Never to old

Hi Larry, 

If time was the only thing holding you back, then I look forward to seeing how you get on now, but if, like me, there was a reticence, that demon of self-doubt, then I would heartily recommend finding a local repair volunteer group; they would love to have you involved. I had always been held back by self-doubt. Worrying about making the project/item I was repairing worse. In reality, that’s typically a false impression, it is broken, it will only become “unbroken” if you either hand it to a professional to repair it, or you do it yourself. If (like my projects) it had been gathering dust for a while, then it is clearly not important enough to pay for the repair, which leaves… us.

It took volunteering at a local repair cafe to bring that fully home to me. People are often about to send their old electrical and electronic items to landfill when someone suggests they bring them to us; so we are the “repairers of last resort”. It was broken when it arrived, if you fail, you learn on the way, but you’ve not made anything worse. It is a real confidence builder, and you quickly realise that actually, things aren’t as fragile as you felt, and you can do it.

If you are interested in getting some additional motivation, I would suggest looking to see if there is a local repair cafe (see the map on https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/) It depends a lot on where in the world you are, as the numbers show, there are certainly some very active Repair Cafes in the USA, but they are far less numerous than here in Europe and the UK.

I am now in the fortunate position to be able to give up one day a week to volunteer at my local repair cafe. At the ripe old age of 54, I am typically the youngest person there by at least a decade and often more. I volunteer alongside a couple of chaps in their 70s; we all bring our mix of tales and anecdotes and have a great time, while hopefully giving something useful back to the community.

While we don’t tend to see the proper vintage (valve) radios, we get a lot of 1980s and 1990s stereo equipment with a variety of faults, such as bad caps, failed power supplies, burned-out output transistors etc. People with electronics knowledge and the willingness to try to fix something are much sought after, and if, like me, you don’t have the depth of knowledge and practical experience, you can be sure that there are wonderful resources on the web such as Mr C and his peers that can point you in the right direction.

Posted by: @zyxt

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Hi Larry, 

If time was the only thing holding you back, then I look forward to seeing how you get on now, but if, like me, there was a reticence, that demon of self-doubt, then I would heartily recommend finding a local repair volunteer group; they would love to have you involved. I had always been held back by self-doubt. Worrying about making the project/item I was repairing worse. In reality, that’s typically a false impression, it is broken, it will only become “unbroken” if you either hand it to a professional to repair it, or you do it yourself. If (like my projects) it had been gathering dust for a while, then it is clearly not important enough to pay for the repair, which leaves… us.

It took volunteering at a local repair cafe to bring that fully home to me. People are often about to send their old electrical and electronic items to landfill when someone suggests they bring them to us; so we are the “repairers of last resort”. It was broken when it arrived, if you fail, you learn on the way, but you’ve not made anything worse. It is a real confidence builder, and you quickly realise that actually, things aren’t as fragile as you felt, and you can do it.

If you are interested in getting some additional motivation, I would suggest looking to see if there is a local repair cafe (see the map on https://www.repaircafe.org/en/visit/) It depends a lot on where in the world you are, as the numbers show, there are certainly some very active Repair Cafes in the USA, but they are far less numerous than here in Europe and the UK.

I am now in the fortunate position to be able to give up one day a week to volunteer at my local repair cafe. At the ripe old age of 54, I am typically the youngest person there by at least a decade and often more. I volunteer alongside a couple of chaps in their 70s; we all bring our mix of tales and anecdotes and have a great time, while hopefully giving something useful back to the community.

While we don’t tend to see the proper vintage (valve) radios, we get a lot of 1980s and 1990s stereo equipment with a variety of faults, such as bad caps, failed power supplies, burned-out output transistors etc. People with electronics knowledge and the willingness to try to fix something are much sought after, and if, like me, you don’t have the depth of knowledge and practical experience, you can be sure that there are wonderful resources on the web such as Mr C and his peers that can point you in the right direction.

 

I’m curious. How do you repair pieces that need components replaced? Do you take them home to repair and return them at the next repair cafe?

@zyxt It was not really time, as I do get bored and have many projects and hobbies. 

Money also was a problem over time and many jobs over the years.
I am an Airframe and Powerplant mechanic (A&P), E.M.T. , Machinist, Welder, Refrigeration tech and grew up on a farm where we had to do it all.

  
Thank you, and I did look to see if any “Repair Cafes” were around and nothing nearby.

I have to keep in mind that this is a hobby and do enjoy helping others and have offered my service to help others, these days people just want new things and not a repair.

If I only had some of the old gear that I tore apart for parts and had the wife getting rid of it when I was not looking.

She did not see the value of it all and it all is junk to her.

My problem is that I can never get rid of stuff, as it may have a use someday.

@soundguy A good question, because I had wondered the same before I found out. There are a couple of different “business models” that the repair cafes tend to follow.

Many (perhaps most?) cafés follow a regular event schedule where the repairers turn up in a hall and sit at tables, and a meet-and-greet staff directs visitors to the best-qualified, non-busy volunteer. The volunteer will then try to repair the item and, where practical, share some of their knowledge with the visitor, too. The volunteers may determine that a part is needed, the visitor can then source the part and return at the next event to hopefully complete the repair. In some cases, the volunteers take the item home for a more detailed examination, returning them at the next event, or through whatever mechanism their organisation has. You have to be careful in terms of safeguarding and other public-facing responsibilities, so it varies from place to place. My guess is that the success of this format relies a lot on the availability of venues and having a critical mass of volunteers on the day. I have tended to see this model work best in larger cities, where the skills required are more prevalent and where, by holding the events at the weekend, you can leverage those who would otherwise be working.

The one I volunteer at (Ashford, Kent, UK) operates more as a repair hub/shop. We are lucky to have a small workspace provided by the local environment centre. It is not large enough to conduct a public meeting in, but it is enough to have a couple of workbenches and keep some shared equipment. We are open twice a week, Tuesday for woodworking and other repairs and Wednesday for electrical and electronic. Each afternoon, we have an admin volunteer running the reception desk, and people can collect or drop off items. They get booked in, and we advise them when they are ready to collect. Our time is freely given but components above an arbitrary threshold are typically paid for by the owner. If the repair is likely to cost more than a few pounds, we will let them know, and they either source the part or we do. Over time, we have worked out which items to keep in stock, etc.

We do “pop up repair café” events, too; once every month or so, a couple of us will go to a local village hall somewhere in the general area, a lady from the local council’s circular economy/green dept. organises these, and alongside us, we have a collection point for unwanted but working electricals and other goods, which are then passed on to a local hospice charity for PAT testing and potential resale. There are recycling bins for end-of-life electrical items (because those are not collected by the kerb-side collections), and there are various photos of me bin diving to recover something for salvage 🙂

That was a long way to say, yes it is not unusual to need to take more time than a short visit allows. Just finding schematics or doing a blind fault finding can take hours. But many a time, a fix can be simple and, to some extent, predictable, so you get a variety of things.

There’s a 15th anniversary event in the Netherlands later this year I hope to be able to attend and learn a lot more about how other places work. 

@zyxt I have to say sadly my wife and myself have not gone out to our local towns since covid.

Also we live in the country and are miles from any towns and the cost of fuel, we just stay at home.

thank you.