I survived my first #Repair Clinic. According to the other staff working there, today was a slow day.

My first task was to rewire a 1930s blown glass lamp. The wiring was easy -- especially since they'd brought the replacement kit along, they were just nervous to try it themselves -- but I was very nervous about fumbling the glass globe. It once belonged to the owner's great-great-grandmother, and they'd recently found it in an attic. They were very happy to have it working.

I started a fire with the third device! A person brought in a 40" computer monitor that was completely dead. They'd already bought a replacement, but were wondering what it might take to bring the dead screen back to life.

There was no visible sign of anything wrong on the main circuit board where power entered the monitor. Voltages on the power supply were correct. Continuities on the board seemed fine.

So we plugged in the owner's power supply.

At which point a surface-mount capacitor went up like a tiny phoenix, emitting a bright yellow light and a puff of smoke, and scorching a hole in the circuit board.

Amazingly, the owner was in a good mood about it. They figured it hadn't been working anyway, and they'd already looked at a replacement circuit board on eBay for $30. They figure they can at least give that a shot.

The same person with the dead, now fried monitor had also brought in a Lenovo gaming laptop. They explained that, after a firmware update, the computer wouldn't load windows, and was instead asking for the BitLocker key.

The owner had no idea what the key might be. If they'd written it down, it had been years ago.

They thought the laptop was scrap, or at the least they needed a new hard drive. I suggested that, at that point, we could just do a fresh install of Windows 10 right there.

(I'd prepared USB installers for Windows 10, 11, and Ubuntu Mate 24.04.)

The owner was very pleased to walk out of the library with a now-working, clean install of Windows 10.

So, two wins and two losses for the day. Not bad. The organizers said that was a pretty good track record.

I'll do it again. Hopefully with less fire next time.