Fix-It Clinics
Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA, Fix-It Clinics
In September 2012, Hennepin County (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA area) began offering monthly Fix It Clinics for residents to bring in hand carry items for on site repair by volunteers, free of charge, for the purpose of reducing items being put in the trash. Based on the Repair Cafes in Europe and other countries. At a typical Fix-It Clinic, residents bring in over 75 items for repair. Some residents will come in with several items at a time. The Hennepin County Fix-It clinics are held once a month at rotating sites around Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs within Hennepin County, typically at places like community centers, churches and libraries.
"What you do for yourself dies with you; what you do for others lives forever".
http://www.hennepin.us/fixitclinic
Fix-it Clinics are more than just reducing items going to trash. Its about fixing a musical reindeer that a woman bought for her daughter years ago, and needed to be repaired for her coming grandchild. Its about fixing a woman's music box that was given to her as a gift by her late father forty years ago. Its about fixing a child's favorite toy. Its about retired guys having a time to get together. It is a teaching and learning experience with other fixers. Volunteers bring their own tools, and many have purchased special tools and parts to repair items. Typically the residents who bring in items are environmentally responsible, sometimes just low income, or just have an item they treasure that needs fixing.
Typical items brought in for repair are lamps, vacuum cleaners, fans, paper shredders, small kitchen appliances and small electronics. There are volunteers who mend clothes, too. Emphasis is placed on letting the owner of the item do as much of the work as possible, as a learning experience for them, and to give them the confidence to try fixing what they can for themselves. Sometimes the residents know how to fix it, but don't have the tools or parts. It is not unusual for someone to bring in an item to repair, where it is just dead batteries or a user setting wrong. One memorable experience was fixing a TV for a woman in her 60s who bicycled to the clinic with her TV in an oversize backpack. Luckily it was just a fuse blown by a recent thunderstorm. Typically, the high tech stuff has a lower likely-hood of being repairable. As they say on “The Red Green Show”, “If the women don’t find you handsome, they can at least find you handy”. Sometimes if we can identify the bad part but don't have a replacement, the resident can buy the part and bring it in to the next clinic. At one Fix-It clinic, as the fixers introduced themselves, it was found that about half were electrical engineers. Many of the fixers are retired,and fixing things is what we enjoy doing, and it gives us a chance to socialize with other fixers.
Adding a forth "R" to environmental responsibility:
Reduce
Repair
Reuse
Recycle
Pictures from Fix-It Clinics below taken by Hennepin County Fix-It Clinic founder and coordinator Nancy Lo.
Letting a resident solder a wire on her musical reindeer.
When a Fix-It Clinic was held at a family friendly brew pub, I recruited two interested children at a nearby table to help. Photo taken by their father. If you have something that is going to be thrown out, even if you can't fix it, take it apart for the experience.
Be a smart consumer - remember Murphy's law - Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Plain and simple is more reliable than the fancy control items. Does a coffee maker really require fancy electronic controls? It's best to buy things with mechanical On/Off switches, instead of programmable controls. Mechanical switches can be replaced, but something with a electronic switch that fails is probably destined for the trash. An item with 100 electrical parts is more likely to fail than one with 50 electrical parts.
Repair parts suggestion: Repair parts online can be very expensive, even for a simple plastic part. In many cases, I found the manufacturers part number online, but the part cost over $25. Looking on ebay, I found the identical part for a quarter the price.
Common repair parts needed:
1. Thermal fuses - these are the most common failure in small heat producing appliances such as coffee makers, rice cookers, toaster ovens, hair dryers, etc. If the appliance is totally dead, check this first. They are usually are inside a sleeve, and physically mounted to the appliance somehow. They seem to just get "tired" and fail over time, or the current rating is exceeded. Generally not available retail, try ebay for small quantities, with an assortment of temperatures. These are usually in series with the main heating element or main power. They come in various temperature ratings, in degrees C, and typically rated for a maximum of 10 Amps, which might be why it failed. If you remember incandescent lights, they usually failed when you turned it on, when there is an initial current surge. The most common temperature range used is about 113C to 240C.
Thermal fuse butt splices - A seamless butt splice works best. Search for Panduit BS22-M, Crimp Supply 11A20023 (found on ebay), or other 26-22 ga. butt splice, with seamless or brazed seam construction. They cost about $.20 each. Larger size seamless butt splices can be used for other applications.
2. assorted connectors - ring terminals, spade terminals, etc.
3. heat shrink assortment, electrical tape, adhesives and epoxies, and sandpaper.
4. bits of wire, power cords, lamp sockets and plugs.
5. Electrical switches - There are thousands of types, but sometimes you can make do with what you have.
Handy tools to have:
A smart phone to look up parts, or even how to fix an item, and common failures of a certain model device.
A good assortment of hand tools, multimeter, soldering iron, security screwdriver bit set such as theTekton 2841, flashlight, magnifying glass or smart phone ap.
A handy device to have is a plug-in watt-meter. It will tell you right away if a device that is supposed to heat is functioning.
Ohms Law formulas - Do a screen capture if you can, to save this:
Microwave oven note - If a microwave oven runs but does not heat, the most likely culprit is the high voltage diode. Typically rated for around 12Kv and .35A, they can not be checked with a normal diode tester or ohmmeter. The normal forward bias voltage drop is about 9 volts DC. Use a 12 v DC or higher power supply, with a 1K resistor in series, and measure the voltage in both directions. Check Youtube for more detailed instructions. I bought five CL01-12 diodes on ebay for $1.31 total, with free shipping. How is that possible???
If the microwave is dead, check for an internal fuse that has blown. There is a "failsafe" circuit that will blow the fuse if the door opens while the microwave is still powered on. Look for a worn part, bad adjustment, failed switch in the door latch assembly, or a door that's out of alignment. That's a common problem with microwaves. The only simple solution is not to open the door when the microwave is running. I have two microwaves like that.
If a microwave is sparking, with no metal inside, it could be food splattered on the "waveguide plate", that plate on the inside of the microwave. Clean it off carefully. If it still sparks, it could be the sparking damaged the inside of the waveguide plate. These are replaceable, but expensive if you are looking for an exact replacement. You might be able to find a generic plate to replace it on Amazon or eBay.
Vacuum cleaner note - Vacuum cleaners frequently come in where they run, but don't suck. Look for plugged hoses and dirty filters.
Coffee maker note - The Repair Cafe organization recommends cleaning them with citric acid, not vinegar. Vinegar is too aggressive. If the coffee maker turns on but does pump hot water, the float that senses the water level may be stuck at the "empty" setting. Empty the water out of the coffee maker, turn it upside down and spank it. If it works then, be sure to run some citric acid through it a couple times.
If alkaline batteries leak and corrode, vinegar will clean it right up.
From what I have read, putting baking soda on super glue will cause it to harden immediately.