Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I do this, the ones supplied are normally really cheap and low capacity, all my lights stay on all night now :)

---------- Post added at 15:03 ---------- Previous post was at 14:49 ----------

These are quite useful.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aurora-SP10.../dp/B006DX82SK

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Cheers! Ordered immediately! :)

---------- Post added at 16:58 ---------- Previous post was at 16:56 ----------

Mine has blown the third replacement starter capacitor. I can't remember enough motor theory to decide how to upgrade it. Like yours, mine is old and unsupported by the manufacturer.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

So long as the capacitor is the same value and voltage rating anything should do the job.

The capacitor feeds a secondary winding on the motor and drives a current in approximate quadrature phase to the main winding. This creates the required rotating magnetic field that carries the rotor with it.

Smaller induction and "squirrel cage" motors create the same effect with several short circuit copper straps in the main laminate stack. See shaded pole motor.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I bought all 3 caps from different suppliers (and all look slightly different) copying the "original" cap specs. Perhaps the one that was in there was not the original and was under rated? :confused:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

How did they fail?

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Failed to rotate, after switch on after a short jam (1 or 2 secs before I hit the off switch).

No swelling of the cap as I would expect though. Motor shaft greased and easy to turn with no sticking.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

How strange. I've not known these to be an unreliable component. Our old Indesit washing machine had one in and was still going strong when I scrapped it.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I think it's the big back EMF that is damaging them. These 3 are the only big caps that I have seen fail in this way in over 40 years. They are RUN capacitors, and as such are quite large to get rid of the heat during operation.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Couple more solar rock lights: First one, no battery charge, another old solar cell with corroded through connections. Fitted upgrade cell and sealed tight with silicon rubber.

Second one was suddenly not lasting very long and rather dull despite having had my upgrade. One of the (4) LEDs had failed and was pulling the whole thing down. Fitted a new LED and sealed the reflector back in place with more rubber.

Only two left now with the old solar cells. These only put out about 40ma whereas the new cells can deliver 150ma in strong sunlight.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Double hung sash in the bathroom. Needed new putty where some had come loose, sanded down sashes and full repaint. Pugged* up slightly rotten sill, more filler and paint. All looks pretty good now. :)

Need to do the same on the computer room window tomorrow.

* Pug is a dialect term for pounded clay down here but is used nowadays for filler in cars and decorating.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My kitchen worktop mini oven/grill unit. I'd noticed the two top elements (120v 350W) were looking twisted and one had actually grown in length so they were on the way to failure. (End of rod heater at the front)

Attachment 26747 Click for full size.

Couldn't source replacements so I got a 36" 750W user bendable rod heater off ebay and used an 8mm pipe bender to make it into an "S" shape. I drew out the oven inside on squared paper to scale and used a copper wire on the same scale to plan my bend points. Using a small diamond grinder in my hobbyist drill I reamed out one of the original insulators to accept one end of the rod. Took a while as the ceramic is very hard and brittle.

Secured the other end in a hex nut that was a tight fit in the casing but allowes the element some freedome for expansion.

Attachment 26745

Using some coat hanger wire I fabricated two more fixings through the old ceramic insulators. Used some heat proof wire to return the far end of the new element. For ease of access I've removed the internal top cover.

Attachment 26746

All works a treat. :) And yes I did try to clean the interior but being a sort of brushed ally its reluctant to release the splashes.

(Element came from Ezone heating on Ebay for £11 delivered next day)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Replaced the hose on a Bissell lift off carpet cleaner that had split. It had to be stripped down to the motor to connect the water/detergent spray nozzles that run through the hose. Either that or a replacement at £300. The part cost £20 inc p&p from Bissell direct.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

@ Peanut & Heero - I love the fixes which save £££'s :tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A elderly neighbour's flat conservatory roof. Beautifully built apart from the roof which was an absolute abortion joined together with blobs of silicon sealant. Aluminium flashing done to keep the rain out, aluminium paint to be applied on a dry day.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I hate to scrap something that can be given a new lease of life for a bit of ingenuity and a small number of £s.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I'm hoping Mrs Osem agrees with you... :erm:

:)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

sony experia z3+ / z4

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

What did you do to it

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I've not actually fixed anything yet, but am after a bit of advice...

