# Imaging - fix it instead of toss it



## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

So I know we live in largely a throw away society. That is somewhat ok with me because a lot of how my house has got ahead is by making use of what others have tossed.

Some of the issue is not having the skill to fix things. But the way you build skills is to try to fix something you are already thinking about tossing.

And I know that not all have the same skill set to repair things. But if you don't, hit youtube, because 99.9% of the time someone on the site has tried to fix something similar, and you can learn and see what the job involves.

Last weekend a pal of my 21yo dropped off a circa 1997 a/v receiver, and four stereo speakers that they had no use for, and had problems with.

The a/v receiver's V part is technically obsolete, with only baseband analog video functionality. Missing remote, but I don't see a need for it at the moment. But it has fine phono, cd and DVD audio inputs, and the fm tuner section works just fine. It is now destined for my garage sound system that also drives audio to the speakers that surround the patio ( which were also free finds). Right now the radio input comes from a found circa 1975 clock radio that does not have the greatest FM tuner. And it will have a $60 bluetooth receiver connected to it so my wife can be a dj from her smart phine when that mood strikes her.

Now on to the four speakers. Two where not worth looking at - one driver in a ported cabinet that can't weigh more than 6 pounds each. The other pair however were worth a stab at rehab. They are Realistic Optimus T-100, a end of the 70's stereo era speaker design that was not afraid to be made from 3/4" panels, and to be 3' tall. Tweeters were fine but mushy, only 1 of 4 woofers were working. Time to play detective. 

Ohm meter out, pull the wonky 8" speakers out, and probe about. Design was two woofers in parallel, so with one working I could compare the three dead guys to it. 16 ohms. Yes, makes sense if two in parallel. Find continuity across voice coils with needle probes poking the voice coil connections on the cones. All ring out good; no sign of any scratchy's when moving the cone -good news - no burned windings that often show up as detached and scratching. 

No on the the finicky job of fixing poor flex lead connections. 40 years of movement and I find only 1 or 2 of the 30 or so very fine leads in the flex wire not broken at the cone end connection. Tricky to solder good part on but doable with patience and needle nose pliers as an aid. 

Then pull the tweeter control, spray cleaner to combat any winding oxidation, dig into the junque bins in my work shop to find compatible bipolar capacitors to renew the crossover. Over time these crossover components loose their zing, and can end up passing less energy, or only higher than design frequencies to the tweets. So renewal without testing while the case was open seemed prudent.

Put it all together, tin some new lead ends and power them up, and they sound just fine. Wipe cases down to remove finger print smudges, and any mars, then coat in tung oil to make the nice veneer really look good again.

Audition to some orchestral recordings, and man they sound just fine. And you know what, for great sound 40 year old speakers are just as good as any speaker sold today. 

From my text you see stuff I know you may not. But I know from trying and learning from similar efforts in the past.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Some things are worth fixing but many things aren't.

I learned to sew and I was really good at it. I wore homemade clothes.
But now you can buy new clothes for less than the price of the cloth.
Try to make a pair of Jeans or Pants like Costco for $20. You simply can't.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

My brother was a recycler. His main product was bicycles. He would collect broken ones on garbage day and make one good one and sell on craigslist. He also had an extensive stereo system he had resurrected from discards. And a collection of old phones. This was a retirement hobby.


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## nathan79 (Feb 21, 2011)

I always try to fix my stuff and I'm successful about 90% of the time. I recently fixed my plasma TV. It was not exceptionally difficult, but it was time consuming. Plus I was without a TV for several weeks while I figured out the problem and waited for the parts to arrive. That's not a problem for me -- I often go several days or a week without watching TV -- but I can see how it might be a problem for some people.

First I replaced a bulging, leaking capacitor. That didn't solve the problem, but it needed to be replaced either way. I then re-soldered some other components that I suspected might not be making a good connection -- but no luck. I was eventually able to narrow the problem down to a single circuit board, but despite testing with my multi-meter I was unable to figure out which component or area of the board was causing the problem. I knew something was wrong with it, so I decided to buy a replacement board from eBay. That did the trick! I saved the old board for parts just in case I eventually figure out what's wrong with it. The total cost for everything was about $60 -- a lot cheaper than a new TV.

