can I fix this myself?

09 Jan, 2025

Tinkering around is one of my favorite things to do. When I got my Gaggia Classic Pro espresso machine I realized I could not directly control the temperature of the water and the pressure of the machine was also lacking. Luckily you can mod the machine to add a temperature regulator and increase the pressure to 9 bars which I think in the coffee world is considered good. So that's what I did. I cracked that bad boy open. And I had a heck of a fun time. I got to do something with my hands for a change.

PROOF!

Anyway there have been countless times when things have either broken or I thought, "okay but can this be better?" and have tinkered my way through it. I opened up my Steam Deck and upgraded the storage capacity on it. My Fellow electric kettle stopped working and I figured out it was a blown fuse, swapped it out and got it working again. The list goes on.

The other day, I looked at my trusty (very) old MacBook pro from 2015 and remembered that the speakers on it were borked. I also remembered that I had bought a replacement speaker set. As is typical for me, I picked the most random, potentially inconvenient time and started unscrewing the back plate off my old MacBook. Took me about an hour ish but I eventually did it. There were so many tiny cables and my hands were shaking more than a leaf on a tree during a winter storm but my speakers were back in business.

Another issue with my Macbook is that Apple only supports up to macOS 12 Monterey for that specific model. After some brief googling (aka Redditing cause google search is absolute hot garbage now), I stumbled upon a very cool project called OpenCore Legacy Patcher¹. This allows you to patch newer macOS versions onto 'legacy' hardware. There are some drawbacks though, which are outlined in their documentation, but they are minimal in my opinion. I managed to get my mac to be on macOS 15 Sequoia, which is the latest operating system. It runs surprisingly well and it's like having a brand new computer. Especially after swapping out those speakers. (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

Sadly not all devices are as easy to fix up. Unfortunately, profits are bottom lines for a lot of these product makers and planned obsolescence plays a huge role in you not being able to fix your shit. In case you aren't familiar with that term, planned obsolescence just means that things are designed in such a way that they either break or become obsolete in a shorter time span. Apple does this a lot, tsk tsk. They literally don't make things like they used to. Obviously this creates a lot of tech waste, a huge problem, and also it's just bad for the consumer (good for profits tho I guess).

Live image from apple hq.

There's a big movement surrounding right to repair ². Unfortunately only a few states have laws passed surrounding it. In these states, the law requires manufactures to provide replacement parts and you as the consumer have a right to fix your own stuff. I feel hopeful that more states will adopt similar bills. Maybe we will even get to a point where more people will tinker around with the things they own. And if you've never tinkered before, here's your sign to look at what you have and see how you can make it better. :)