Make America Repair Again

Business insider ^ | 1st May 2025 | Emily Stewart

[Cronos]

It used to be the case that people had limited amounts of stuff, and when whatever stuff they did have broke, they fixed it. Then the postwar economic boom and the "Mad Men" era of advertising, and voilà, stuff-palooza. Unlimited amounts of things now surround us, allowing us to take an on-to-the-next-one approach to consumption. When our phones, washing machines, or jeans show even a remote sign of wear, the path of least resistance is to replace them. Now, with President Donald Trump's tariffs threatening to increase prices and continuing concerns about inflation, that calculation may not be so straightforward. Repair is becoming increasingly appealing. The problem is, it's a habit we've moved away from — and one that may be tough to get back to because of technological, financial, and cultural shifts.

If Americans want to avoid tariff-driven price jumps, they may want to put down their credit cards and pick up some duct tape or a screwdriver

It's better for Apple if you buy a brand-new $900 iPhone than spend $90 on a new battery or give $25 to some small local shop to replace your cracked screen. The company spends a lot of energy on getting you to do that, via design, marketing, and other strategies. "They refuse to sell replacement parts to consumers, or they use software locks that frustrate repairs. Even if you're using authorized original manufacturer components, they leverage intellectual property law

[Responsibility2nd]

I had a lighting strike at my house last year. Thank God for Surge Protectors.

One thing that did get fried however was the dishwasher. To replace the circuit board would have cost me $400.00.

On an 8 year old Home Depot Cheapo unit. Naturally I bought a new one. Paid 700, but thems the breaks.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Brings back memories. Especially when you play a guitar through an old Fender Twin Reverb.

[Red Badger]

Yes! We actually used one at a local Drug Store!..................

[PittsburghAfterDark]

It’s very tough to even want to attempt a repair. How do you justify a $150 diagnostic on a $300 TV? Then actually pay to repair it?

Same thing with a refrigerator. I had to replace the seal on a Samsung refrigerator and the stupid magnet strip cost $150-175 and about that much to have someone put it in. That on a $900 refrigerator. If the compressor went that would have been $300+ for the part and $200 to put it in.

The problem is repairing items is far too expensive vs. replacement.

[Myrddin]

No taxes paid on your repairs improvements you do your self. A good way to get ahead financially.

I've done that for years. My Harley Fat Bob had a fuel pump failure. The shop estimate was approaching $1,000. I did it myself with parts purchased on Amazon and a special screw set from Harley. About $180 in parts, 3 hours of my time. My dad had a very nice TV that suddenly failed to sync the picture. The shop wanted $200 for a replacement sync board plus labor to install it. I repaired the board with 1 transistor from some ECG replacements. $2.80 to the parts department at work, 1 hour of my time. Good as new.

[Myrddin]

I haven't had to do repairs on modern electronics boards in recent years. The use of SMD and reflow techniques requires tools I never needed in the past. My vision is no longer razor sharp. My hands are no longer steady enough for neurosurgery. Age takes a toll. Retirement approaches. The cost differential between DIY and hiring help may influence my choice to retool or not.

[Bob434]

[[It used to be the case that people had limited amounts of stuff, and when whatever stuff they did have broke, they fixed it]]

Whatchamean “used to be”? I’m wearing 30 year old clothes, (s9me patched up, some still pretty nice) using 80 yr old+ garden tools and mechanical and carpentry tools, using a 20 year old washing machine that has been repaired numerous times, etc etc etc.

[Myrddin]

Amen. Bring back Radio Shack!

I worked at Radio Shack while attending grad school. Over my years at work, Radio Shack was the "go to" place to pick up supplies for field repairs. I'm blessed to still have a Radio Shack open in Pocatello. It's a franchise with a subset of the Radio Shack product line. Good for quick tasks. More comprehensive, specialized things can be ordered online.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Remember when you used to go get your shoes re-soled? Do they even do that anymore?

[1Old Pro]

Remember when you used to go get your shoes re-soled? Do they even do that anymore?

LL Bean does that on their bean boots and I believe Allen Edmunds does as well. 2 American Companies.

[Bon of Babble]

Stuff is made so crappy now that it wears out after five or seven years, especially household appliances.

The generation before mine, my dad’s, fixed everything themselves - because they couldn’t afford to replace expensive appliances.

My dad came off a farm and could fix almost anything and worked on all of our cars saving us a ton of money.

I miss him to this day.

[cyclotic]

My father in law was like that. He could fix anything with nothing.

