Have you ever had a Logitech mouse start to act funny with the left click? Maybe it double clicks when you know you’ve single clicked, or you click and drag and it doesn’t? Yeah it’s probably the microswitch. I’ve got a little herd of M570’s, after a few years they all start doing that, so I pop them open, it’s like 4 or 5 screws hidden under the little rubber feet and one in the battery compartment, desolder the switch, solder on a new one, and it’s back to working like new.
I’ve had a guy arguing with me that that’s not worth it.
I had a random orbital sander stop working. So many people these days would say “It’s a $99 tool, I’ll just throw it away and buy a new one.” I took mine apart and cleaned the dust out of it. Running like brand new.
Personally, I think a factor is there’s been a shift by companies in general to not make things as obvious to repair. My dad has a unibody 2012 MacBook Pro and the book literally tells you how to open it so you can service it by upgrading the RAM; a far cry from the situation today.
Older tools were held together with some common screws and were all built the same, so there wasn’t too much concern from the layman popping one open to clean it out to service it. Modern power tools just don’t look like you should be opening them, as the screws are completely hidden, they’re hard to open comparatively, and its usually the battery that goes anyway, which can’t be replaced when it’s been discontinued.
My Logitech G500s had the funny clicker, I have a soldering iron but that felt a bit too fiddly (at the time) but I was able to dismantle the switch itself on the board and bend the contacts a bit. Been three years and it’s still behaving. The cable went too at one point, with random disconnects as it moved. Was surprised to discover I could just order a new cable that plugged into the internal socket and it was good as new!
Sometimes it can be an exercise in frustration. My wife’s Redmi note 10 is on its 4th screen, the original and third ones were dropped, the second was shit and crapped out after a couple of months, the fourth is showing signs of going the same way. Along with occasional locking up and WiFi problems that are fixed with a reboot (pretty sure I didn’t break it on my many delves into its guts) I decided fuck it, its a ~£200 phone, get something else this time.
So instead I’m tearing my hair out trying to get her new Samsung A54 to restore the last Google backup.
Have you ever had a Logitech mouse start to act funny with the left click? Maybe it double clicks when you know you’ve single clicked, or you click and drag and it doesn’t? Yeah it’s probably the microswitch. I’ve got a little herd of M570’s, after a few years they all start doing that, so I pop them open, it’s like 4 or 5 screws hidden under the little rubber feet and one in the battery compartment, desolder the switch, solder on a new one, and it’s back to working like new.
I’ve had a guy arguing with me that that’s not worth it.
I had a random orbital sander stop working. So many people these days would say “It’s a $99 tool, I’ll just throw it away and buy a new one.” I took mine apart and cleaned the dust out of it. Running like brand new.
Why are people so afraid of fixing things?
Personally, I think a factor is there’s been a shift by companies in general to not make things as obvious to repair. My dad has a unibody 2012 MacBook Pro and the book literally tells you how to open it so you can service it by upgrading the RAM; a far cry from the situation today.
Older tools were held together with some common screws and were all built the same, so there wasn’t too much concern from the layman popping one open to clean it out to service it. Modern power tools just don’t look like you should be opening them, as the screws are completely hidden, they’re hard to open comparatively, and its usually the battery that goes anyway, which can’t be replaced when it’s been discontinued.
My Logitech G500s had the funny clicker, I have a soldering iron but that felt a bit too fiddly (at the time) but I was able to dismantle the switch itself on the board and bend the contacts a bit. Been three years and it’s still behaving. The cable went too at one point, with random disconnects as it moved. Was surprised to discover I could just order a new cable that plugged into the internal socket and it was good as new!
Sometimes it can be an exercise in frustration. My wife’s Redmi note 10 is on its 4th screen, the original and third ones were dropped, the second was shit and crapped out after a couple of months, the fourth is showing signs of going the same way. Along with occasional locking up and WiFi problems that are fixed with a reboot (pretty sure I didn’t break it on my many delves into its guts) I decided fuck it, its a ~£200 phone, get something else this time.
So instead I’m tearing my hair out trying to get her new Samsung A54 to restore the last Google backup.