Let’s Repair
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
On a cloud-laden, rain-forecasted, Sunday afternoon, a small group of committed repairers and sustainability champions met for repairing stuff that would otherwise have been consigned to waste.
As promised, there was a short informative session around how to use a digital multi-meter for diagnosis of electricals and electronics. Our volunteer friend Viraj Gandhi shared the information on the use of multimeter. As expected, the conversation veered towards AC/DC, volts/current, transformers, electricity grid & power generation. Other repair enthusiasts were busy repairing the extension boards while listing down the order of how one should go about diagnosing a fault initially without opening an equipment/gadget: A) Check whether the equipment is really faulty B) undertaking a visual inspection of external wires, C) See if the batteries are fresh
Ritesh Gohil was salvaging magnets from an old speaker/amplifier that was marked as “unrepairable”. He also salvaged the outer boxes of these speakers to use them as small plant pots.
We also diagnosed an old calculator & verified that it’s battery needed replacement. The repair champion was informed about the type of battery needed “LR44”, so that he may now replace it. We also had a set of earphones that gave out sound from one side. Unfortunately, we could not identify the fault with it and hence could not diagnose it. During the repair community events, we have realized that speakers, microphones, headphones, and earphones, unless they are high quality, are very difficult to find fault and repair.
Viraj also carried out a small experiment where he showed the “flow of current to ground” by using phase wire and earthing another wire while lighting the bulb without a neutral, thus explaining that AC current tries to find the earth/ground.
It was a small Repair Community but nonetheless as fun-filled, as informative and as filled with relevant discussions and stories as ever.
