Stuff I've fixed

The battery life on my laptop had been getting worse, so I decided to upgrade it. While I was at it, I also upgraded from a 500GB NVMe drive to a 1TB one. I repurposed the old drive for a Raspberry Pi NAS project.

Opening up my laptop was nerve-wracking, but everything went smoothly. I cloned the drive using Disk Genius, which was the only free tool I found that actually worked without hidden charges—despite many others claiming to be free. Now my laptop runs better than ever, and I’m happy with the results!

Recently, my PS5 controller, which I use with my laptop, started overheating and wouldn't charge or connect. To fix it, I bought a replacement motherboard from a listing on AliExpress:Working Great Original BDM-010 020 030 Touchpad Main PCB Board Motherboard for PS5 Controller Controller Joystick Function board - AliExpress 44  .

After desoldering the motor connectors from the old motherboard and attaching them to the new one, I noticed some of the face buttons weren't working. I suspect this was because the pads for these buttons on the new motherboard had been repaired, leaving them uneven in height. To resolve this, I used a small piece of foam to increase the pressure between the flexible face button PCB and the board. This fixed the issue!

Now I have a fully functional PS5 controller without having to spend £60 on a replacement.

It makes me sad how many people would get rid of a good tent with a broken pole. Getting a new pole of Ebay of the same diameter is cheap and after cutting sections to length, threading the elastic back in is surprisingly easy and quick. Just make sure that you thread in in the end with the smaller hole and not the end with the metal sleaves. Sorry I don't have good pictures for this one.

This Bench was my parent wedding present. It used to have plants growing all over it as well as thickly applied Danish oil which had started to peel. After a lot of hand sanding, a bit of wood filler, teak cleaner and teak oil, it went from looking dark and rough to actually looking like teak. Sadly, one of the beams on the seat was 2 far gone and had to be removed.