I’m curious, what’s an item, tool, or purchase you own that you feel has completely justified its cost over time? Could be anything from a gadget to a piece of furniture or even software. What made it worth it for you?
Camping hammock, it’s what I sleep in most nights. My body complains when I have to use a mattress
- Epson Ecotank Printer
Has ink tanks so money isn’t wasted on cartridges and the printer is actually initially expensive unlike those printers that make money back on ink catriges
- Hammer Drill with the proper bits
Makes it easier to mount shit to bricks, goes in brick like butter if you’re using the right drill and bits
I recomend Ryobi Hammer Drill & Bits
- Air Fryer
I’ve stopped using my oven and only use it rarely for things that I don’t want blown apart thst I can weigh down with a fork or spoon like Pizza for example
- Refillable Japanese brand pens and mechanical pencil
I recently got these to aid in Japanese study and refillable pens are more economical in the long run
And Japanese brands go hard on the quality of stationary and I got introduced into the cult of stationary obsession with this
I’ll edit my comment if I can think of anything else
When you are replacing a water heater, always get the biggest one possible. Nothing is worse than being the second person showering, and you run out of hot water halfway through. It used to happen to me every day.
Then we had to replace it, and a bigger one wasn’t that much more. I asked myself if it was worth $100 to never have a cold shower again, and then got an even bigger one than that.
Haven’t had a cold shower since.
Gas here.
Its instant, no storage.
I mean, it depends, I wouldn’t say always go for the biggest one you can, because the bigger the volume, the more it will cost to heat up and keep hot. E.g. we have a 50 liter water heater that’s enough for three people, and in the worst case scenario, it only takes like 20 minutes for it to go from cold to hot.
Everyone has to decide if the additional expense of buying and maintaining a larger hot water heater is worth it, but I know that I’ve never regretted it. I know that if my shower went cold every day, I would regret not spending the money, EVERY DAY.
Battery charger.
First thing that comes to m8nd is my Pitbull head shaver. I s(h)aved several hundred euros on simple head shaves, 2 minutes a time.
50ft electric plumbing snake. Cost $60 and saved me $200+ bill first time I used it. I’ve used it for friends and family as well, making its value well over 10x in savings, not just my own.
Hair clipper. Paid for itself in two uses. It’s been years.
House insulation.
I live in Australia where the minimum insulation required by law is a long way below inadequate, and many cheap contractors go below the minimum because it’s so hard to prosecute them.
I already had solar and a house battery, so the next obvious step was replacing the insulation. With my already very low electricity bills I cant say that it literally paid for itself (although it would have without the solar and battery), but it has made the house so much more comfortable. On some summer days, the AC would be using 7kW and barely keeping the inside temperature down to 30°C/85°F. Now it uses 3-5kW and the whole house stays comfortable.
Also, finding and patching the massive gaps from the previous “landlord special” house extension made a huge difference to the temperature of that room, and explained how lizards had managed to get inside.
Put 11.6 KW of solar on the roof. I’ll hit break even next year. Should have 15-20 years left of use.
About 3 years I bought a mechanic set of ratchets and wrenches and some other tools for changing my own oil and some other auto repairs. All in I spent about $500. In July, I changed my own brakes and rotors and 2 vehicles I own. On that job alone I saved over $1000 dollars. Not to mention all the times I changed my oil. I also changed my spark plugs on one of my cars and found a gasket leak that I also fixed which was probably another $500.
Best investment of my life.
I guess my bike? Have saved loads of money on bus tickets and it’s much more reliable too.
Sewing machine pays for itself quite quickly as paying a tailor to repair your clothes is like 1/3 the cost of a brand new sewing machine, so just repair like 3 items of clothing to get your money back.
I got a hot air rework station with a soldering iron many years ago.
The things I’ve repaired with it are so numerous, I cannot even recount them all, but here are a few:
- an assortment of gaming controllers
- a ghetto blaster from the 1970’s
- a few gaming consoles (Xbox 360, PS3 “Fat Lady”)
- retro technology (at least two 3Dfx Voodoo’s and a rare Abit motherboard)
- a full-metal eBook Reader (Sony PRS-505) that will probably survive an atomic fallout
- a Panasonic broadcasting camera from the 1990’s (because it looked cool and I wanted it to work)
- a few LCD monitors
Even though some of that work was just replacing old capacitors, I have saved so much money by buying “broken” stuff and fixing it up. No regrets. Over the years, I paired the station with a hotplate and a solder sucker and now I could probably open up an electronics repair shop. But I mostly do these repairs for fun. Fixing things calms my mind and soothes my soul.
I love both my eBook reader (that 505 won’t die) and my PS3 (which could really use a reflow).
