At the other extreme, many years ago I used to have a friend who would "mend" incandescant light bulbs - by twirling them them around with a particular wrist flick action which would cause the free end of the coil to wrap itself around the end it had broken off.
I must admit that, while I used to try to mend absolutely everything that failed at home, sadly often the replacement is either far too cheap or actually better than the original so I am doing it less and less...for example my beloved 20 year old angle grinder that cost me about £15 died last weekend, and I was about to dismantle when I realised I could afford to buy a new one where the spindle lock actually worked...
But of my many many fixes I think the most satisfying was my (already second hand) dishwasher which died because of a burnt out supply dropper resistor which was clearly underrated for the job, I replaced it with one of about double the wattage and the whole thing kept going for another 15 years, I think the satisfaction was not just finding the obvious problem but also finding the underlying problem.
Oh, and then there was the beard trimmer which I bought 17 years ago for £8 - from a very well known electrical chain who tried to sell me an extended warranty! - it stopped working a couple of years ago, but with a bit of creative dismantling, cleaning and oiling is still going strong. Even costing my time at absolute minimum wage this was completely pointless, but it was strangely satisfying.
Where's the border between the three areas of being a good engineer, being a unstoppable tinkerer, and just being mean???
P.S. My movement towards not repairing things does not yet extend to musical instruments; I have now finally got the point where I can throw a computer or a toaster into the recycling skip, but a guitar I will still always try to make playable - even if it is nowhere near "worth it"! Maybe the IET should set up a psychiatric help line for insatiable fixers...
At the other extreme, many years ago I used to have a friend who would "mend" incandescant light bulbs - by twirling them them around with a particular wrist flick action which would cause the free end of the coil to wrap itself around the end it had broken off.
I must admit that, while I used to try to mend absolutely everything that failed at home, sadly often the replacement is either far too cheap or actually better than the original so I am doing it less and less...for example my beloved 20 year old angle grinder that cost me about £15 died last weekend, and I was about to dismantle when I realised I could afford to buy a new one where the spindle lock actually worked...
But of my many many fixes I think the most satisfying was my (already second hand) dishwasher which died because of a burnt out supply dropper resistor which was clearly underrated for the job, I replaced it with one of about double the wattage and the whole thing kept going for another 15 years, I think the satisfaction was not just finding the obvious problem but also finding the underlying problem.
Oh, and then there was the beard trimmer which I bought 17 years ago for £8 - from a very well known electrical chain who tried to sell me an extended warranty! - it stopped working a couple of years ago, but with a bit of creative dismantling, cleaning and oiling is still going strong. Even costing my time at absolute minimum wage this was completely pointless, but it was strangely satisfying.
Where's the border between the three areas of being a good engineer, being a unstoppable tinkerer, and just being mean???
P.S. My movement towards not repairing things does not yet extend to musical instruments; I have now finally got the point where I can throw a computer or a toaster into the recycling skip, but a guitar I will still always try to make playable - even if it is nowhere near "worth it"! Maybe the IET should set up a psychiatric help line for insatiable fixers...
