The right-to-repair movement is growing as wins stack up
The right-to-repair movement is growing as wins stack up
Laws protecting consumers’ ability to seek out independent repairs for their appliances are spreading across the United States.
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I’m glad. I hate the fact that TV’s are so cheap now that fixing them literally isn’t worth it. Same with a lot of laptops and tablets and stuff. I’d much rather have a chunkier phone than one I won’t ever be able to fix.
In the last few years I've fixed about a dozen TVs, they can definitely suck to fix at times (especially the really new ones) but in general the fixes have been simple. And all of them were snagged out of the dumpster at my apartment complex.
And that's just the TVs I've fixed. I like to fix things.
In terms of phones they're a nightmare though. I'm keeping an eye on HMD phones and Fairphone though as both of them are a LOT easier to fix than other brands.
In the event of my current phone breaking I'd love to get either one of those brands.
What’s the typical fixable issue you are finding?
For TVs it's usually really simple, like internal fuses or blown caps. And a few with bad backlights or mainboards that are dead.
For 2 of them it's been shorts in the LCD itself which meant I had to block the clock pin from the TCON board for the specific part of the screen with the short. Basically killing a line of pixels to get the TV working again. In general if the TV is 4k and smaller than like 45 inches you'll never see it unless you look for it.
That's a super involved fix (involving A LOT of trial and error to find the right pin) but it keeps it out of a landfill.
In general fixing a TV is always cost effective unless the actual LCD has physical damage.
hey, I'm getting into this kind of repair. I have good soldering skills and am great at taking things apart, but do you have any tips on how to find the fault? even it's just a blow capacitor, what am I looking for?
Blown capacitors are nice and obvious.
Most capacitors you'll find are cylindrical, with a flat side of the cylinder pointed up. They'll usually have a big X cut into that top side, allowing it to flex a bit. But if that top side is bulging a lot, that's a warning sign, if it bulged so much that it opened up and it either looks burned on top, or some kind of paste is actually seeping out, then that thing is way past done.
With capacitors a visual inspection is really all you need. You'd actually need more expensive specialized equipment than a standard multimeter to actually test their capacitance. But if you look at it, and your description might include words like "exploded" or "popped", or "wtf is this mess?", then it's bad.
got it, thank you!!
NGL I usually only do component level repairs on the power boards (or in the case of appliances most of the components are easy to find docs for and are much larger) but I usually find stuff by poking around with my multimeter or looking for obviously blown things. But my experience is more from the realm of appliance repair (and all from experimenting).
Testing capacitors can be done (and if they're big enough) something I'll do as well. I ain't gonna test capacitors that are smaller that a grain of rice.
There are times though that it's easier to just buy a new board rather than do component level repair.
Good news is that when it comes to TVs those boards are usually really cheap.
that makes sense. appreciate it!!
Any tips on finding someone who does component level repair? I have an old-ish laptop (7 years?) and the only issue is the USB C charger seems to be losing connection. If I flip the charger it works fine, so I think the solder just needs to be reflowed.
I think it would take an experienced person <30 min to fix. It's almost not worth it though since it's so old, but I'd be willing to pay $50-100 if it makes charging work better.
Usually if it's a charging port, it's pretty common that there's like dirt in there or something.
But soldering a type C connector is pretty tough due to the size. Especially for my (lack of) experience level.
It could be a learning opportunity for you though.
I second this comment. It can be extremely tricky to solder something so small with so many contacts so close together.
But... if you get some sharp tweezers, I wouldn't be surprised if you could pull some lint out of that USB port. And more often than not, that'll make all the difference and it'll charge normally again.
Yeah, unfortunately I don't think that's the case. It has been dropped, tugged on, etc, so I'm pretty sure the solder joints are weak. I can feel the connector is loose as well.
If I get desperate, I'll pick up a heat gun, some flux, maybe a better soldering iron (I have some cheap Chinese crap) and try it out. But I'm more likely to break it than fix it. I'll try it once I'm ready to replace it anyway.
Probably bad caps in the power circuit
Btw, is it still a thing that sensitive electrolyt condensators are placed too close to the power supply? The old plasma of my parents still runs, i once placed a piece of cardboard inbetween (i'm aware of the issue with the altered airflow of cooling).
Reminds me that I have to fix mine. Just shows the LG logo and does nothing
Probably not much more I can do besides replace caps
NGL when it comes to that kind of fault I usually just replace the mainboard, they're usually dirt cheap and it's a hell of a lot easier to swap that whole board than it is to poke and prod for an hour just to find out it's some 40 pin monster with micro-soldiered pins.
The power board is usually what I do component level replacements on. The t-con board and the main board I usually just swap.
I think that the worst part is the ones that make repairable tech are so much smaller than you are paying top end prices for rather middle of the road performance. This is not true of them all of course but it is hard to look at the fairphone 5 and think it is worth it over a cheap secondhand/refurbished flagship from the previous generation.
It all depends on what you value.
If you want the fastest phone for the lowest price, then you're buying into those shady business practices and something akin to slave labor. (Not to sound judgey, I've bought my share of iPhones and galaxies too)
But if you want a phone that won't contribute to a landfill as soon, was made by people paid a fair wage, where any hardware failure doesn't make you start over with a new phone. Then try something like a fairphone. Specs aside, you're paying for a different set of features.
Just to add to this, the price doesn't highlight the Total Cost of Ownership well...
My Fairphone 3+ has been getting updates for years and I also bought a replacement battery (at the same time I bought the phone) to ensure that it lasts for many more years to come.
And I'm SIM-Only, so not paying longterm to a phone company
Cost/Lifetime is probably lower than a mainstream phone (I'll actually do the calculation one day)