I like to repair things.
There’s an incredible sense of satisfaction looking at something that wasn’t functioning as intended and seeing it’s now working just fine. It’s magical. To repair something, to bring it back, there is an amount of understanding that must be gained first. There’s an amount of learning that comes with it. That’s magical, too. And as I so often recall from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: solutions are easy—problems are hard.
The challenge isn’t found in the repair itself.
Over the Labour Day long weekend I was going to have a friend visit. Not really sure what we might get up to, I decided to charge the controllers for my PlayStation 3 so we’d have the option of playing video games. The console and controllers hadn’t been used for a while, so I didn’t want the batteries to go flat in the middle of a game.
For some reason only understood by what I’m sure must be the most intelligent designers at Sony, the controllers will only charge if they are connected a console that is running. Plugging the controllers into the unit while it’s in standby mode will do nothing. So I leave the entire system—the most powerful computer in my apartment—idling all night so it can act as nothing more than a mobile phone charger.
The next day I discover the PlayStation has turned itself off at some point during the night. A blinking red light on the front of the console is telling me—after looking up what it means—the system realized it was getting too hot and powered down before any internal components were damaged from excess heat. Perplexed as to just how the system could possibly overheat while it was doing nothing other than slowly charging two controllers, I restart it.
The console spins up, beeps three times, spins down, flashes a yellow light at me, and then goes silent as the blinking red light returns. So I look up what that means, and the answer isn’t great. Referred to as the Yellow Light of Death on the internet, the console has experienced a “catastrophic thermal event” as one site delightfully articulates. In other words, the system realized it was getting too hot, powered down before any internal components were damaged from excess heat, and damaged its internal components anyway.
I’m… immediately irritated. Not because the system is ruined—no. It’s because the system is ruined for such a menial reason. To me a catastrophic thermal event means the console cooked itself as it entered hour eight of a reckless night of video games, or just as the final disc of a Harry Potter marathon was wrapping up. That’s a catastrophic thermal event. But to go out while idling all night, being asked to do nothing more than quietly charge a couple of controllers? It didn’t feel a befitting end to such a fine machine.
I also don’t like wasting things.
This, together with liking to repair things, means I’m not quick to replace something just because it’s stopped working. Chances are I’ll take it apart, figure out what’s gone wrong, figure out how to make it go right again, put it all back together, and it will be working. And this is what I told myself was going to happen with my ruined PlayStation. I wasn’t going to go spend money I didn’t really have to replace something that wasn’t really broken. Instead I was going to save money, which would be good for me, and keep one more piece of consumer electronics out of the waste stream, which would be good for the environment. A win for me and a win the environment—the best result ever!
But it didn’t happen. Not even close. The entire project literally went up in smoke. Acrid, apartment‐filling smoke. It was a perfect failure. Not only did I fail to repair the console, but on reflection, even if I had repaired it, I still would have failed to fulfill the criteria I’d used to justify repairing instead of replacing the console. …Wait, what?
Let’s break it down—
Criterion № 1: Save Money
A brand new PlayStation 3—yes, they are still for sale new—is around $150 to $200 depending on how you want to spec it out. For a used console you’d be looking anywhere from $20 and up.
All‐in, I spent $77 trying and failing to repair the console. Some of the supplies I needed, tin foil, cotton swabs, an oven thermometer, I will use for other things, so in fairness, let’s say I spent $65. It’s still $65 spent under the guise of saving money that actually ended up costing me more money in the end—especially since in the end the console was still ruined. Had I learned nothing from the story of the shitty can opener?
There’s also my time. I spent about 10 hours in total on this project—no, wait: that’s just actual time spent on the repair attempt itself. There were hours of research prior, and I would leave for work early to detour to stores to collect what I needed. Taking that into account, my time investment might be closer to 15 hours. That’s just under two days of paid work time. Not that it’s possible to put a dollar value on someone’s time—despite it being attempted day in and day out all over the world—but this was time I may have spent otherwise visiting friends and family, reading peacefully, or working on writing projects.