I think people are losing the skills and interest in fixing things as we become a more urban society. If you're living in a condo chances are you don't have a workshop, very many tools, or much room to keep anything that doesn't work. It quickly becomes "junk" that is just getting in the way.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

Branding has gotten so extreme, and knowledge of how anything works has gotten so scant, that nothing old is worth repairing unless you can somehow do that without compromising the brand integrity and not just turning it into a "generic thing".

Good luck fixing or producing anything like a speaker, furniture, clothing, etc. to sell without a brand that has cache. It will sell for far less that the cost of its parts, even if it's brand new and your craftsmanship is leagues above a brand manufacturer (questionable, but possible). The buyer will think he's doing you a favor by taking your junk away and giving you any money at all.


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## zinfit (Mar 21, 2021)

My throwaway item is printers. The wireless printers work great for a while then they become difficult. To get them to print sometimes I have to pull the plug or shutoff the modem and restart. In some cases that doesn't work and I just give up then a week later it decides to start printing. Am I alone with this problem? My solution is to buy another printer until it starts acting up again.


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

zinfit said:


> My throwaway item is printers. The wireless printers work great for a while then they become difficult. To get them to print sometimes I have to pull the plug or shutoff the modem and restart. In some cases that doesn't work and I just give up then a week later it decides to start printing. Am I alone with this problem? My solution is to buy another printer until it starts acting up again.


I haven't had any issue with my Brother wifi printers. I had my first for like 10 years, finally the document feeder stopped working so I replaced it, and so far so good with the new one (about 4 years so far).


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

zinfit said:


> My throwaway item is printers. The wireless printers work great for a while then they become difficult. To get them to print sometimes I have to pull the plug or shutoff the modem and restart. In some cases that doesn't work and I just give up then a week later it decides to start printing. Am I alone with this problem? My solution is to buy another printer until it starts acting up again.


I had the same problem.

I bought a colour laser about 12 years ago.
Scanner, doublesider, networked, wonderful, excessive.

Haven't bought a printer, and I just use 3rd party toner. I've likely saved a pile in printers, ink and frustration.
Plus it prints way faster, and double sided.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

I have had good luck with wireless inkjet printers, one up north the other down south used 6 months each.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

My old Hp 820 lasted for 15 plus years. Amazing service and it still worked when I discarded it. Same with my Hp 8500 photosmart printer. And it still works. 

Desktop is 11/12 years old. New system disk and free u/g to W10 and it is like new. Hp scanner is 20 years old. Still functions butI no longer use it. Our $75 cd player is at least 15 years old. Same with our 40" Samsung TV even though we added a 65" Samsung four years ago.

I view value from the perspective of utility.

My experience with electronics....if it works for the first few months chances are you are good to go. We have rec'd incredible value/utility.

My challenge...I hate shopping. I try to do a little research, buy something with a good track record, and keep it as long as possible. Guess that is why we drive a 2006 Accord and a 2007 Solara....and plan to do so for the foreseeable future.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

ian said:


> My old Hp 820 lasted for 15 plus years. Amazing service and it still worked when I discarded it. Same with my Hp 8500 photosmart printer. And it still works.
> 
> Desktop is 11/12 years old. New system disk and free u/g to W10 and it is like new. Hp scanner is 20 years old. Still functions butI no longer use it. Our $75 cd player is at least 15 years old. Same with our 40" Samsung TV even though we added a 65" Samsung four years ago.
> 
> ...


My son plays Fortnite at near competitive levels on an I7-3370 with a GTX1060 3g (we upgraded the video card).
I'm mixed on upgrading him to an SSD, or a whole new computer.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

My web surfing laptop as I am presently typing on is a Compaq, co-branded with HP, so was made just after HP bought Compaq, so almost 20 years ago. Formerly my machine from the office. No web cam - no big deal to me. Last machine in the house with a CD/DVD drive. Has a LAN port, and I use it when everyone else in the house is consuming wifi bandwidth

I did not turn it back in as next one I got there at work lacked a built in serial port that we used at the time to interrogate some field devices. Run W7, now on a SSD. Nags me that it needs activation - was network licensed, but I can live with that.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

So this weekend as part of sat am dumpster survey route I usually do at least weekly, I came up with two Yamaha AV receivers. One HTR-6080 circa 2007 and one HTR-4063 circa 2010.

