I remember when I was at a Steampunk event with two robots: a gremlin and a dog which both used one particular type of servo in the necks. It was a very hot day (up to 37 °C) and both servos failed on each robot within 30 minutes of each other at about 11 am.

I didn't have any room on me to carry any test equipment so I went in to a pub and took some panels off the robots. I unplugged all the servos and plugged each one in on at a time until the power supply cut out. When I identified the culprits, I left them unplugged and was still photographed at the event without problems other than the heads wouldn't turn which isn't that important.

When I got home, I replaced them with new servos and I was back on track. Fully animated robots with gesture controls. Very nice.

When I first started working it was a 'thing's to recycle RTL (yes RTL - not TTL) chips from GEC computers for home brew projects. I think I might still have them now, 40 years latter. I don't think I ever used any but it was fun scrabbling aorund in skips to get the old PCBs and then unsoldering on work time with work equipment.  It was at that company that I found out what a 'foreigner' was - a non-work related activity.

Dubbie

I once bought a grab bag at Radio Shack because I knew there was an RC car inside, but I also scored a 1200 baud modem (this was 1989, and I was using a 300 baud modem, so this was a big find.) Of course, it was in the box because it didn’t work, so I opened the case.  I couldn’t see anything wrong, so I used my soldering iron to reflow all of the solder joints, and then it worked perfectly.

Recovered disasters? My whole life summed up  

saved someones day this evening by explaining how to slow a dc fan speed down to make it quieter in a studio environment. Equipment is brand new and cheaply designed.

a comms problem between 4 pcbs had me round in circles for months  

finally found a zener diode to ground intermittently...

asked to look at a pcb, definitely needs a new ic he says.

under a microscope a tiny hair of copper bridging pins of said smd ic...

fixed, no charge, you're gonna kick yourself...   ♂️

My first internship involved refurbishing 68k-based PCBs.  The boards that required replacing the thru-hole CPU sockets always took the longest, but I managed to get quite a few back in service.  It gave me enough confidence to rework any electronics as well as appreciate access to a good hot air rework station.

I have worked in those big companies where missing a deadline is costly because of the ripple effect. If it was only that one project then maybe the cost can be minimized. Most projects use shared resources that rely on schedules for their availability. Missing deadlines hits the current project but also any other project that may rely on the share resource.

Your contribution may appear small but I can see why in that project and possibly others it was immense. On my team in addition to the award, you would have gotten a free lunch on my dime and the scenario documented on company letterhead for you to use at a job interview.

If you ever have the interview question "describe an experience where you contribution made a difference to a project outcome." Your answer can downplay your involvement but any interviewer worth their salt should know, holy crap, you stepped up and it was a big deal.

Great share BG.

My best repair was for a syncro resolver test set used in the SR-71 program. The box electronics were classified, had to get the schematics

which were controlled, repaired and the security officer took the schematics back. That was in 1978. Cant tell you more, that was a long time ago.

Rachel,

A good fix. I could do with an attic fan myself - all I need now is an old HVAC system.

Dubbie

Jack,

Every one likes a good fix - especially cheap ones.

Dubbie

My house had a Trane HVAC with a variable speed blower that could move up to 1800 CFM.  On a Friday night, the blower motor died.  I figured that I couldn't get someone to service it until Monday at the earliest so I decided to see if it was something simple to fix.  I got the blower unit out and observed a metal cap over the back end of the motor.  A few screws later, I found a blown out varistor.  I got on Mouser's website and order a couple of the correct varistors and requested a pick up from their "will call" desk on Monday morning.  The new varistor cost a few bucks and my AC was up and running.  If I had placed a service call, I'm sure they would just put in new motor and charged me many hundreds of dollars.

When that system was replaced years later, I rescued the blower unit and turned it into an attic fan controlled of course by a Raspberry Pi!