So even if the repair had been successful, I would still have to ask myself: was 15 hours of my time plus $65 actually saving me money? The answer is no. I could have spent up to an hour looking around online for a used console for $50 and have spent up to another hour picking it up.
But that’s just looking through the money lens. My more altruistic goal of saving the environment surly justifies the extra hours of my time plus a few more of my dollars invested in trying to repair something versus replacing it.
Only it doesn’t. Because it didn’t.
Criterion № 2: Save the Environment
This is a counterintuitive conclusion, but—in hindsight—I believe it’s the correct conclusion. My reasoning for wanting to repair the console was to prevent it from ending up in the waste stream, but that didn’t happen. I dropped it off for recycling just the other day.
I also wanted to repair the console to preclude the need to manufacture another one, thereby saving energy and resources that could be put to other uses. But that didn’t happen either. Even if I had repaired the console, any energy and resources I would have saved from the manufacture of a new one are cancelled out by the energy and resources I needed to repair mine. The solder flux I used was shipped from Greece. It had to be transported thousands of kilometres, and it was full of nasty chemicals when it got here. I bought a roll of aluminum foil that required massive amounts of electricity to make. I used sticky tack manufactured in China using rubber, cotton swabs manufactured in America using cotton. All these materials spent time on airplanes, container ships, and trucks before they got to me. The environmental footprint I was hoping to reduce by repairing versus replacing may have just been an illusion.
A used console has already been made. The environmental footprint has already been realized. And if I’m buying a used console from someone that may otherwise have just thrown it out, that fulfills both my desire to prevent one more new console being manufactured and to prevent one more used console from ending up in the waste stream. But that used console I could have bought has possibly ended up in the waste stream. I know for sure mine did. And I’ve used just as many, if not more resources in trying to repair my console than it would have taken to make a new one. The environment is no better off, in fact the environment might be worse off.
Criterion № 3: Functioning PlayStation
There’s no debate on this one, no thoughtful consideration and reflection. Attempting to use a kitchen oven to reflow the solder joints on the CPU, GPU, and other TLA chips on the motherboard was not successful. The smoke point of the solder flux was reached before the proper melt point of the solder was, so the entire process had to be aborted as clouds of chemical smoke filled my apartment. As the board was cooling at least one component became unseated and dropped off, and I found a “secret” battery not included on the tutorial I was following had exploded and melted into its holder. These were both irrecoverable events and meant the console was now completely ruined.
So—three unfulfilled project criteria: one failed project.
This brings a curious question to mind: what was the threshold for this project’s success? In retrospect it’s clear there were three project objectives and as none of them were achieved the project was unsuccessful. But were there three objectives to this project? Or was there just one? The objective was to save money. The objective was the save the environment. The objective was to have a functioning PlayStation. However; in determining overall success, I was only considering the results of last objective, of the console being functional. The status of the other two objectives of the project become lost and begin to appear as successful, an illusion reinforced through a singular view of an agreeable end result.
And the worst part about this? I’m only looking this hard at the project because it failed. I’ve never looked this hard at a project that resulted in success. Why would I need to? The project worked. I congratulate myself and move on to the next project. But this is not ideal. How many “successful” projects have I walked away from which may have ended up completely off the rails? Had the console been repaired I would have concluded the project was successful having only evaluated 1 out of 3 criteria. A full evaluation would reveal only 1 out of 3 criteria were achieved. Is 34% a passing grade? Not even close. So what happened?
Let’s go back to Motorcycle Repair: what was my problem? Obviously it was my broken PlayStation.
Incorrect.
Let’s try that again: what was my problem? …I was broke.
Correct.
I couldn’t afford to have someone else properly repair what was broken, I certainly couldn’t afford to replace what was broken with something new, and I doubted I could even replace what was broken with something used.
In the moment the idea of repairing the console myself solved both the real problem of being broke and the tangential problem of having a broken PlayStation. So as much as I fault the false economy of continually re-buying the same shitty can opener, I find myself with new insight into why it was purchased in the first place: cans needed opening. Why? Because kids and cats were hungry.
Criterion № 4: Learn
…to repair something, to bring it back, there is an amount of understanding that must be gained first.
