The Dublin Hackerspace
Our own Jeffrey Roe was interviewed by Henry McKean for the Moncrieff show on Newstalk.
Irish consumers recycled a record number of electrical items last year, but WEEE, the country’s largest e-waste scheme, has warned that we need move to a more circular economy whereby we repair rather than recycle. But how easy is it to get a washing machine or toaster fixed? And is it worth your while? Henry McKean has been finding out.
Listen back to the interview on this podcast.
An event that was months in the works took place last week. We have been working on bringing a RepairCafe back to Dublin and it turned out brilliantly. https://www.tog.ie/2022/04/repair-cafe/
We had 36 items in for repair over the course of the day. Each one had a story and history behind it. Our visitors didn’t want to see it just end up in landfill. They wanted to see the items live on.
There were significant costs such as additional insurance, a PAT tester and PAT training. Without support from the @Accenture_Irl funding on the @ChangexHQ platform, it would not have been possible. Thanks to them we could put on this event. #AccentureSustainabilityChallenge
We also need to thank our local @RSIreland for the consumables that were used in many of the electronic/electrical repairs.
Lastly, we need to say thanks to all the fixers. We had both members of @TOG_Dublin and non-members helping out on the day. Without you, it would have just been an empty room. We will see you all at the next cafe in three months.
Check out more photos in our gallery from the event.
No need to throw them away!
Save your things from the landfill and your wallet from having to replace them.
Bring them to our repair café and learn how to fix them together with our volunteers. We have tools, materials, space to work on your item, and repair experts who will help you with your repair.
TOG members will be on hand to show you around the space – come and enjoy a tea or coffee and a tour while you wait!
Where? – TOG, Unit 1B Motor City
Kylemore Road, Dublin 12
When? – Sunday April 24th, 11 am – 4 pm
Admission free – all are welcome!
If you would like to be a fixer, drop us an email.
Spread the word and put up a poster.
This event was made possible with funding from the Accenture Sustainability Challenge.
Let’s go on a journey of repair with Jeffrey. We have a Dynatron radio model SRX 26. I think it’s from the 1970s. The radio came from Henry which has been in his family since it was new. Unfortunately it has been waiting on me to repair it since September 2020.
I started off by wiping all the dust I have let fall on it. It is a crazy heavy thing. The best way to start is to have a good look over the radio. The point is to find any problems with the cable and to check it is safe before ever plugging it in. It also seems to be missing its record player cartridge (the needle).
The radio lead and fuse are the next places to check. It is using an older style of plug that should be replaced at some point. The fuse and lead are fine. Now for a power-on test. the unit is not showing any signs of life.
Now to take it apart and show everyone’s favourite part the insides. There looks to be other historical repairs carried out. If you look at the above image on the left-hand side.
An internal mains fuse looks very “crusty”. After taking it out it’s clearly blown. There are also two more fuses that are blown. The type of fuse is nicely labelled on the radio but I had none in stock. A short walk down to RS and picked up a bag of replacement fuses.
It came alive! Well it turns on anyway. The next step to try and find some suitable audio leads to test the sound. I only had a headphone adaptor but soon was getting sound from the radio but with a lot of hisses.
To overcome the hiss, I attacked all the knobs with some switch cleaner. You take off all the knobs and spray in the fluid. Give the knobs a good turn, backwards and forwards to work in the cleaner.
The last job was to mount the speaker port that was loose in the cabinet. Unfortunately without that type of lead, I could not test it.
Check out the radio in action in the video above. The radio seems to work fine with headphones. The turntable needs a cartridge but that is a job for the radio owner. If you would like to see more photos of the repair check out our gallery.
A story of repair by our member Jeffrey.
I do like the chance to repair things every now and again. It allows me to get away from coding and try something.
This Sunday I had a look at this broken Casio SK-1. A classic small sampling keyboard made by Casio from 1985.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_SK-1
From the owner, they didn’t have a plug for it and it was no longer working with batteries and the last time they played it the sound was a bit off.
I got the unit to power up with an adjustable voltage supply but taking care of the odd centre pin negative configuration. It can certainly make noise.
Finding the service manual online, made opening it up fairly straightforward. I can see some type of liquid had stained the area around the battery compartment.
A good while cleaning contact points and spraying it with a load of compressed air it looked a lot better. Now testing with five AA batteries the unit came to life.
Now for the odd sound. It seems when the volume is about 40% and a few of the bass notes are played distortion comes to visit. Thinking it might be just the inbound speaker, a line out was plugged in and it had followed us there.
The demo mode and other instruments at higher volume seem to be free of this distortion. A visual inspection of the caps and parts on the board, I saw no immediate signs of damage.
I called it a day before reaching for the oscilloscope and began probing singles and that’s all the time on I had on a Sunday morning. For more photos check out our gallery.
Clarie Downey, Executive with the Community Reuse Network Ireland, and our own Jeffrey Roe went on the Today with Sean O’Rourke show on RTE Radio One. Thet chatted about repair cafes and repair culture in Ireland. You can listen back via the link below.