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Comment by alanbernstein | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, I had a not-too-old fridge with a broken ice maker, which I tried to repair. The replaceable part was "the whole ice maker", which was out of production and not available anywhere. With some knowledge of electronics and 3d printing, I could probably get it working again, but at the cost of multiple hours of my free time, with no guarantee of success. The best intentions can't always defeat planned obsolescence.

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I've had excellent luck with several of the online repair parts vendors. I hesitate to recommend any individual one as I've only ordered about once per year, not enough to generate a meaningful recommendation and I've gotten what I've ordered from every one of the ones I've used.

Two notes on ice makers specifically: 1. There is a much smaller number of models of ice makers than refrigerators. (One model of ice maker crosses over to many fridges, though you may need to unplug and move the fridge-specific wiring harness over to the new ice maker.) Many times it's an extra half hour of googling to find the generic ice maker part number and then chase that down. 2. Some ice makers that are not OEM are painted to look non-stick and that paint will start flaking off into your ice in about 2-3 years of use (disgusting). This is a case where I'd rather take a used OE part over a new part of unknown provenance, even though they are a high failure part.

That's good to know, I still have the fridge and wouldn't mind getting the ice maker fixed eventually. I'll have to try to expand my search.

I'd just buy a few ice cube trays.

This person gets it.

Agreed.

I'm loving the 2 inch ice cube tray from Tovolo. Liked it so much I bought a second, but sadly amazon sold me a knock off, thin sides and very jiggly. So, get one with thick sides, and I checked amazon, there are way more vendors now for 2 inch ice cube trays with more cube slots.

this!

It's almost my story as well.

My microwave I had for 8 years (and I got it second hand) stopped working. A quick inspection + watching a couple of YouTube videos revealed that a plastic latch inside the door got broken.

It would have been very easy to replace it if only it was still being sold. Extensive search on the internet showed it was not :( :( :(

If only I had some time (well a LOT of time) to reverse engineer the existing latch and 3D-print a new one... But I did not.

So, I had to put the microwave outside on my curb. I attached a note to it saying it works well if the latch is fixed and also attached the broken latch.

I was happy to see it was gone in a few hours. I live in a city (Montreal, Canada) so I guess it helped my microwave to not be wasted.

I wish 3D-printing technologies - or more precisely, a technology that helps to create 3D specs out of an existing object - would be more advanced. Well, I did not do an extensive search about it so I may be well mistaken :)

It doesn’t take a lot of time though...

The latch for my vacuum clean bin broke. I fished it out (10m), modelled a replacement in FreeCAD (2hr, I had to learn how to use FreeCAD since I’d never used it before), and printed a replacement (40m print time) - and now I don’t have to buy a new vacuum cleaner.

Similar story for my ironing board: A nylon runner wheel cracked in half, breaking the folding mechanism. Modeling a replacement in CAD (I used fusion 360), 3D printed it, little drilling to get the axle to fit, and the ironing board was back working same day. It felt great to fix a problem like that - there’s something very techno-utopian about it, like you’re living the dream of a Wired article from 1997 predicting a future where we will all effect household repairs by replicating spare parts.

But that’s happened once in the three years I’ve owned a 3D printer. Simple mechanical part failures just don’t seem to happen that often.

2h still feels a bit too much, though I thought it would take longer. Well I guess I will try the next time...

I guess it depends how to value your time. For me a couple of hours to avoid paying £400+ for a decent cordless vacuum seems worth it.

I’ve actually fixed this vacuum cleaner numerous times! Not always with 3D printer parts though.

And it can be fun to fix something. I felt very rewarded after I replaced our kitchen machines worn out gears, by designing and printing out new identical ones.

It depends, are you watching TV? If you get like 30 hours of practice at cad it's almost like doodling.

I often find it much faster for me to "widdle" small parts using my "art" skills. Just get a piece of plastic or metal and a dremal and carve it. In 30 min you will have a latch... making a 3d printing model takes forrrrrevvverrr

I think you mean ‘whittle’.

One advantage of 3D printers is that the part you need might already be designed, you can find all sorts of things on thingiverse. Once the design exists any number of people can use it.

