My best fix wasn't really an electronic fix at all but it was the one thing that really made my wife come onboard with all my electronics craziness so it's worth a mention IMHO.

My wife and I own a quarter acre of land with our home.  As you can imagine, mowing that much grass can take several hours with a push mower so we bought a second-hand rider several years back.  Since this cut our mowing time down to an hour or so, the push mower was retired the following year and we got rid of it.  Late in the summer last year the steering linkage on the rider began skipping teeth and threatened to put our mower down for a few weeks or even the rest of season.  Can't mow if you can't steer.   After tearing it apart, we discovered a nylon bushing sleeve had cracked and was no longer holding the gears together tightly. 

This simple piece cost nearly $50 to order and would take 2-4 weeks to arrive at the local repair shop as it's not a commonly replaced part. We ordered the part and we were going to just wait and try to figure out a mower we could borrow to finish that weekend.

While discussing options to finish mowing that weekend, I did a quick browse on Thingiverse.  I quickly found the correct part someone else had modeled and posted and after a few hours of 3D printing in ABS, we had the mower back in working order and were able to finish mowing before it got dark.  We later replaced the bushing with the nylon one we ordered but I think it easily could have survived a few years worth of use.

My wife's eyes no longer roll back into her skull when we talk about buying new "toys" and she has come to enjoy having me build her strange little things like magic mirrors and water sensors, lol. 

My best fix wasn't really an electronic fix at all but it was the one thing that really made my wife come onboard with all my electronics craziness so it's worth a mention IMHO.

My wife and I own a quarter acre of land with our home.  As you can imagine, mowing that much grass can take several hours with a push mower so we bought a second-hand rider several years back.  Since this cut our mowing time down to an hour or so, the push mower was retired the following year and we got rid of it.  Late in the summer last year the steering linkage on the rider began skipping teeth and threatened to put our mower down for a few weeks or even the rest of season.  Can't mow if you can't steer.   After tearing it apart, we discovered a nylon bushing sleeve had cracked and was no longer holding the gears together tightly. 

This simple piece cost nearly $50 to order and would take 2-4 weeks to arrive at the local repair shop as it's not a commonly replaced part. We ordered the part and we were going to just wait and try to figure out a mower we could borrow to finish that weekend.

While discussing options to finish mowing that weekend, I did a quick browse on Thingiverse.  I quickly found the correct part someone else had modeled and posted and after a few hours of 3D printing in ABS, we had the mower back in working order and were able to finish mowing before it got dark.  We later replaced the bushing with the nylon one we ordered but I think it easily could have survived a few years worth of use.

My wife's eyes no longer roll back into her skull when we talk about buying new "toys" and she has come to enjoy having me build her strange little things like magic mirrors and water sensors, lol.