Posts tagged with "repair"
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A Case Against Minimalism
I have a problem. No, I don’t have a drinking problem. Mine is different actually. I want to be a minimalist and a DIY (do it yourself) guy. Generally that shouldn’t be a problem right? But for me it is. You see, if I want to build things myself I need a bunch of tools. Tools means stuff and more stuff goes against minimalism. Why do I bring this up? Well recently I concluded the series with some of the tools that I own. But I want ever more tools. In that sense I am not a true minimalist then? I have seen people who don’t even own a car and travel by walking, scooter, and public transport. However, they own a lot of tools, which gives me some consolation.
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Failed To Repair An Android Tablet
I tried to fix an old android tablet and I failed. If you recall, a few posts ago, I mentioned how I failed to repair my TV. Later I figured out the issue and eventually was able to fix it. I hope the same can happen with the tablet. But as of now, after many attempts to recover it, I was unable to bring it back to life. It was working fine until the battery has gone bad and the device would not turn on without a battery. A few weeks ago, the battery of this cheap android tablet bulged like a balloon. The bulge was so big that the back of the device opened up. In the past, when some of my old android phones had a bulged battery, I could remove the battery and still run it using a USB charger. That does not seem to work with tablets though.
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How I Waste My Time
You know, in a typical year after retirement, I noticed that I have been working on some repair or pet project at the rate of 1 or 2 per month. I don’t like to explain all of them, otherwise this blog will be just that – my repair/project blog. But once in a while I feel like I should write about these small projects. Otherwise many keep wondering what I do after retirement and how I am able to spend time. Generally I just tell these folks that I am busy with my family especially my daughter since she does not attend school (unschooled). After hearing this, most stop asking any more questions. It is not that I am working on any top secret projects. Just that these small project don’t qualify as something to write or talk about them.
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Tools I Use To Repair Stuff
A few posts ago, I started writing about the tools I use to repair various things at home based on a request from a reader of my blog. Here is a continuation of that series. I already covered what tools I use to repair and build electronics. In this post I want to cover the tools I used to repair some mechanical items such as cycle or washing machine etc. I won’t go into too much detail explaining every tool that I have. I just want to show you what I have to do some basic repairs. I still feel like I don’t have enough tools, so this is not a comprehensive set that you need. These are somethings that worked for me and perhaps will work for you too.
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Tools I Use To Repair Electronics
This is a continuation of my previous post on the tools that I have at my disposal when I am building electornic projects. As I mentioned before, this is not the comprehensive list of tools, but it should give you an idea. In the last post I left off at my soldering station. I use a couple of solder tips depending on the work. If I am soldering thick wires or soldering pins to an arduino nano board, I will use a chisel tip because it spreads heat well and makes good fat solder joint. For delicate work I use a thinner conical tip. Other than that I don’t use any other tips.
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Tools I Use In Electronics Projects
A reader asked to me to write a post on the tools I use in my projects. Since my projects range from software to electronics to mechanical, the number of tools I use becomes quite large. So in this post I will cover the tools I routinely use in electronic projects. May be in another post I might cover the tools I use for more mechanical projects such as repairing cycles or scooter, setting up solar panels and batteries, building rain water harvesting pipes, plumbing, drip irrigation etc. If anyone is interested, I might also write a post on the tools I use in software development but in this case the tools vary quite a bit depending on the software. Anyway, lets get straight to the point and do a bit of show and tell of the tools I use in my electronic projects.
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Professional Service vs DIY
Is it better to take the help of professional services or do things yourself? I don’t know myself, but I have become more of a DIY (do it yourself) person ever since I retired. There is a certain fun element in doing things with your own hands even if you do a pretty poor job. However, earlier I was a person who got most things done by profession service personnel. What has changed then? Well, the time, that’s what has changed. When I was still working, there was barely any free time. It was easier, more efficient and less expensive to have someone fix things rather than me wasting my time. Remember, if you consider my hourly rate, it was way higher than the hourly rate for the services (at least in India). Now, I have a lot of free time and my hourly rate is precisely zero.
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Repaired My TV
In one of my previous posts I mentioned that I tried to repair a TV but my first attempt failed. After some more work I was finally able to fix it! At least some positive news after a lot of set backs in repairs, about which I will write in another post. If you have not read my previous post, I urge you to read that first. Basically what happened was that my old LCD TV back from 2006, started to show its age and conked out, not quite spectacularly though. My initial investigation led me to believe that the culprit could be 3 capacitors (caps) on the power board. However, when I ordered the replacement parts and soldered them, the TV was still not turning on, or is turning on briefly before freezing.
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How Not To Repair A Phone
The last few months have been quite busy for me. I was so busy that I could not allocate any time to write new posts on my blog. Multiple things were happening which were more exciting and interesting. In between I had a bad shoulder injury which put me completely out of commission for a good one month. It has been more than 2 months and I am still recovering. Meanwhile other events demanded my attention so the frequency of my posts have gone down from two per week to just one. If things ever normalize I will go back to my previous cadence. While there were a bunch of interesting events that took place, here are a couple of them related to mobile phones.
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Failed To Repair My TV
The past few weeks have been quite busy with multiple electronics failures and other interesting things happening in my personal life. One of the failed electronics was my old TV. This was the first TV that I bought with my salary a few months after I landed my first job. So it has some emotional connection. To get you up to speed, I finished my MS in the US and also started working in the US. In 2006 when I bought the TV, flat screen TVs were just coming into the market. I wanted to test out the latest in tech but did not want to spend too much on it. So I bought a cheap Sceptre X32GV-Komodo flat screen TV. It worked great. So great in fact that I shipped it to India when I moved in 2011.
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