Good suggestion, I did not think of search 3D printing designs. The model of my microwave is pretty common. Oh well.

https://www.youmagine.com/ is another one to check on

I’m finding Gorilla Glue works wonders for plastic parts broken from bending or shearing forces. I’ve had a few things around the house that have broken and led me to think I should 3D print replacements. I glue them to buy a few days or weeks and the glue ends up bonding so well that I have yet to print replacements yet.

Another good technique for hard plastic is plastic welding, especially for clean snaps. Basically using a soldering iron to melt the plastic back together. Seems to be as strong as before. Plenty of good YouTube videos showing the technique.

For plastics, epoxy resin makes for a good adhesive and can even be stronger than the original material.

I recently bought a lathe and a mill, and while that certainly isn't an option for everyone, I've found them to be quite useful for repairing random things around the house. I've got about $2,500 in the equipment and another $500 or so in tooling, but in the three months or so I've been good enough with them to make things I want, I've probably saved $500 in miscellaneous repairs.

I guess my point is "don't discount traditional processes". Someone good with a razor and file could make a new plastic latch from an old cutting board faster than someone with a 3D printer could print the part, much less design, print, and verify.

For equipment like that which you only use occasionally, they'll often have one at your local hackerspace, along with friendly people who can show you how to use it.

Or let you keep yours there where more people can get use out of it and it isn't taking up space in your garage.

My local library has a nice 3D printer. An Ultimaker.

It takes me about 30 minutes to cad up most parts and I can do it while watching TV. It just takes a bit of practice. You likely didn't used to be able to whip up a simple web scraper in 10 minutes but can do it now.

You can try sculpy or similar things next time too to make plastic parts. There are several materials that are basically play-dough that hard set to plastic like materials.

You can try eBay.

I was quoted 600 for a whole system part of a car (dubcomponent wasn’t sold separately), the actual necessary used sub-part was 50 on eBay.

It does depend on the car part. There are a lot of low quality fakes on ebay, which won't either work, or will break quickly, and finding information with which to sort through which are good and which are not is a task in itself.

The consequences can be even more serious if you're looking for aircraft parts. A few years ago there was a discussion about Chinese made crankshafts for Corvairs on HackerNews, covering this exact issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18788861.

Fixing household white goods where a failure could result in a bad load of laundry or burnt toast is very different from aviation where utmost care must be taken with regard to maintenance, overhauling and repairs.

Even in cars, you gotta figure, is the part critical? (brakes, steering) or non critical (wipers, seats, heating/ac, etc).

For sure. I was pointing it out more for interest's sake than as a serious point of comparison for fixing your washing machine. Still, even there I'd probably be relatively careful, because flooding your kitchen isn't so much fun (bitter experience speaking there, although fortunately the kitchen is at ground level and has a concrete floor under the lino so no serious damage done).

> Fixing household white goods where a failure could result in a bad load of laundry or burnt toast

Those aren't the only failure modes to consider for washers, dryers, and toasters. Flooding (for the first) and fire (for the other two) are concerns.

You’re right that there is a possibility of somewhat disastrous results, but in my experience it’s not the motor or high voltage electrical that goes out but a plastic part, an on-off switchbor or a sensor.

Yes be careful, you could get an electric shock photograph before you take things apart and read instructions before putting things back together.

Yeah, Ebay is great for this. I was able to replace the mainboard on an older LCD TV I was gifted years ago. $50 for a used one, exactly matching model#. 15 minute replacement job, 0 wasted televisions.

> broken ice maker

Don't buy a fridge with an ice maker.

The ice maker is by far the least reliable portion of a refrigerator.

Ice cube trays don't break down and need repair.

Frustrating for me to hear - I was looking forward to getting a new fridge with an ice maker. Carrying trays of ice in a wheelchair (especially in liquid form from the sink back to the freezer) is an interesting, if damp challenge.

I imagine carrying ice trays on a wheelchair should be easier than on legs. Instead, I just carry water in container and fill the ice tray on the fridge shelf.

I'd recommend something like this: https://www.amazon.com/OXO-Grips-No-Spill-Silicone-White/dp/... The ice "slots" get completely sealed with the silicone, and I have stuck it in on it's side and it didn't leak at all.

Thank you. I've imported other OXO stuff from the US before, I'll grab one to try it out.

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