Long story short: I've got an LED Christmas tree that was supplied with a dead 31v DC power supply. The suppliers refunded me for the tree but couldn't supply a replacement power supply.

I've now bought a 31v power supply from another LED lighting supplier, but the new unit has flashing/chasing options and a 3-pin connector, as opposed to the original unit's 2-pin connector and no flashing options.

Now, From an electronics point of view I'm guessing the 3 pins are:

Negative connection
Positive 1
Positive 2

And the flashing/chasing effects are done by applying voltage to the two positive connections in turn, with the "all on" setting being +31v to both positive terminals.

Now, as the connections are totally different I'll be chopping the connectors off and joining the cables directly (the new unit comes with a length of cable, so it should be a simple job to join them up)

First off: Should I join the two positives together or just use one and tape off the spare cable? As the LEDs are wired in one bank/chain most of the flashing cycles probably won't work anyway, but with the two positives joined I'd imagine most options would essentially become "always on" as there would always be 31v or so on the connector.

Secondly: What's the best way to join small gauge cable like you get in LED Christmas lights? I was thinking twisting the wires together together, then soldering, then taping them up or should I use terminal/chock blocks instead?

All suggestions welcome.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Firstly connect the 2 lives together. Seconly use a soldered joint and heat shrink insulation.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/127Pcs-Hea...UAAOSwB09YGbXx

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

replaced digitiser and the front camera and straightened the frame slightly it had had an argument with a car door. getting the glue to set was the hardest bit (lot of heating clamping and waiting involved for some reason)

---------- Post added at 13:35 ---------- Previous post was at 13:31 ----------

don't know if this is considered fixing more of an upgrade ( saving someone from pulling their hair out as they were stuck ) put new 2TB drive into brand new PS4Pro so that they could transfer their stuff from their PS4 with 2TB drive 14 hours that took with a network cable

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Problem is getting hold of heat shrink without waiting for a delivery (even maplins is a fair drive away). What I might do is use the connector blocks for testing and then solder/heatshrink the connections on the final job.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

All done thanks to pip's advice. Turns out the unit was wired with one positive and two negatives, but otherwise it worked as outlined above.

I managed to find some heatshrink tubing in town but I didn't think to get the next size up as well to shrink over the two joints, so there was a little tape involved.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The switch in the button unit on my wireless doorbell. Well for now at least as judging by the poor quality of the "switch" hardware it's highly likely to fail again after a few uses.

Basically just a thin metal membrane held to the circuit board with two flimsy tabs and relies on pressure (not solder) to make one set of contacts. I might take it apart again over the weekend and solder them but it'll more than likely end up in the bin.

It's the type they sell in Screwfix which has 2 remote chime units. Avoid 'em folks.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

:nono: That's against the Ts & Cs of this thread mate!!!

;)

---------- Post added at 14:20 ---------- Previous post was at 14:03 ----------

Talking of dodgy switches, the on/off button on the end cap of my Feit LED torch has failed after being intermittent for some time. I've had a look on YouTube but can't see any way to access the switch from the inside on this model - it seems the problem is often down to the mechanism coming loose and requiring tightening of the retaining ring from the inside but I can't see a way to do this. I have a second identical unit so would keep the body as a spare anyway but can anyone suggest a fix or workaround? The rubberised end button does still give a positive 'click' when pressed but doesn't feel the same as the working one on my other torch. I can feel there's something wrong inside it but can't work out what it is.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Our postie always manages to press the button so hard that it jams in..... :(

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I think that's what's happened, been abused by sausage fingers :(

Not jammed in but it's loosened the metal tabs that push through the circuit board and fold over to secure the thin metal contact membrane.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I think our postie air knocks then goes away, leaving a 'can't deliver ' note

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

You got the same postie as me????

