Repair café

src: www.transitioncharlottevt.org

A repair café is a meeting in which people repair household electrical and mechanical devices, computers, bicycles, clothing, etc. They are organised by and for local residents. Repair cafés are held at a fixed location where tools are available and where they can fix their broken goods with the help of volunteers. Its objectives are to reduce waste, to maintain repair skills and to strengthen social cohesion.

Video Repair café

History

The concept was devised by Martine Postma in 2009. On 18 October 2009, the first repair café was held at Fine Wood Theater, Amsterdam-West. On 2 March 2010, the Repair Café Foundation was set up. The foundation was formed to support local groups in setting up their own repair cafés. In March 2016 Postma registered more than 1,000 repair cafés worldwide, 327 in the Netherlands, 309 in Germany, 22 in the UK, 21 in the US, 15 in Canada, four Australia and one in India. In January 2017 the number of Repair Cafés climbed over 1,200.

Maps Repair café

3D printing of broken parts

Some repair cafés have begun to use 3D printers for replicating broken parts. Broken pieces of domestic appliances may be able to be pieced or glued back together, after which they can be scanned with a 3D scanner. Examples of 3D scanners include David Starter-Kit, 3D Systems Sense, MakerBot Digitizer, Fuel 3D, Microsoft Kinect, and Asus Xtion. Once the physical object is scanned, the 3D model is rendered. It can be converted to a .stl or .obj format and revised using geometry processing software such as makeprintable, netfabb, MeshLab, Meshmixer, Cura, or Slic3r. It is printed using a 3D printer client, creating a physical part using the 3D printer. The complete process takes some time to complete.

To reduce the time needed in the repair café, people might choose to use a pre-made part from a website with 3D models (skipping the scanning step), or make the 3D model themselves by taking many photographs of the part and using something like 123D Catch, and/or choose (in the event the repair café does not have its own 3D printer) to have the 3D model made in the repair café, but printed using a 3D printer elsewhere. Alternatively a 3D printing service like Ponoko, Shapeways, and others can be used, and a person then return to the repair café to have the new part fitted to the broken equipment.

src: i.ytimg.com

See also

• Bicycle cooperative - a place for bike repair
• iFixit
• Makerspace
• Tool library

src: repaircafeparis.fr

Notes

src: repaircafetoronto.ca

References

src: c8.alamy.com

External links

• Official website
• Repair Café Wiki

Source of the article : Wikipedia