Friends of fixers

[Nathaniel Bezanson]

I don't run Adblock, and today I saw an ad that struck me. Something
along the lines of "If it's broken, Sears has the parts to fix it."

In the last few years, I've come to realize what a niche we are, the
people to whom such an ad might be targeted. Time and again I've seen
the astonished looks when I fixed something, partially because I
happened to have the right tools close at hand, but moreso because
*the mere act of repair* is foreign to so many people. Like it or not,
it's the world we live in.

So the little (non-animated, thank you Sears!) ad with the spark-plug
got me thinking. Sears is an old, old company, and many of my
Grandpa's tools bore the Craftsman name. They've been around since
long before "DIY" was even a term, because you didn't need a term to
describe the norm. They've seen the rise and fall of the Popular
Mechanics generation, when keeping up with the Joneses meant having a
functional shop and building a seemingly endless stream of picture-
perfect cabinets and toy chests, ultimate disposition unknown. They've
been pretty good about making repair manuals available for their
stuff, albeit for a price, but I know what a pain it is to put
together good documentation, and I don't mind paying a reasonable sum
for it.

All this got me thinking: Who else?

The back of the Commodore 64 Programmer's Reference manual was a fold-
out schematic for the whole machine, every connector, every chip,
every signal. Nobody in computing does that anymore, except a few
little hobbyist-driven projects (a category in which I must sadly
place Openmoko). Nobody mainstream. Except maybe?

In serious electronics and scientific instrumentation, repair manuals
and schematics are still the norm, perhaps because it's just expected
that there will be people around who understand such things. Tektronix
comes to mind as a reasonable example here, but they're far from the
only name. Who else?

Car service manuals from the dealer have always been exorbitantly
expensive, giving rise to the unique (I think) market in third-party
manuals from the likes of Chilton's and Haynes, now merged. As more
and more of the tinkerable stuff in cars goes data-bus-driven, the
wiring diagrams in the back become relegated to repair-only duty, with
less functionality changeable by the careful application of wire
cutters and relays. But the auto-parts industry seems to be doing
fine; apparently someone's still changing their own oil, at least. Is
this the last generation to do so?

Any discussion of parts and repair culture is necessarily going to
bring up Radio Shack, so let's do that now. Having lost their way for
most of the last decade, trying to be a cellphone store and
discovering nobody really likes that side of them, the Shack is back,
with a resurgent presence of DIY electronics parts and plans in the
stores themselves. What I don't have personal experience with lately,
and am thus asking for accounts of, is whether one can get repair
manuals and parts for RS products like in the past. Are they catering
exclusively to the science-fair crowd with the Parallax and Arduino
kits, or does the DIY ethos still run deeper than that?

What say you?
-Nate B-

[Rick Chownyk]

Hi Nate.  I work at the GM Tech center and I work with guys who have 30+ years there.  Many of the journeyman are truly incredible "do it yourself'ers".  Sadly, with each retirement a little bit of that that great ability quietly slips away.  GM and  UAW160 saw this coming a few years ago, and working together started a new apprentice program for the skilled trades.  Although the apprentices are being trained very well, most have never been exposed to the "do it yourself" environment. (but sure know how to use a smart phone...)

Now that I have babbled on long enough, I should get to the point.  First off, I REALLY enjoyed your letter.  It will be printed out and placed on the employee board for all to read and ponder.  Secondly, this is why I demonstrate my casting and cnc stuff at the shows.  To inspire others to be like the old Popular Mechanics from  days past!  When people actually made, modified and repaired there own stuff!

Thanks.   Rick   (aka Rickomatic)

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From: Nathaniel Bezanson <mys...@telcodata.us>
To: i3 Detroit Public <i3detroi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2013 9:46 PM
Subject: [i3detroit-public] Friends of fixers

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[Javier Fernandez]

It's because life is better that way.

It is not just the repair and maker culture, but fine craftmanship which has gone, perhaps by the wayside. And the reason for it is that, for instance, Ikea delivers acceptably stylish and affordable furniture, so that instead of one person owning a very fine Chippendale writing desk, 1,000,000 people get to own a desk they like (and bought for 1/1000th of the cost of the Chippendale). The cumulative wellbeing of mankind actually increases even if the quality-of-the-mainstream-product decreases.

A similar argument can be made in defense of Walmart -- please bear with me --. The wages and productivity of a single person manufacturing widgets in the US is equivalent to that 5, 10, 30 families in China. I am making the assertion that benefiting 30 poor families in China is better than benefitting one family in the US, but we can have that fight later.

Let us be very conscious and careful here, since there are two ways to perceive (and therefore two ways to behave) in regards to this. One position is petulant and incredibly selfish: "Weeell, I am a fixer and a maker and omg such a hacker, and the world just is not catering to my desire to have things that are makable, fixable, hackable....". In that case, go live in Chad for a while.