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The slideable shelf thingy that the keyboard sits on on my PC workstation. Despite being years old and looking like it has been attacked by something nasty the workstation is perfectly satisfactory, except for the sliding shelf bit. This fell onto the floor, yet again, the other day. After screwing one of the sliders back on I twisted various metal bits with a pair of pliers until it grudgingly agreed to slide back and forth.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

fixed flat tyre on a non self propelled wheelchair,which is harder than it sounds as the wheels are like 10 inches round and there's barely any clearance to get to the valve, valve stem was stuck as it would only let air out and not in, once I got the tube free of the wheel I could remove the stem and tighten, then pop it back in and pump it up, all was good.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Foil head on my Braun series 3 electric razor: One of the foils suddenly kept jumping out in use. Seems a small plastic guide peg had snapped. I drilled a hole using a 1.4mm hobby drill (Lidl's version of the Dremmel) at the place the peg had been and superglued in a large piece of plastic covered wire from a giant paperclip. Trimmed to the same length as the existing pegs using side cutters. Works a treat.

Saved a bomb as these foil heads are stupid money. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Arise Sir Thrifty of Thrifty Towers! :nworthy:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

just rebuilt from left over parts plus new screen samsung s4 working well ;) and nearly finished ipad 2 but digitizer is unstuck on one corner :( gorilla glue and clamp about to be used lol

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Glued a pair of my daughter's boots that started to fall apart.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My Zanussi built in Electric Oven and Grill.

After using the grill for the first time in ages the other day, the RCD for the house suddenly tripped. This was very odd, as the oven itself wasn't actually turned on at the time (only the clock was showing). The only way I could stop it happening was to switch off the oven isolator switch on the wall. Once everything cooled down, the oven would work again without tripping the RCD, but only if it wasn't warmed up, as soon as it did, it tripped everything again. A couple of electrician friends mentioned it was probably a neutral to earth fault in one of the elements, so I decided to apply the process of elimination, and disconnected each element in turn to see which one caused the issue.

In the end it turned out to be the grill element, and I was luckily able to order a brand new Zanussi part for about £40. I would have got one from Ebay but it seems Zanussi/Electrolux had changed the design of the element (the original had a hinge, the new one didn't) and it was very hard to find one on ebay that was listed as fitting my oven.

It all came apart and went back together surprisingly easily this afternoon, and I can now use my oven again!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Well done. Neutral to earth faults can be real buggers to find.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

It was a very odd one, as the grill element only failed once it warmed up, and would fail even if you didn't power it up, as the heat from the oven cavity was enough to cause it to short. The way I managed it in the end was to disconnect each of the 3 elements (main/fan element, bottom element, grill element) in turn (And using tape on the connectors to avoid them shorting out), power up the oven and warm it up to operating temperature and see if it could get there without tripping.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

It's the physical movement of the internal heating coil vs the sheath of the element. They're insulated by a packing of magnesium oxide. It probably happened by the heat / cool cycles of the actual oven. Usually it's the actual heated element that fails. I don't have an RCD in my house so when the element goes in the oven it's pyrotechnics time. :D

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My house only has the one RCD in the consumer unit. Great for keeping me from becoming extra crispy, but if it goes it trips everything.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I use a separate RCD when I use appliances outdoors like the flymo. I *aught* to upgrade the main panel but it's not a priority.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Finally I've located the source of a memory leak under one of the service host instances on this Windows 10 machine.

Turned out it was that steaming pile of dog excrement called Killer Network Manager and the useless bandwidth filter which it installs. GRRRR!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My reading glasses. One of the plastic arms had broken quite neatly so I drilled tiny holes in each piece to receive a fine metal rod to bridge the break and glued the whole thing together using epoxy glue. Time will tell how well it works.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My Braun series one electric razor. I prefer it to the series 3 but recently it's shave had become uncomfortable snagging the odd hair and also making a funny buzzing sound so I thought it was time to investigate.

Seems to come down to lost motion in a number of places:

First the cutter was moving slightly on the carrier, using another cutter block cured that.

Then the pivot of the carrier was worn but a canabalised old series 3 unit that had already donated its motor several years ago had an almost identical carrier with no play so that was duly swapped over.

Then I saw that the foil seemed to be loose in the cap and was shifting contributing to more lost motion. I transferred the foil to another cap which was snug fitting. Shows the value of retaining some bits and bobs when fitting new parts that are often poor Chinese copies.

A quick trial confirmed that the smooth cut was back with no snagging. I've had 4 electric razors over the years but this simple foil Braun 1508 has the best shave of all of them. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Good job mate. Got any thoughts about this?

