I think we live in a pretty wasteful society. If something is broken we often just buy a new one. I also think each and every individual is capable of much more than they think. I have already leveled up my home improvement skills by renovating my shed (without prior skills). Now it's time to level up my 'Small Electronics' Skills.

Small Electrics

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We have this video baby monitor from Motorola. The MBP-36. It's an awesome device, clear image both day and night (infrared). But ... the connector port to charge the battery left a LOT to be desired. Basically, it broke of internally, rendering the device dead, because we couldn't charge the battery anymore. Which is a big problem, because winter is coming so the hallway door to the upstairs bedrooms needs to stay shut and we can't hear the boys if anything is amiss (the open door was our low tech solution to the dead monitor). Clearly, I needed to take some action before winter actually arrived.

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Tools

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I had a pretty good idea what I needed to fix. And to do that, I needed a soldering iron. So I contacted my buddy @bennierex, because he's one of those guys that just has stuff no one else has, because of reasons. So, in exchange for me picking up a crate of beer that was on sale, he lent me his Soldering iron. I was good to go !

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A tough nut to crack

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Having the tools at hand apparently doesn't mean a job is easy. This Baby monitor CLEARLY wasn't meant to be opened ever again after assembly. There's like a dozen clips all around the perimeter of the device. Nothing a little brute force couldn't handle though (breaking two fastening clips in the process). There's most likely always someone else who did this before you and knows what to do and what not to do (and made a youtube video about it). Which is also why I knew not to pull to hard, because there were 2 wires connecting the front to the back. They needed to stay properly attached.

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The Perp !

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Here (on the right) you can see the connector in situ. I placed it where it needed to be, to check if it would still fit. It did. And to check if I was actually going to be able to fix it by properly re-soldering it, I plugged the power cord in the connector port and the power outlet and shifted the connector port in ti's location. I got some light telling me it was charging. Yay it appears it's fixable.

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Look at that little SoB .... making my life hard. I think I wiggled that around for 6 month's before it finally really didn't want to work anymore. Also, check out those little globs of glue or something on the little feet. That glue is what should've held the connector in place. I guess it dried out or something. I took out the soldering Iron, which was preheated by now and applied a little bit of it on the feet, firmly putting it back on the right places with it's feet.

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Engineering ++ | Level UP !

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After redoing this about 5 times (each time I put the two halves toghether it would stop functioning again) I finally managed to make it work again. I saved about $200 for buying a new one, or at least $50, $75 for having it repaired. Added bonus is feeling good for managing to fix something and for making the world a better place for not wasting !

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Thanks fo reading

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Full STEEM ahead my fellow Steemians - @eqko