What have you fixed lately? - Page 25

Cobbydaler · 22-11-2015, 02:06

The plastic pull chain on the toilet cistern snapped at the join point. Pulled out the remains of the broken link and snapped in a replacement.

rhyds · 23-11-2015, 21:21

Sunday's job was fixing my mum and dad's satellite dish.

The dish was fitted originally with a four output LNB feeding a sky+ box and two other receivers. After the recent bad weather the dish stopped working on 3 out of four outputs, so I decided to set them up with a new 8 output LNB from Amazon.

Luckily it was a straightforward job. Just make sure all your satellite boxes are switched off at the socket before you start as otherwise you might get a bit of a shock! It was pretty much just a case of swapping the old output for the new one, with a small tweak needed to the LNB's skew to get the output levels as good as we could to reduce rain fade.

Ramrod · 23-11-2015, 22:41

Boiler (30yo) stopped working. Blown fuse on board tracked down to the fan being faulty. Refurbed fan from ebay (£50) and new fuse. Works fine. Got plumber to service afterwards it just to be safe.

Osem · 25-11-2015, 12:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Boiler (30yo) stopped working. Blown fuse on board tracked down to the fan being faulty. Refurbed fan from ebay (£50) and new fuse. Works fine. Got plumber to service afterwards it just to be safe.

You man of many talents you...

A thirty year old boiler might be due for the chop though...

heero_yuy · 27-11-2015, 18:03

Hopefully my aging, faithful Sony VAIO lappy. After my last jaunt down to Cornwall with it in my back pack it started failing to POST until it had been powered up for a minute or so.

Suspecting the RAM as it's a known issue on the VAIO I've checked the soldering of the sockets, swapped and reseated the RAM modules and it booted first time this evening. Fingers crossed.

Think I need to plan for a new machine, HP Probooks look like an option.

rhyds · 27-11-2015, 18:15

We use the probooks at work and they're pretty solid bits of kit all told. Still available with pre-loaded windows 7 too.

My only advice is, unless you really need it, do not bother with the built in HP protect tools encryption. We've had many machines refuse to boot due to a screwed up BCD Store after two months. In the end HP gave us a copy of their own in house repair DVD so we could fix them ourselves.

heero_yuy · 27-11-2015, 18:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhyds

We use the probooks at work and they're pretty solid bits of kit all told. Still available with pre-loaded windows 7 too.

My only advice is, unless you really need it, do not bother with the built in HP protect tools encryption. We've had many machines refuse to boot due to a screwed up BCD Store after two months. In the end HP gave us a copy of their own in house repair DVD so we could fix them ourselves.

Reviews are good apart from possibly the display and I like the aluminium alloy casing. I'm homing in on the Probook 450 G3 with SSD. W7 is a bonus too.

rhyds · 27-11-2015, 18:28

Good choice!

rhyds · 07-12-2015, 19:08

Today's repair job was my 12v tyre inflator.

For a while now the cigar lighter plug that powers it has been "pernikety" about working, which wasn't helped by the tip of the plug getting so hot it actually melted the plastic and burnt my fingers.

So, a quick Amazon order for a cigar lighter plug and I've managed to replace it. The fun part was working out which side of the twin cable was positive and which side was negative (in the end I cut the old plug off with 1/2" of trailing cable left and used a multimeter).

For now, I've used the plug's screw terminals (to see if it works). I might get around to soldering the connections once I know the plug and unit work ok

Osem · 07-12-2015, 20:18

That's my sort of fix.

Jimmy-J · 09-12-2015, 13:01

Just fixed my constantly sinking office chair.

Hom3r · 09-12-2015, 18:45

A guy at work fixed his wifes monthly periods, well until June next year

heero_yuy · 09-12-2015, 18:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hom3r

A guy at work fixed his wifes monthly periods, well until June next year

Cardiac arrest of the wallet though.

heero_yuy · 11-12-2015, 18:45

Front door bell. Bulb's gone in the push button and the resulting moisture has compromised the contacts. Some engineer's magic spray and it's fixed for now. I need to sort out a LED and resistor to take the place of the bulb and also give the low heat to keep the contacts dry.

Osem · 16-12-2015, 07:42

The soles of my wife's trainers using some spray on contact adhesive.

The strap of Osem Jnr's watch - he'd managed to bend one of the watch bracelet end pieces which cover the spring pins so it had to be carefully persuaded back into place without distorting or scratching it. Job done.