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/sh...php?t=33704199

I'm perplexed by why it will only start after it's been plugged in for a while. :confused:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Yeah, I saw your posting. You need to find out if the motor is powered through some kind of power supply that reduces the voltage. I guess that's where the trouble lies but unless you have the right kit it may be difficult to find the problem. Probably some kind of dry joint that makes contact after a while as the unit heats up internally.

Seem to have a similar problem with an LED filament bulb at the moment.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Cartridge chip resetter had stopped resetting genuine Epson carts. Still worked on clones. Batteries seemed low.

Cleaned up the battery holders, bit of contact cleaner spray and a new set of 3 batteries and it works a treat now. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Heero You are such a clever bloke I could do with you here to fix several minor jobs :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Replaced the bulb in my porch light

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

New CR2032 coin cell in the PC and it now remembers the date, time and boot sequence. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Did you lose any of the settings and if so, how did you get round that?

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Anything you lose because battery is flat/replaced you get round by entering the BIOS prior to boot up and setting there, then they'll 'stick'

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

You get a few seconds "grace" so long as you're quick. The CMOS did keep the settings and the clock is still right.

I did go into the BIOS first thing (It's the <del> key during POST on this machine) to check the boot sequence was correct. Most of the rest of things are at the defaults anyway.

The quirk on this system is that HDD channel 0 (first IDE) slave is the CD drive, channel #2 master (first SATA) is my data drive and channel #3 master (second SATA) is the SSD boot drive. I left it like that after transferring the installed OS and apps from an original IDE drive in channel 0 master.

This is why when the CMOS defaulted it went for the first drive it could find (#2) and failed to boot from it.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Thanks but how would you know what to enter into the bios to get things back to where they were?

TIA :tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Most of the CMOS defaults are correct for a standard build system. The memory cards have a small flash RAM on them that gives the BIOS the correct settings. Unless you've had cause to change BIOS settings, like I did with the boot priorities, they'll be at the default most likely.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

That's the sort of information I like to hear. ;)

Cheers.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A 'fix' of sorts - the USB charging connector in my trusty Goodmans pocket DAB radio had become a little loose over time and finally fell out yesterday leaving me unable to charge the radio. I opened it up but soon realised I'd be be unable to fix the connector back onto the PCB however, luckily the radio uses a removeable BL-5C phone battery so I bought a universal battery charger which arrived today and it works just fine. The only slight downside is I now have to charge the battery outside the unit but I can live with that and should be able to use the new charger to charge other batteries with normally have to be charged in situ - my Panasonic TZ27 camera being one example.

Time will tell how good the charger is but it only cost £4.50 and arrived this afternoon and that was with free delivery. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Replaced the 2 kitchen taps with a mixer tap, long over due!

Even the simplest of plumbing jobs are a pain in the ass but luckily it isn't leaking!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Yup, the simplest often turn out to be anything but...

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The wife's favourite sunglasses. The lenses had become badly scratched but we'd kept a few old pairs for spares and I managed to find old pair from with similar sized, unscratched lenses which fitted to the old frame. Thirty mins or so fiddling around removing and reinstating tiny screws, washers, nuts etc. and she has a nice 'new' pair of sunglasses and I have my weekend brownie points. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I used Gorilla glue to reattach the control knob of a mate's hallway dimmer switch. Let's see if his kids can rip that one off...

Incidentally, he had purchased a replacement from Wickes. I was shocked to see the screws to hold the wires in place were 2mm wide, and 10mm down a 2mm hole! Jeweller's screwdriver to do that job!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Some of the leads to the wife's TENS machine. Very poorly designed!

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Patio door lock ad seized so unscrewed it and soaked it with WD 40 hey voila!
Also managed to run over the vacuum lead so insulation tape applied, luckily the wire wasn't too damaged. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed the sole on one of Osem Jnr # 2's favourite moccasin slippers. He's happy :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Electrically heated towel rail in the bathroom in my late mums place: Two of the plastic mountings had split and that was allowing some excess movement, so I carefully drilled couple of extra screw countersunk holes into them, plastered well with construction adhesive and then screwed firmly back onto the wall.