Kinda nice since I run a 6063 circa 2010 as the living room av rig, and have the remote for it. 

Neither would power up. Would click and sometimes briefly light up. Web says look to a bad capacitor that provides power to the standby power supply that stays on to listen for the remote to ask it to power all up. So swap one polyester cap on one rig, and two in the second rig. One would power right up, the other needed a reset sequence to reset past error code. So far both will work fine on AM and FM tuner mode driving a set of headphones. 

Still to test the HDMI inputs and other video inputs. These are vulnerable to a common failure on the main video processor chip which is a big BGA type chip. BGA mean Ball Grid Array. A ton of dots of solder on the chip bottom that are carefully melted in manufacturing to make connections to the PC boards, and sometimes with thermal cycles of the rig can go flaky. A sometimes fix is to pull the board and bake and cool in the kitchen oven overnight.

I have a couple of Harmony One universal programmable remotes I have rehabbed sitting around ready to run them if they end up fully working


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Yesterday afternoon fix. 

A Coleman two burner white gas stove. You know; the one that looks sorta like a suit case, with the carry handle once it is folded up. This one was found on the curb at a place that looks like it is being renewed after an estate sold it. Picked up a bunch of aluminum extrusion, and two heft old motors, that will go to the scrap yard, and an over the air HDTV receiver that at first glance appears to be working.

I have rehabbed lots of these stoves in my over 12 years as a Boy Scout quartermaster for the local troop. We have about 10 of them, and other troops when they heard I fix them trade off their sick ones often.Not usually hard to fix, just be methodical and have an idea how they work. 

I guess this one was made ate 50's. Inside paper label in lid says Coleman, with a tag line Prevent Forest Fires. Newer ones have the inside of the lid full of a plastic sticker with bilingual lighting and care instructions. 

This one has an old style bronze coloured round cylindrical tank, which predate later cheaper to make stamped weird shaped two piece steel tanks. Pull old aluminum foil lining the bottom, find some corrosion. Test the pump - it was dry, but will build pressure, and squirt gas. Tank was about 1/3 full. Pull the pump, and get a drop or two of motor oil massaged into the old leather. Drop of oil into the sleeve, and then reassemble a much happier renewed and ready pump. Check fill plug- is getting old and prone to leak - will order a new gasket on next parts order with OldColemanParts, a great company. For time being swish a drop of oil around to help seal, and reassemble. Pump to build pressure, stick nozzle into stove burner, and light stove. Old fuel burns fine, no leaks. Light second burner, it works too. 

So after stove cooled wash it with a mild warm water solution containing Fantastic, and use a nylon pot scrubber. Leave to dry, then after spray all non burner parts with Krown rust inhibitor. Leave for a few hours, then wipe up excess oil with a disposable cotton rag. Store stove a s a backup cooking source into the garage. Might be able to trade with anther Scouter I know who collects and really restores old stoves and lanterns -like strip and colour match the oem paint.

Yes intermittently about half and hour of work, but why not.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Second yesterday fix - a portable humidifier my 21yo dragged home. 

Looks to be made in 2014 from plastic stamping codes, has good not too salt crusted wick. Fan would not run. Start to disassemble - not made to be easy to fix. About 24 screws later can get to first junction. Continuity tester buzzes to say cord is good, and low water shut off switch is working right. 

Six more screws and the top control deck is open. Buzz out hygrometer switch and find the open point causing problems. NC part of switch, not used, in this design works, but NO contact no continuity regardless of knob adjustment. 

Disassemble that control to get the switch guts accessible, and once they were, soak with sprayed DeOxit contact cleaner meant for this sort of thing, and exercise the plunger lots of times to get the oxidized contacts to rub so the cleaner can work deeper. Finally get good continuity, and switch to ohms. Once under one ohm, basically test lead resistance, knew the cleaner had done its job. Reassemble, and now the fan runs. 

