Repair Café
i've fantasised about something like this beforemy neighbors are consistently throwing away perfectly fine electronics where 90% of the problems are a blown electrolytic capacitorthere is a place in our apartment complex where we place electronic rubbish and just two days ago i noticed a tablet with a destroyed screeni popped it open and everything inside looked pristine so i bought a new screen for some ~20$ and am now waiting on it to arrivei've fixed a toaster oven with a busted resistor, 50in plasma tv with a blown capacitor i now use as a monitor for my laptop when working at home, a blender with a broken container and blown capacitor.. an older blender model that actually has a standard thread size so i am able to use mason jars as a, what i think is superior, containeri think repair should be taught in schools, a la 'home ec', educationally its a three`for : repair, basic ee, basic applied mathswhen i was living in squats in london part of the squat culture was to slowly accrue enough bike parts in the hope that you could one day open your squat doors as a bike repair cafei have thought quite often something similar for basic everyday electronics would be great for educational and environmental concernsthere is so much unneccessary eWaste, even if something is beyond simple component swap repair it can itself be used to source parts for other fixable devicesthe idea that we toss away a salvageable device, or even its sometimes hundreds of functioning discreet components, because of a single blown capacitor, frayed wire or dislodged headphone jack is upsetting