Job's a good'un. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The wife's much loved (but extreme pain inducing) epilator by swapping the broken power adaptor for one I'd kept from an old DAB radio which packed up a few years ago.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I spent a pleasant hour or two chasing electrical faults on my old man's new Case International 885 tractor (the finest 1989 could offer!)

First off was the very odd behaviour of the headlamps. With the switch on "dipped" there was a light on in one headlamp, but not the other. When you hit "main beam" both lamps came on, but very weakly. The main beam warning light was also on whenever the lights were on, even if you had dip beam selected.

Turns out the problem was down to a failed headlamp bulb. The old style H4 bulbs used in this machine have both main and dipped beam filaments in the same glass envelope. What had happened was the earth pin on one of the bulbs had failed, meaning the two circuits were cross-feeding. A couple of new bulbs quickly sorted that.

The second issue was the sidelights didn't work. This was down to the fuses not having blown, but being those terrible old style glass ones, and they'd corroded in their holders. A quick clean up had them all working again, except for one dim LED tail lamp, which turned out to be a poor earth connection.

The last problem was much more of a pain. The indicators were flashing as if a bulb was blown, but all 4 indicators worked. The problem is that the LED Tail lamps installed have LED indicators, meaning they don't provide enough load to keep the indicator flasher unit happy. Unfortunately its not a straightforward part to swap (Tractor flashers are different to car ones) so it seems I'll have to stick a resistor in the circuit somewhere to raise the load to keep the flasher happy.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The companies that market these LED replacements often have the right ally clad resistor(s) to keep the flasher unit happy. It measures the load current internally across a low value resistor to determine if a bulb has failed.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The problem is finding somewhere convenient to mount the resistor, as the tail lamps are mounted on the mudguards (motorbike style) and are quite exposed. I'm tempted to either stick one resistor on the flasher output (to make up for the one bulb that's "missing" on each circuit or re-wire the whole shebang to take a simple 3 pin LED flasher unit

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A single resistor near the flasher unit sounds like the way to go. Although the aluminium clad ones are pretty rugged I don't think they'll take continuous exposure to muck and bullets.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Toilet flush: Went to do it this morning and the handle went almost full circle.

Turns out the lever inside had fractured and allowed the square handle shaft to rotate. Luckily my local B&Q had a universal lever repair kit for £3.50. Fixed now. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Osem Jnr's bunk bed - now transformed by removing the lower bunk entirely and fitting his folding sofabed in the space created. It no longer converts to a double bed but if a spare sleeping berth is required the sofa is adequate and all the floorspace saved in his bedroom will be used to accommodate a nice new desk and chest of drawers (when he gets his finger out...). :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Solar powered rocks and lamps: Charged up several sets of batteries. 5 rocks worked straight off and so did 3 spike lamps with a little attention with the contact cleaner spray.

One more spike lamp with some close attention to the battery compartment, these are disintegrating as the plastic has gone brittle. Two won't work at all so I'll need to get the scope onto them to find out what has failed. These are my oldest lamps (10+years) and have two batteries and a big solar cell and quite a bit of circuitry inside. They're considerably brighter than the offerings today and light the surrounding area nicely.

The rocks only have a 4 pin IC, choke and switch. A bit more work and replacing the IC and a failed LED in one and re-soldering the switch in the other got the last two up and running.

I have a supply of high output solar cells, LEDs and the ICs and I've seen a neat idea of using a screw top jar to house a light. Tempted to make some up. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

The apex of my shed roof. The felt succumbed to hurricane Dierdre (or whatever it was called) a few weeks ago and I only noticed the other day.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

You sure it wasn't hurricane Brexit? :D

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Sir, if Farage has been tampering with my appurtenances I shall be most annoyed.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

just replaced the pull start on my suitcase generator used twice and disintegrated [its a cheap Chinese joby] replaced part with a genuine Yamaha starter [and hey presto we have life .reason it broke all the metal parts of a genuine starter had been copied in plastic so not very robust at all.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixed Osem Jnr's workstation lighting problem by installing a 5m set of remoted controlled multicolour 5050 LED waterproof strip lights. The lights are great and very simple operate but fitting them under and around the wall mounted storage unit I made for him years ago was a bit of a faff. In the end the result looks really nice and he's just waiting for darkness to fall to try them out in the dark.