We were at their house once and popped a tire on Easter Sunday. We had too long a drive to use the donut spare.

He actually had the right size tire in his barn.

I took us a whole but we managed to mount it to the wheel and off we went.

I enjoy repurposing stuff and occasionally figuring out ways to make stuff work.

[GingisK]

I have a wonderful SMD rework station. Like you, I have more limitations than before. There were always SMDs I couldn't handle with even my workstation.

The real dig is the software. Even if you manage to change out a defective uP, chances are high that you will never have access to the software that goes into it.

[GingisK]

Oh, Lord! There were and always will be better places to get electronics parts. Radio Shack sold “floor sweepings” at 4X the price you would pay for premium parts elsewhere.

[GingisK]

I have been wondering if it would be wise to design and sell replacement uP boards for appliances. I know for a fact that appliances are simple to control and what they charge for replacement circuit boards is 100X their actual worth. Replacement controls might be a good business, keeping older appliances running.

[Myrddin]

The real dig is the software. Even if you manage to change out a defective uP, chances are high that you will never have access to the software that goes into it.

I designed the boards and wrote the firmware for boards where I had to do the work. I had a subcontractor build the boards, so no need for fancy tools. Over a 5 year time frame, the only hardware failures were one electrolytic cap and one temperature sensor with lightning damage. It was a pretty high G environment on a coal carrying railcar.

[Buffalo Bob]

I had a lighting strike at my house last year. Thank God for Surge Protectors.

I have an Outlet Surge Protector on every appliance including the garage disposal.

Three years ago we had a very close lightening strike that took out the Surge Protector for our digital dryer and digital gas stove. Those two Surge Protector saved me many hundreds of dollars in repairs, or thousands for replacement.

Amazon has good ones here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NP7VSNK (I gain nothing from Amazon for this posting)

[Buffalo Bob]

I meant garbage disposal.

[GingisK]

...coal carrying railcar...

That is indeed a high-G environment. Sounds like interesting work.

I also design boards and write firmware. There was always work for me. Even now I have some clients that want to keep me busy. It seems they can't find the hardware/software/system design in one place like me.

Lightning. My favorite.

I've used a bushel of uP's, lately I'm leaning heavily on ATSAM ARMs. I used ATMEGA devices for many years, sprinkle in PICs and some of the wonderful old stuff like Z80s, 6800s, 68000s, and 68HC11s along the way.

[Myrddin]

I used principally PIC18F devices on the trains. The last iteration used CAN bus to the devices to minimize wiring and improve signal to noise on the rail cars. I ran the clock speed down to 4 MHz to minimize power requirements as well. The research cars had a Timken generator bearing that included a 12 pole tachometer signal to estimate the speed. Wheels are 36" diameter. At 18 pulses per second, I was making enough power to charge the battery and sustain booting the PC104 stack. Initially it was QNX based, but we added an observer/subscriber package that was dirt cheap for Linux and outrageously expensive for QNX. I ported all of the code to Linux from QNX. At the Linux level I had a serial interfaced GPS and serially interface CAN bus controller. An ethernet connected to "access points" that were operating a mesh network based on OLSR. There was also a 16-bit A2D that allowed sampling 100 KSPS against the accelerometer on the bearing adapter. That picked up signal from the cup, cone, cage and roller bearings. I did some local DSP to extract signals from each component. Tri-axial accelerometers were on the bolster at each end with signals in vertical, lateral and longitudinal planes to assess ride quality. I sampled those with PIC18F devices and sent results back on the CAN bus. There was a brake piston position sensor, handbrake actuator, anglecock actuator and cut-lever actuator. It was capable of closing angle-cock values, setting the handbrake and break the car free under complete remote control. All actuators were my designs and implemented with 18F PIC. Back at the PC104, I had a serial connection to a 1xRTT cellar modem to send data collected back to the server in Fairfax, VA. LAT/LON/timestamp/battery condition were transmitted at least hourly when idle and once per minute in motion. What do you do with that data? You tell the customer about 55 kinds of defects that are detectable and allow for maintenance scheduling at the customer shop instead of a breakdown "on the road". There were also temperature sensors on each bearing adaptor in place of the old "stink bombs" so a bearing burn off could be detect immediately instead of waiting for a track-side detector to spot it on 20 mile intervals.

That's the short synopsis. I published papers at the 10th International CAN Conference in Rome and IEEE/ASME conference in Pueblo, CO in early 2005. The whole project was canceled about 2 hours after Obama was inaugurated.