My wife and I bought some cheap solar-powered garden lights the other week, and we finally got around to installing them last week. They actually kicked out more lumens than I expected, and we love the look of them. However, one of the lights was not working after being charged even for two days.
We planned to figure out a way to return the broken one, even though it was one of four in a pack, but on a whim, I decided to do some investigation.
After picking up the light I heard some rattling, which seemed odd. A few gentle taps later, I was able to get the light to flicker so I figured there must be a loose connection. Thankfully, there were only two screws to get at the circuit board and battery of the light, so I took it to the basement and opened it up just to see what I could find.
Very quickly, I determined that putting pressure on one of the soldered connections of the light caused it to turn on and as long as I held that pressure, the light stayed on. Obviously there was a bad connection – something a generous amount of solder can easily remedy!
I pulled out my soldering iron, let it heat up, and then melted some solder wire into the connection. I didn’t go overboard, but I wasn’t trying to win any awards with the job either. Then, I added solder until the light turned on and stayed on, confirming that there was a solid connection once again.
After replacing the screws, what was once defective was suddenly an asset – all six lights in front of our house were working!
I sometimes forget that there is joy in such simple repairs. Often, I start what I THINK is going to be a simple repair only to end up with a week-long project that sucks all of my time and energy just to end up forcing me to buy new materials anyway. But sometimes, in just five minutes, you can manage to fix something that wasn’t working before.
It’s been two days since this simple repair, and I feel like I’m still riding that high. It doesn’t matter if I’m turning “trash” into useful treasure again, or simply repairing something, or even modifying something to work just 10% better, there is joy in the simple repair. And every small repair adds to my confidence in tackling larger projects in the future.
So what can you go build or fix today that seems small but might give you 48 hours of positive vibes? Go fix something!
-Phil