For anyone who's interested this is the set we bought:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/LEDemain-Fl...050+led+lights

£21 for 2 x 5m light strips, 44 key remote control, IR light controller, power adaptor and assorted fixings.

Don't forget to use the site link to Amazon. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Oh brill Osem I bet he's really thrilled with them.

I spent the morning putting up large hooks in the garage to hold the strimmer and other garden tools.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Yep they look great in a darkened room and not too bright that they light the whole place up.

You really can't have enough hooks, they're soooo useful. ;)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Tape gun. Made a decent one out of two crappy ones.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Height adjuster on the patio parasol: The lever had broken and I tried superglue but it broke again. I had some wooden sash parting bead so I cut off a piece, traced the critical part of the outline (cam and hole) from the broken part, fashioned a slightly longer replacement lever using a small saw, the palm sander and drill.

After rummaging in my assorted fixings tin I found a small shanked M8 bolt the shank being the same diameter as the rivet that I had drilled out. Fitted it together with a nylock nut and after a bit of fine tuning of the lever cam profile where it clamps the pole with the sander and a bit of candle wax it works a treat.

I don't know if you can get the clamp thingy as a replacement or the whole lower pole but I bet even then it would cost. 30 odd minutes of DIY and the job's done. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Not fixed but reclaimed:
Did a dump run this morning. Whilst I'm there a bloke walks past me with a Bosch sander identical to mine. I think 'spares' and ask him for it. He gives it to me and says that it works. I now have a backup sander for free! :)
People are strange :confused:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Yes it is weird what some people with just throw out. :shrug:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Last one of my big solar lamps: Had to get the scope onto it to find out that a capacitor and the LED had failed. These were made before there were specialist chips to make these lamps so use a circuit with quite a number of components in it and two batteries. Fortunately I had traced out the circuit and drawn it up some time ago.

Very bright and stay lit all night even when they only get a small charge during the day but then they were quite expensive as I recall.

One of the rocks is looking dim so I'll need to take a look at it. Runs all night so it's probably a failing LED (out of 4)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

A leak from behind our washing machine. Turned out to be the connection between the water pipe and the filler hose. All sorted. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Replaced the motor in our aging Dyson vacuum. What a pain in the backside. Will probably replace the whole lot next time. Though the saving is £25 vs £300+

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Excellent job. :tu:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

New greenhouse leaking like a sieve, applied silicone to all the most obvious points, (keeping fingers crossed). :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Neighbour kindly gave us wooden staging for our greenhouse (top only). Then I remembered one of our cupboards had wooden slats (not needed as very top shelf) so 4 legs sawed to the desired height. :):):)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I fixed my dads pc :) it just needed a new bios battery and the bios settings updated. Nice.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

:tu:

But when are you going to post the details of how you did it for all us technophobes? ;)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Fixing replacing and updating my Ariel distribution cabling and booster

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

New suspension drop links and bushings front and rear on the ol' jam jar

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Our remote controlled garage door. Went out this morning and it opened/closed fine but on our return it wouldn't open. A quick look at the control panel showed it was totally dead so I checked the plug fuse and when that proved to be OK decided to open up the control panel. I could immediately see the courtesy light bulb had blown and after a little searching located the little circuit fuse board fuse which had blown along with it. Luckily I had a spare so replaced that, put in a new LED bulb, closed it all back up and bingo it's now working just fine. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Just replaced the security light on the side of our house. Cable all neatly tacked along the wall, about 12 feet up. Me no like high ladders :erm:

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

I replaced wheel caster in my office chair.

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

My Braun shaver. It'd started making funny noises and I couldn't work out why. I took off the head and couldn't see anything inside but then noticed a tiny thin piece of black plastic on the floor. I nearly threw it away but closer inspection of the shaver head revealed it to be one of 2 tiny clips which sit under each end of the foil. Clipped it back in place and voila... :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Serendipity Osem or just pure genius?

I've just fixed our patio door lock which had seized up, it was a case of desperation, in this weather need a through draught. :)

Re: What have you fixed lately?
 

Desperation is the mother of invention in this heat. :D