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Shoutout to the guy who fixed my 1990s boombox at the swap meet
Honestly, he was just using a basic multimeter and a soldering iron from a tackle box. It made me miss when you could fix stuff with simple tools instead of needing a $2000 hot air station and software. Anyone else feel like the skill floor for repair keeps getting higher?
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charlescraig1mo ago
People always say the old stuff was easier to fix, but you're forgetting how many things just got tossed back then too. I grew up in the 90s and half the VCRs my dad touched ended up in the dumpster after he cracked a plastic gear or stripped a screw. The real difference is that back then, if you knew what you were doing, you could patch up a mechanical part with some grease and a prayer. Now a lot of that stuff is just cheap chips that cost pennies to replace if you can get the part, but the companies make you buy a whole new board to keep you locked in. The service manual thing grinds my gears too, that's a racket for sure, but I still see guys fixing modern laptops with a basic iron and some flux. The skill floor isn't higher, the junk is just designed different and the manufacturers are being jerks about sharing the specs.
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mia7002mo ago
Ugh, this hits on something else that bugs me. It's not just the tools, it's that companies hide the repair info now. For that boombox, you could find a paper manual or just see how it worked. Now everything's sealed shut and the guides are locked behind paywalls. They make it hard on purpose so you buy new instead. That lost knowledge is the worst part for me.
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paul_taylor212mo ago
My dad used to fix our old VCR with just a screwdriver and the manual. Now my coffee maker died and the company wanted 50 bucks just for the service manual. It feels like they're selling us the problem and the solution.
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Eh, I don't know... it's annoying for sure, but is it some big lost knowledge crisis? Most stuff that breaks now is just cheap circuit boards anyway, not like the old mechanical parts you could actually fix. The info is out there if you look hard enough, people post tear-down videos for everything.
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