Ready for putting into service. We use reverse osmosis filtered water to fill ours, and doing so we find the wicks take a lot longer to crust up with mineral salts. Once they do, a soak in what starts as a pretty warm sink from mostly hot tap water overnight will redissolve the salts and let the wick work better for longer before springing for a replacement, usually purchased on CTC money that has accrued.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

The fix today accomplished today has be in progress the over 8 months. 

In the spring on a neighborhood troll on a no limit garbage day morning I found a Christmas decoration left on the curb. It is a 3 dimensional wire frame thing with synthetic fabric covering the frame. 
It ends up giving us 3 chickens. A hen, and two chicks walking behind it. They wear Santa hats and have jaunty seasonal scarves around their necks. All the fabric is kind of glittery.
The space frames have incandescent mini lights inside it. All were darkened, as though in service for many years, and none lit up. 

I counted the number of lights, and how they were circuited. I figured I would need 100 2.4V mini bulbs. 
Wife got on Amazon, and we ordered 100 2.5V 170mA lamps from a vendor in China that could be fitted into the existing base inserts for about $20, and free surface shipping. Took about 12 weeks for them to arrive. Happy for the voltage difference, since incandescent lives a lot longer on a small volt reduction.

In mean time the decoration in need of rehab went in a garbage bag and was stored in the garage attic.My goal was the first rainy weekend in the fall I would get onto it. And, hey, I did. 

Pulled the fabric back (hallelujah for the velcro), pulled the dead lights out, swapped darkened lamps out for new ones in old bases and use a bench power supply that puts out 12v with a pair of alligator clip ends to power up at least 6 lights at a time to verify the work in progress. The swap took about 1.5 hours of my time on dining room table. Mostly while wife had TV tuned to watch Judge Judy. So in other words I was not missing anything educational on TV. 

It turned out I needed 104 lights, or the China lamp box shorted me 4. So I went though the pulls and picked the ones least silvered and ohm meter the leads to see if they looked and tested good. The mostly best working ones came from inside the main bird. S likely someone was trying to change the easy to get at ones in past before dumping it. So 4 reused lamps fitted back into bases and inserted to the open sockets and now all the three birds fully light up. Fit the covering back on and re-join the velcro open-able seams.

One biggest bird main wing mount is missing its insert ( the thing was made to pack up smaller, likely to reduce original shipping costs) so that is a ty-rap fix. Smallest bird is missing its beak. Waxed paper from an empty MacDonalds coffee cup at hand had its inner liner cut to fit, and coloured with a yellow Sharpie marker , and hot glue affixed it in place. 

Next step is to paint a salvaged small piece of plywood I have sitting out in the garage. I will use exterior grade white paint left over from my kids summer house painting job. 

That piece of wood will allow me the put some blocks under it and to also use tyrap hole head fasteners to screw the feet of the birds down so the will no blow away or take flight easily if someone wants to they to lift them. 

Then I can pull the plywood after Christmas, and if the elevating blocks are frozen down they can wait until the spring melt. 

This was not a needed it project.
But it was a nice to have thing that will make a cute addition to our street scape. 

With waning daylight I put exterior seasonal lights on a photocell and timed run controller. So they come on before kids get out of school in mid December. I might feed this with a dimmer if they glow brighter than the other LED Christmas lights around where they will go.


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## Bobcajun (May 15, 2018)

Ponderling said:


> Second yesterday fix - a portable humidifier my 21yo dragged home.
> 
> Looks to be made in 2014 from plastic stamping codes, has good not too salt crusted wick. Fan would not run. Start to disassemble - not made to be easy to fix. About 24 screws later can get to first junction. Continuity tester buzzes to say cord is good, and low water shut off switch is working right.
> 
> ...


Ponderling,
I have been encouraged by your fixing things. I just took the filters out of the humidifier, as you mention above, soaked them overnight in warm water and vinegar. But, when i put them back into the brackets, they had shrunken and don"t fit properly. Thus, they don't seem to work properly, either. Do you have any idea what that would be about?
thanks bob


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

Just fixed our three under counter lighting units. Instead of replacement I simply bough three 80W low voltage replacement transformers (home depot online), replacement bulbs (Amazon for $1 vs $5 at Home Depot) and a replacement glass shield ($5).

