I repair things on a regular basis, rather than bin them. Sometimes, however, things are just too much effort.
For example, I was looking at a piece of audio electronics recently ... a number of components needing replacing, and one of the faulty ICs was obsolete. After about an hour I decided on a couple of suitable replacements for the IC, which I just happened to have in m workshop (although they are ony 18p). But then when I started to look more closely on starting the repair, a number of things became apparent:
1. Lots of bad joints needing re-soldering (degraded after 10 years of use).
2. Quality of board (I'm not having a dig here - the manufacturer was building to a cost, and it's not MIL-STD stuff either), meaning heat required to use silver solder (never mind desolder) started causing problems (the appliance was made before lead-free was the law).
Eventually, it became a realisation that this was hours of a job with no guarantee of lasting success ... A replacement at well under £200 means much of the original product destined for the bin (but some parts kept for future home projects).
I repair things on a regular basis, rather than bin them. Sometimes, however, things are just too much effort.
For example, I was looking at a piece of audio electronics recently ... a number of components needing replacing, and one of the faulty ICs was obsolete. After about an hour I decided on a couple of suitable replacements for the IC, which I just happened to have in m workshop (although they are ony 18p). But then when I started to look more closely on starting the repair, a number of things became apparent:
1. Lots of bad joints needing re-soldering (degraded after 10 years of use).
2. Quality of board (I'm not having a dig here - the manufacturer was building to a cost, and it's not MIL-STD stuff either), meaning heat required to use silver solder (never mind desolder) started causing problems (the appliance was made before lead-free was the law).
Eventually, it became a realisation that this was hours of a job with no guarantee of lasting success ... A replacement at well under £200 means much of the original product destined for the bin (but some parts kept for future home projects).