How difficult would you say reflowing one of the OG 60GB models is?
How difficult would you say reflowing one of the OG 60GB models is?
If you need to swap the RSX out, you’ll have no chance with a hot air station. You will need an infrared rework station. Reflowing the RSX is only a short-term solution, because the underfill of the chip itself has a defect. All 90nm RSX chips are bad.
There are people putting a 65nm (or 40nm) chip from the later models into the FAT PS3’s. This is called the “Frankenstein mod” and some repair shops in the US are providing that service. If you want to have a FAT lady that will last forever, I’d say this is the best solution.
I was really lucky, because I got my model going by swapping out the Tokin capacitors (but I’m aware this probably won’t last when the RSX finally gives up). The FAT PS3 board is very thick and sucks away a lot of the heat. I needed to put the board on the preheater and then used hotair combined with that to remove the caps.
You need to get in touch with your local Repair Café! It’s sounds like you would make a perfect addition. :)
Can you post a gear list? I got an iron a while ago and some crappy Amazon sucker tubes but I really think I’m missing some stuff because I’m either missing stuff or using crappy solder. I like to try and just take components off boards for practice but even that is a huge struggle. I’ve fixed a couple things but it’s rough work for sure.
I know it’s probably a skill issue, but I think some other tools might make certain things a bit easier as well, but without someone I know to ask questions I don’t want to just buy some random stuff.
Can you post a gear list?
- Hotair / Soldering station: Aoyue Int 986A
- Solder Sucker: Aoyue Int474A++
- Preheater: Aoyue Int853A Pro
- Solder: Sn62Pb36Ag2 (lowest melting point, hard to get because of regulations, but available on the Praud store from Poland for example)
- Flux: Kingbo RMA-218 (available on Aliexpress, the variant in syringes is very easy to apply)
- Convenience:
- a brass wool sponge for removing the solder from the tip
- a very long and thin drill bit if too much solder ever gets stuck inside the solder sucker (cleaning one of those out is a bitch)
- tweezers
Have a lot of fun! Soldering get’s really easy if you have the right gear. Swapping out the crappy amazon solder with the good stuff from Praud made the biggest difference, imho. You can already solder a lot of stuff with a 30W soldering iron from the hobby store, but flux and solder are what’s really important.
There’s a lot of really cheap solder on amazon with way too high melting points. Sometimes the sellers just lie on their datasheet, I once fell for CFH fake solder which barely melted, even when I had my iron on overdrive. It wasn’t me, it was the crappy and fake product!
Heat the metal, heat the PCB a little bit, then solder. I’m terrible at soldering and my friend just taught me that trick.
- Smart Lighting - My mum replaced most the lightblub in our house with Philips Hue. Nearly decade on and still using them which as an Autistic, I love that I can tweak the lighting to however I want from an app and compare to regular lightbulbs, it doesn’t give me as much sensory nightmare as I find some of the lighting to be really harsh and distracting.
- Noise-cancelling Headphones - Often use it if I’m in sensory overload, walking as I tend to listen to music as well as being on the bus to distract myself which otherwise, I start panicking how full the bus is.
- Desktop DAC & Bookshelf Speakers - Always find changing volume on OS itself to not be perfect as it too low or high for my liking. I can simply tweak the volume knob of my Desktop DAC to get the volume just right. Also great way to listen to music
Desktop DAC & Bookshelf Speakers - Always find changing volume on OS itself to not be perfect as it too low or high for my liking. I can simply tweak the volume knob of my Desktop DAC to get the volume just right. Also great way to listen to music
If I’m understanding you correctly and you just got the DAC purely to be a volume know then I disagree with you because keyboards with volume knows exist.
That’s still changing the Volume from the OS which I find changing the volume to not be as smooth compare to using a Desktop DAC and using knob on my keyboard, volume controls feels like a stair-step where it either bit too high or low and it’s difficult to get it just right. That’s why I like Desktop DAC and use it even over the volume knob on my keyboard.
A lot of my work gear is sort of pricey but it keeps me safe and working. Usually pays itself off within a month or two and will last at least a few years.
My motorcycle has paid for itself many times over in terms of the enjoyment I get out of riding it. It’s something I can recommend to anyone, and lets you see the world in a way most people never will.
I did a refresher course two months ago, but I haven’t gotten around to buy a motorcycle yet. But everything is there, I just need the bike. Really looking forward to it. Stay safe!
If you’re willing to wait, you can probably get a good bike used in the spring. Otherwise, head to Craigslist or FBM to find a used bike. Cheaper and already broken in.
What are your monthly costs? Does seem fun
Something like 1500/yr for insurance, probably 30/month for gas, assuming I don’t take a long trip.
