
Repair Café - fredley
https://repaircafe.org/en/
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bad_alloc
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.

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justifier
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

~~~
chrisseaton
> 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.

~~~
jjeaff
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).

~~~
lloydde
Is there an Internet law that says that for every reasonable rule there will
be one US jurisdiction where it doesn’t apply?

My understanding is that in almost all jurisdictions in USA possession end
when the trash is moved to the curb, put in public space. I remember reading
at some point that at least in some part of Texas possession is transferred
from the individual to the trash collection agency. This was interesting to me
from privacy/search warrant perspective.

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mrzool
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
Where abouts do you live? Germany?

~~~
mrzool
Berlin, Germany.

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

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

~~~
newnewpdro
You have a youtube channel in the making right there...

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holidaygoose
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?

~~~
lbriner
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.

~~~
holidaygoose
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.

~~~
pontifier
When I looked into having some of these events at our Makerspace a few years
ago, I found that the branding was very restrictive as well. My takaway was
that they demanded that you put their logo on everything you do and every
event you put on, even if it has nothing to do with them.

There's no way in hell I was going to agree to that.

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

~~~
zhrvoj
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
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.

~~~
zhrvoj
Do you still think this repairman shouldn't charge you or receive fair salary
for his work? My opinion is that Repair cafe is brought to you by big
companies trying to influence on independent service tech. For example, if you
have coding problem you cannot solve, you will probably hire some freelancer,
and you will be charged of course. Because that's what they do for living.
Even if you don't want to mill you own coffe (which should not be problem for
21st century man), you will pay to get ground coffee. I even saw artists
statement and it says like this: "I'm an artist, but this doesn't mean I'll
work for free." Why nobody expects from them to work for free because it's
fun? I don't mean people who decided by their own, to work something or
sometimes for free, but public initiative...?

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baddash
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?

~~~
justifier
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufactured_Landscapes)

~~~
Regardsyjc
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.

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mcshicks
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/](http://fixitclinic.blogspot.com/)

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acd
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
How can headphones not have electronics inside them?

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subraizada3
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/](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.

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fernly
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/](http://www.repaircafe-paloalto.org/)

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selimthegrim
Wonder if the CBC should have found any of them for their story:
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/complete-control-
apple-a...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/complete-control-apple-
accused-of-overpricing-restricting-device-repairs-1.4859099)

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

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

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Gys
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.

~~~
lbriner
I'm not sure the idea of manufacturers wanting things to fail is as reliable
as it sounds (it is a common assumption). Having worked in manufacturing, it
was generally a case of not wanting something to cost any more than it needed
to when competing with other companies/countries so you didn't spend what you
needed to in order to get a better motor/circuit design etc.

People like Miele on the other hand, spend a great deal on reliable design but
then their goods can cost 3x more than others and lots of people don't want
their goods to last forver, they want to upgrade to something that looks
modern and trendy.

Different business models!

~~~
Gys
> I'm not sure the idea of manufacturers wanting things to fail is as reliable
> as it sounds

I was refering to a trend where manufacturers actively prevent any other party
(user or otherwise) from doing repairs. See for example this discussion about
Apple:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18154371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18154371)

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

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

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Jenz
Shame it’s over D:

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

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

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known
Competing with
[https://www.amazon.com/services](https://www.amazon.com/services) ?

~~~
adetrest
How?