The other position (I think) is a bit more sensible: "I am a guy (which stands for 'person' anymore in a colloquial context) engaged with the world; I understand the Physics, I understand Technology, I do things for myself, I am self-reliable, I am capable: and I sense a loss to the world, that it is less because there are less people who understand the Physics, or the Plumbing, for that matter. This people have become dependent on the incredible luxury that the markets offer us, as opposed to being active, sophisticated masters of their own lives, empowered by their knowledge."

The second position is one of moral stewardship of mankind, of aesthetic assertiveness. It encompasses both pathos and ethos.

Having said that, we have won -- perhaps a Pyrric victory, but we have won. The first day I saw a website used in an advertisement, I knew we had won (and lost). We won the day NASDAQ opened for trading. We won the day Linus posted the Linux kernel to UUNET (v0.92, IIRC). I know we won the first time I ran Mosaic 1.0 (and what a colossal POS it was).

I now work in a company where geeks (ok, maybe just most), are not the bullied, milk-money-bereft losers (with apologies) I met 20 years ago, but modern types which demonstrate that a technological bend exists in most anybody.

We have always existed; we were tradesmen, inventor-nobles, natural philosophers. We were the surveyors of the Floods of the Nile working for the Pharaoh's court.

But we have always been technicians. Sometimes we are mere peons; nowadays some of us are very well regarded, but we are subservient to the machinery (glorious, magical machinery) that allocates resources and communicates vast flows of information faster, wider and more efficiently than the Internet itself: the market. We work for the owners and managers who deal with those markets.

So what do we do?

First: if you claim to be a technologist because it is cool and throw temper tantrums because Target does not carry Arduinos: with a hand in my heart and all the philial love in the world for you, get lost; I don't believe in you.

Second: If you resonated with the description of the empathic, ethical maker I describe above, then proselytize  Evangelize. Go door to door and tell people why they should pay a premium for their desks, and cars, and tools. Evangelize.

Convince them of why they should know how their plumbing, or their cars, or their browsers, or their government, or how the markets work. Go out there and tell people that knowing these things is a lifestyle that makes you a better person (because you believe that, don't you?). If they are poor it will make them better off. If they are not poor, it will make them more complete; if they are rich (and can't be bothered to do anything manual), it will improve their character.

Also ignore every self-centered, histrionic, airheaded diva you find claiming to be one of us.

When you have created that market, your gadgets will be fixable (and more expensive, but you won't care), your cars will come with service manuals. Your blender will have spare parts available. 

And you will live in a society of self-reliant, engaged, educated individuals, which will still not be ruled by technology, but will still be made better by it.

Incidentally, that craftmanship that had gone by the wayside, is actually improved by phenomenon like Ikea. E.g.Traditional furniture makers (the commercial venue of their time) depended on the broadest market appeal to survive (they always have), and they had to cut corners everywhere they could... now that they are not the mainstream producers, the (intellectual) descendants of those traditional furniture makers now make furniture for its own sake (or art, for that matter: the same forces gave rise to modernism in art).

Which is to say that Ikea makes for a better expression of furniture, or Stanley makes for a better version of handtool. Ironic.

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[Greg Smith]

I would guess not, but dont know for sure since most of their current products are not manufactured for/by RS anymore. that they don't have the service if the supplier doesn't.
As a past RS Junkie first computer was a RS Color computer, 6809 processor with cassette storage that i learned how to program using machine language, very slow process, but neat because i could make the curser change color in the middle of the screen (a TV by the Way)
As you said we had 12 watt amplifiers, diodes, and transistors to play with.
from "Memoirs of a Radio Shack Junkie"

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Greg Smith
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[Andrew Spina]

I've been thinking in this vein lately too. I recently build a modest piece of furniture for my son-- a bulletin board. I was amazed at the price of materials and how much time production took. I could have easily bought a cheap board from any number of sources. I think the decline in the maker culture comes largely from a shift in the economics of making.

It used to be that raw materials were cheap and finished goods were expensive. Now they are both cheap (or expensive depending on your perspective). This means that people who couldn't afford things and had to make them can now afford them outright. I find this troublesome. As others have pointed out craftsmanship has declined. We now depend on a highly connected global market. A natural disaster in Japan can affect the availability of goods worldwide. My standard of living now depends on a system that has become so complex that I'm concerned it will collapse (see recent banking crisis). Finally such a large and connected world feels disempowering-- how could I possibly make a living without joining this system?

I hope the resurgence of making will lead to an alternative to the dominant system right now. I see signs that it is. OpenSourceEcology, the rise of Kickstarter, Etsy, and WikiSpeed. Automated production methods like 3d printing and shop-bots are spreading. These suggest that alternative ways to consume that are more localized and rely on individual makers may be on the rise. Perhaps we're the leading edge in a change in how people get things.

