c/electronics-repairers

TIL my 'junk' drawer has over 200 spare capacitors

I was cleaning the shop and decided to actually count them. It matters because I've been telling clients we have to order parts, but I've got a huge stockpile of common values right here. Anyone else have a hidden stash they forgot about?

I thought those cheap USB microscopes were a total gimmick

Got one for like $35 off Amazon last month just to see. Used it on a phone board with a suspected BGA crack. The thing actually showed me a hairline fracture I couldn't see with my loupe. It's not lab grade, but for quick visual checks on SMD components, it's way more useful than I expected. The software is clunky, but the image is clear enough. Has anyone else found a decent use for these budget scopes, or did I just get lucky?

Pro tip: don't cheap out on those 'universal' power supply testers

I grabbed a $15 one online thinking it would save me time, but it gave me a false positive on a laptop board and I ended up ordering a good DC jack for nothing, costing me about $40 total. It turns out those cheap testers don't put any real load on the circuit, so they'll light up even with a weak power rail. What's a better, budget-friendly way to actually test a power supply under load?

I just learned how much heat a modern graphics card can actually put out

I was fixing a gaming PC for a friend last week, a custom build with an RTX 4080. The thing kept shutting down under load. I figured it was the power supply, but after swapping it, the problem stayed. I finally dug into the specs and saw the card's max thermal design power is 320 watts. That's like three old light bulbs running full blast inside a tiny case. I had to explain to my friend that his two cheap case fans just weren't cutting it for moving that much heat. We added three better fans and re-did the thermal paste, and now it runs fine. It really hit me how much cooling has become a core part of the repair job now, not just an afterthought. Has anyone else had to completely rethink a system's airflow for a single component?

A trick with a toothpick and some tape saved a laptop screen ribbon cable

Had a client bring in a 2021 Dell XPS 13 with a flickering screen. The usual stuff, reseated the cable, checked the connector, but the flicker came back after a day. The tiny ZIF connector on the board itself felt a bit loose. Instead of ordering a whole new board, I cut a tiny sliver from a flat wooden toothpick, maybe 2mm long. I put a small piece of kapton tape on one side so it wouldn't stick to the cable, then slid it into the space under the connector's locking flap after I closed it. It added just enough pressure to keep the cable pins seated. That was three months ago, and the client just emailed to say it's still perfect. Sometimes the fix is free if you think about the physical pressure. Has anyone else found a weird way to fix a loose connector without replacing the whole part?

Rant: Overheard a guy at the supply counter say 'board-level repair is dead'

Honestly, that mindset is why so many shops just swap whole assemblies now. I saved a $700 medical device display last week by just replacing a single blown capacitor on the driver board. Has anyone else found a niche where component work still pays off?

A simple power supply fix turned into a two day hunt

Had a 2018 Dell monitor come in with no backlight... figured it was a bad cap on the LED driver board. Replaced the usual suspects, still nothing. Ended up tracing a tiny crack in the board's ground plane under a heatsink that was only visible with a 10x loupe. What should have been a 30 minute job took me almost 16 hours over two days. Anyone ever have a repair where the real fault was hiding in plain sight like that?

That week I had to fix 17 identical gaming laptops with the same blown capacitor

A local school district dropped off a whole cart of them, all with the same power issue. Each one needed the same 2200uF cap replaced near the GPU voltage rail. By the third day, I could swap them out in under ten minutes with my Hakko station. The worst part was the school's IT guy said, "We just thought they were getting old." Has anyone else seen a batch failure like that from a single bad part run?

Found a 1980s service manual that explained a weird capacitor failure pattern I kept seeing

I was cleaning out my dad's garage in Toledo and found an old Zenith TV manual from 1985, and it had a whole section on how the glue they used on certain filter caps would become acidic over a decade and eat through the leads. I've probably replaced a dozen of those exact caps in old gear, always blaming age, not the factory process. Has anyone else run into this with other brands from that era?

Dropped $300 on a proper microscope for board work and it's the best choice I ever made

Can we talk about how many old laptops just need a simple battery reset?

I was reading a repair forum thread from last month and someone posted a stat that blew my mind... they said in their shop, over 40% of 'dead' laptops brought in just needed a battery disconnect and reconnect to boot. I thought that was crazy high, but I tried it on the next three 'no power' units that came in. Two of them fired right up after I pulled the main battery and held the power button for 30 seconds. It's wild how many people, and even some repair folks, jump straight to board-level work or power jack replacement when the fix is literally free and takes two minutes. It's made me completely change my first step in diagnosis. How many of you have seen this be the actual fix more often than you'd think?

