) that is easy to diagnose and easy to fix

for the listed examples my only diagnostic tool was my eyes, when a capacitor blows you can tell.. that is it looks like it failed in some way

to replace it you have to desolder two connections and solder in a replacement

the capacitors usually give you all of the information you need right on them: capacitance, rated voltage, positive and negative lead; so without needing to know what those things are or why they are important finding a replacement is straight forward and replacing is plug and play, with a bit of solder, if you keep track of how the original was oriented

but like all things it takes time to get comfortable and you get better with more exposure, which is why i emphasised a desire for basic ee to be a part of early education

first time i worked on a car myself i was driving on the highway and my car just stopped, roadside said it'd take 2 hours to get to me, i was unfamiliar with car mechanics but i thought 'i'll just look at it and see if i can see what's wrong, maybe i can fix it', i popped the hood and looked at the engine, it a took a minute to suss it out but when i found the problem it was glaring, the air intake for the engine had popped off, the screw band had rusted and failed, i just pushed the tubing back on the intake pipe, used a dime to screw the rusted band on enough to get me to a hardware store to replace the screw band

i knew i'd be unable to disassemble the transmission on the side of the highway, the first time i opened a car hood, in less than 2 hours, but those expectations were too exaggerated, all i had to do was push a tube on a pipe

i think repair cafes are less about having an in house solution to all problems and more about having broad solutions to the problems that occur the most, and like a bike cafe it could be a hands on experience where there are people there who can help, showing you how to troubleshoot and repair

(o) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Jenz• 8 years ago

Shame it’s over D:

jacquesm3• 8 years ago

I have a little hobby: I will fix anything as long as whoever wants it fixed isn't going to push me on a delivery date, is willing to drop it off (or it is easily accessible without moving) and pick it up again when it is done. I only take in a small number of items at the time. It gives me a great excuse to keep tools around.

Last two weeks worth of projects: vintage synth, an 'unrepairable' mountain bike, a bed (that had been cut in half by someone to move it), a couch (that had lost its legs).

codezero• 8 years ago

Do you ever post your before and after projects with maybe some tips? I’d love to see that.

jacquesm3• 8 years ago

Hm, no, but I could. That's an interesting idea, thank you, I will use that.

briandear2• 8 years ago

I’d love to see the vintage synth!

selimthegrim• 8 years ago

Wonder if the CBC should have found any of them for their story: https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/complete-control-apple-a...

mcshicks• 8 years ago

I haven't been to one but (there was one yesterday close to where I live) but fixitclinic another option if there is no repair cafe close to you. I can't remember how I found it, but I was planning on try and check one out. It seems like pretty similar thing.

http://fixitclinic.blogspot.com/

bad_alloc• 8 years ago

I live in a small town in Germany and we have five of these in one year, with 20-30 devices coming in each time. We can fix most of them, even with fairly basic tools. Some observations:

* One of the worst things to repair are electric shavers. It feels like horology, but dirty.

* Sewing machines are suprisingly complex. The electrical issues are easy to fix, but the internal mechanical parts are really unfarmiliar.

* Outright hostile designs are rarely found in cheap products. The main problem is usually worn out platic threads or breaking clips.

* People almost never bring in smartphones or computers.

* Many visitors are very interested in what we are doing and often suprised how simple a repair can be.

baddash2• 8 years ago

Does anyone have a good idea of the environmental effects of reducing waste that this would cause? Or maybe just more generally the environmental effects?

justifier6• 8 years ago

a film called manufactured landscapes(o) completely shook me when i saw it in theatres when it was first released

the film addresses ewaste issues like the fact that a lot of electronics rely on toxic elements, but there is also the shear vastness of dumpsites

there is shot of a dump of motor armatures which could be argued to be one of the least likely failure points in consumer goods that use motors like washing machines, blenders, drills, et al

the film was even released in 2006, one year before smartphones become a cultural ubiquity

it is also wild to think that most of what is being documented is a result of manufacture happening only over the previous 50 or so years.. which is only 0.00025% of the hypothesised almost 200k year human history

it is a film 'documenting a photographer's technique' so retains an air of lacking bias but the subject matter is just so affecting that audience bias becomes seemingly inevitable

you could just as easily goog 'ewaste concerns' and find a myriad of issues but i highly recommend this film.. i was in awe from the opening sequence

(o) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_Landscapes

Regardsyjc• 8 years ago

Thank you for recommending this documentary. It was horrifying because the photography looked like a breathtaking scifi dystopia but it was real life. The woman who makes 400 gadgets at a factory a day, the laborer who makes 20-30 yuan ($3-4) a day...

The only positive thing was seeing women welding and operating heavy machinery. I've only seen women like that in ads and posters so it was refreshing to see badass women.

If anyone wants to check it out this documentary is available to watch for free on Amazon Prime.

baddash2• 8 years ago

thanks bud :D

andyidsinga• 8 years ago

apropos: the "will it run?" videos on the "mustie1" YouTube channel

acd• 8 years ago

I am starting to shift my perspective when buying things. New perspective, instead of the thing looking to buy should last approx 3 years I have the outlook it should last 10-40 years. Sometime that means buying a more initially expensive thing but since it will last longer it will be cheaper overall over its lifetime and have better build quality. What is good in the long run is also good for the environment. When having a repairability mindset when buying things that also sometime mean buying simpler things, I buy headphones without built in electronics since the electronics inside will fast become obsolete more than speaker elements.

Less waste less pollution Less bought stuff less co2 emissions and global warming.

Would love to have more modular devices more repairable devices

Do not want a wall-e future but a green one. Thanks to the repair cafes good movement!

oarfish• 8 years ago

How can headphones not have electronics inside them?

walrus01• 8 years ago

If you disassemble a basic set of wired headphones it is literally just a set of wires from the TRS or TRRS plug to a set of speakers.

subraizada3• 8 years ago

A speaker/headphone can produce sound with only the wire coming from your computer/phone, a magnet, and the cone. The electricity from the audio cable manipulates the magnetic field in the speaker, causing the cone to vibrate.

So while the audio cable is transmitting electricity into the headphones, it's just wrapped around a magnet instead of having other electric components.

This is a good graphic on them: https://animagraffs.com/loudspeaker/

A microphone is just the reverse: vibrations in the air move the cone and its attached magnet, which induces electrical current in the wire.

fernly• 8 years ago

At the linked site, click "Find a repair cafe" for a map of the many local ones. In particular for the SF Bay Area note Palo Alto and Mountain View ones. The Palo Alto cafe[1] is particularly active with quarterly events that are very well attended, processing over 100 repairs each time. The video on that page gives a good feel for a typical event. I've been a volunteer "fixer" there a couple of times and it's great fun if you have some basic repair skills.

[1] http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/

KiDD• 8 years ago

While I love the idea/concept, the logo is horrible...

Repair Café

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