Either way, I hope that we learn to accept the people who do this 'because it is cool'. Maybe don't let them use our tools, but their reasons are as valid as ours. Only they're different. The only way for a movement like making to grow is for it to get more members. Kicking out the people who don't fit the mold seems like a risky behavior. Besides, a persons motivations are complex and changing. Who knows, maybe they'll come around to how philosophically sound making is once they've been exposed to it.

Cheers All,

Andy

[Javier Fernandez]

Either way, I hope that we learn to accept the people who do this 'because it is cool'. Maybe don't let them use our tools, but their reasons are as valid as ours. Only they're different. The only way for a movement like making to grow is for it to get more members. Kicking out the people who don't fit the mold seems like a risky behavior. Besides, a persons motivations are complex and changing. Who knows, maybe they'll come around to how philosophically sound making is once they've been exposed to it.

 There is a very nuanced, landmine-strewn, and difficult line to draw between 'tolerance', 'acceptance', 'inclusion', and the stuff of groups: 'communion'. In regards to the validity of reasons, I think that statement bears a lot of delineation and detailed analysis before being accepted as such. There are reasons that are criminal, reasons that are illegitimate, reasons that are good... but is there a motivation that while not being illegitimate is neither good?. Probably.

Finally, a movement that grows is not (necessarily) a better movement; the trick is how that growth happens. I have experienced countless groups, movements, trends that have only been diminished by their growth.

j.

[Eric]

I've noticed this as well.  In the auto fab shop I used to work in, the core business was custom bumpers, armor, roll cages, etc for off road vehicles for people that wanted things that weren't available "off the shelf".  

We would occasionally get people coming in that wanted us to build them lift kits for their Jeeps because they couldn't afford the commercial stuff.  Problem was that raw materials alone, even at our volume costs, was more than the price of the complete kit from any number of suppliers, and that's before we got into the cutting and welding part.  

It seems that the only place it really becomes a financial advantage to build rather than buy is in the low volume, niche market items, such as the ALDL cables I was making for my GM cars, where the companies are asking $60+ for a serial cable with a couple resistors, transistors, and a MAX232 chip in line.  

Eric
Sent from my iPhone

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[Justin Triplett]

Personally I believe it is not very useful to make judgments on the state of industry, rather best to choose what one feels is right and move towards it. I would say it does seem a little selfish for the educated or capable to complain about what industry has created for the uneducated or incapable. I would prefer to think of the state of things as an opportunity and challenge to test our convictions in the flames of industry.

If we feel it is important to share knowledge of how to make and fix, then we ought to do just that. Clearly our wiki does provide an environment for this, however it is likely not optimal for every situation. One tool I am familiar with in this regard is http://www.dozuki.com from the people behind http://www.ifixit.com. Clearly a profit oriented company, however I have reached out to them previously and was informed they do provide dozuki to 501(c)3 organizations for free, so that is something we can investigate further.

In another vein, I have a project in mind that I am interested in starting soon that I have prematurely given the name 'PortoPorts'. If you have ever seen an attempt to categorizes 'every' electronic port in some small rectangular graphical manner and laughed to yourself about its scope, then we should talk more. :) I have been conceptualizing a database, likely accessible via a web application to crowd source the collecting of the names, images, pin-outs/diagrams, and supplemental information of every electronic port, jack, adapter, and dongle. Covering the propriety items may require some reverse engineering but all in all believe it is well within the realm of possibility to at least make a very valuable resource.

Before this email becomes inreadibly long, an enjoyable reference:

http://www.commodore.ca/manuals/images/c64_rev_a_250469_motherboard_schematic.gif

Of course in regards to sources, everyone should familiarize themselves with, and contribute to:

http://i3detroit.com/wi/index.php?title=Sources

On Wed, May 15, 2013 at 1:00 PM, dik909 <dudych...@gmail.com> wrote:

^^^

Agreed.  Sacrificing quality for quantity devalues the entire system, whatever it may be.

As much as anyone else here, I would like to see an increase/resurgence of DIY/making, but only if there is some sort of guidance by qualified craftspersons & mentors.  The ever-disappearing master/journeyman/apprentice model is more valuable than we realize, in my opinion.

It would seem that the base organization would need to have an extremely clear vision for what they seek to accomplish, and a guiding philosophy which might even have to include things like limits on the group itself.

BUT, getting back to Nate B's original post,  three great resources I've found are:

Digi-Key (digikey.com)
Mouser (mouser.com)
Newark (element14.com)

I think you can get free catalogues from them.  If not, let me know and I may be able to get you a recent one..