So much easier than shopping for new units, de-install/install. Took about 15 minutes per unit.


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## Tostig (Nov 18, 2020)

I guess I am sort of a fixer but not for everything.

Remember the Black and Decker toaster oven? They were around as far back as the 1980s. I had fixed ours several times before we upgraded. Our replacement toaster oven did not allow it to be easily dismantled so after I had mangled the chassis and sheetmetal trying to get access to the electricals, I scrapped it.

A few years ago, before the pandemic, I had purchased a low price bass amp (Fender Rumble 25). This year (2021) it was going on the fritz. No sound came from it unless I slapped the back several times so there must have been a connection issue. I was lazy and was prepared to take it to Long and McQuade and pay for the repair. But it just bugged me that I really should look at it first.

I opened up the back and looked at the circuit board. There did not appear to be anything loose. I had no idea where to test the circuit. So I ended up just jiggling all the connectors. I put it back together and it has been working perfectly since.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Bobcajun said:


> Ponderling,
> I have been encouraged by your fixing things. I just took the filters out of the humidifier, as you mention above, soaked them overnight in warm water and vinegar. But, when i put them back into the brackets, they had shrunken and don"t fit properly. Thus, they don't seem to work properly, either. Do you have any idea what that would be about?
> thanks bob


, 
Just stuff the part where they have shrunk with paper towels, or wrap in cheesecloth maybe - something that wicks and directs most of the air flow over the now shrunken part. If has an expanded aluminum frame on one side that can get distorted when wet so see if yo can stretch it back into shape?


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Tostig said:


> I guess I am sort of a fixer but not for everything.
> 
> Remember the Black and Decker toaster oven? They were around as far back as the 1980s. I had fixed ours several times before we upgraded. Our replacement toaster oven did not allow it to be easily dismantled so after I had mangled the chassis and sheetmetal trying to get access to the electricals, I scrapped it.
> 
> ...


Time will come that something will oxidize and srop conducting or control pot will get noisy. Spring the $30 or so for DeOxit D9. It works miracles and a little dab each time and the can goes a real long time. Lotsa the time i zap a q tip with the spray and rub the wet end on contact tabs.


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## Gothenburg83 (Dec 30, 2021)

Ponderling said:


> So I know we live in largely a throw away society. That is somewhat ok with me because a lot of how my house has got ahead is by making use of what others have tossed.
> 
> Some of the issue is not having the skill to fix things. But the way you build skills is to try to fix something you are already thinking about tossing.
> 
> ...


I recently broke my spade wood "D" handle. The spade blade is a nice like-new CRES blade. So I bought a new shaft with D handle already riveted on from CT. It took me a while, a bit of fight to get the old shaft out, angle grinder on the rivets and lots of wood sanding . Oh and liberal use of a propane blow torch ( my fav bit) as well as a movers dolly, a vice and a 3T hydraulic jack to drive the new shaft home. Apart from the new rivets being a bit rubbish I am quite pleased , my missus thinks I'm mad but had to admit the dolly /car jack worked better than she thought. Oh and I fixed a pair of cheapo second hand overear TV RF headphones with araldite and a finishing nail.


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## Gothenburg83 (Dec 30, 2021)

I'm on a roll! I just fixed my wife's hammock . The cords broke but I found instruction on how to make a navy clew knot thingy. It's an upgrade really as the new rope I used is better looking and stronger.


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## Gothenburg83 (Dec 30, 2021)

I just installed new roof shingle on my garden shed , the old shingle was probably on since 1996 and years of having the neighbours fir tree branches rubbing the back side of the roof had really done a number on the shingles. The vegatation is trimmed back to get access. The cool mornings and rainy spell meant It took a bit longer (elapsed time) than I had imagined. In hindsight I should have done the task when it was warmer weather but I didn't fancy it back in August. 
I calculated that I'd need three packs of shingle but ended up going to home Depot for a 4th. I had a bit of a panic as all they had left was autumn brown but after a bit of exploring I found a rather forlorn looking damaged pack stuffed down the side all curled up. The store gave it to with a 75% discount . The shingles were all fine after I layed them out in the sun for a hour.
I only wish I had remembered i had a chalk line thingy from the start and not on the last row of the last day.


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