PSA: A cheap thermal pad trick saved a laptop motherboard in Phoenix

I had a Dell XPS 13 that kept shutting down from heat, even after a full fan clean and repaste. On a hunch, I replaced the tiny thermal pad over the voltage regulator with a 1.5mm Fujipoly pad I had left from another job. The difference was huge, the board runs 15 degrees cooler now. Has anyone else found a specific component that's a common heat culprit on these thin laptops?

My buddy in the shop told me to always check the 5V rail first on a no-power board, saved me like 2 hours yesterday.

Warning: a drop of isopropyl alcohol fixed a flickering laptop screen in Phoenix

The backlight connector on a Dell Latitude was just oxidized, not broken. Has anyone else found a weirdly simple fix for a problem that looked expensive?

Showerthought: I keep seeing people blast circuit boards with canned air upside down.

I watched a guy in our shop last week freeze a capacitor on a laptop motherboard because he held the can at a sharp angle, and the liquid propellant came out. That can cause thermal shock and crack solder joints, which is why the unit came back two days later with a new intermittent fault. Do you think shops should ban upside-down air duster use, or is that overkill?

Walked into a big box store in Denver and saw their 'repair center' was just a guy with a heat gun and a tube of thermal paste.

I was picking up some solder and saw the line. They charge $80 for a 'diagnostic' and their main fix for anything that won't boot is re-pasting the CPU. No proper meter on the bench, just that one trick. It's a racket that gives our whole trade a bad name. How many of you have seen these quick-fix shops pop up, and what's the real cost to customers when the actual fault is a bad cap or a shorted mosfet they never even check for?

Showerthought: That time a customer's comment about a 'dead' laptop battery changed my approach

A guy brought in a laptop that wouldn't turn on, insisting the battery was shot. He said, 'It's totally dead, I left it plugged in for a week straight.' I checked it, and the battery was fine, but the DC-in board was fried from a bad charger. He was so focused on the battery he missed the real issue. Now I always check power delivery first, even when the customer is sure it's something else. Anyone else have customers who diagnose their own gear before they bring it in?

Found a weird fix for a dead 2015 MacBook Air that wouldn't power on

The board had no signs of liquid damage, but I was getting zero volts at the main rail. Out of sheer frustration, I gently flexed the board near the SMC while applying power, and it suddenly booted. Has anyone else had a temporary fix like that point to a specific BGA solder joint issue?

Had a customer bring in a vintage radio that turned out to be full of acorns from a squirrel family.

After opening the back panel, I spent the next two hours carefully removing the nest and cleaning out chewed wires, only for the customer to ask if I could 'just put the squirrels back in' because his kids liked watching them.

Shoutout to the guy who told me to ditch my old multimeter for a Fluke 87V

I thought my $40 meter was fine until I spent 3 hours chasing a phantom voltage drop on a board that the Fluke showed was stable in 2 minutes. Anyone else have a tool upgrade that saved them real time?

PSA: A client told me my solder joints looked like 'cold oatmeal' last month

I switched to a higher temp and thinner gauge wire, and my connections are way cleaner now. Anyone else get a piece of feedback that made you change a basic habit?

I used to think board-level repair was a waste of time for modern phones

A customer brought in a water-damaged Pixel 6 last month and told me I was just swapping parts, not fixing things. He said, 'You're a parts changer, not a technician.' It stung, but he was right. I spent the next two weeks practicing microsoldering with a cheap hot air station. Yesterday, I replaced a single blown capacitor on an iPhone 13 logic board and saved the whole phone. It cost the customer $40 instead of $300 for a full swap. What's one piece of harsh feedback that actually made you better at this job?

Just realized I've repaired over 500 cracked iPhone screens since opening my shop in Tacoma three years ago.

It hit me when I ordered my latest bulk pack of adhesive and the supplier sent a congratulatory note, which made me wonder if anyone else has a weirdly specific repair count that surprised them?

I used to hate fixing old tube radios until a guy in Cleveland showed me a trick with a dim bulb tester.

Now I always plug them into a 40 watt bulb first, which saved my vintage Zenith from a short last week. Anyone else have a go-to safety step for old gear?

A burnt-out board in a Kansas City arcade taught me to always check the power supply first

I was fixing a 90s pinball machine that kept resetting, and I spent a full day tracing logic chips. The owner mentioned it only happened during peak hours, so I finally metered the wall outlet. It was dropping to 105 volts when the neon signs kicked on. I swapped the machine's old linear supply for a modern switching unit, and it's been solid for a year. How many of you test line voltage before you even open a device?