About
A guy in his thirties, a small bench in Montréal, and a plane to catch in October 2027.
Who's writing
I'm a software engineer from Montréal, in my late thirties, and I fix electronics as a hobby. Mostly game consoles, because I grew up with them and because they're the perfect size of problem: old enough to be simple, new enough that parts still exist, and loved enough that somebody always wants the fixed one.
I'm not a technician by trade. I learned this from service manuals, forum threads, repair videos and a lot of careful trial and error. That's part of why this blog exists. I write down what I did, what worked and what didn't, so the next person searching for the same fault finds a straight answer instead of a guess.
The bench
I set up a small workbench at home just for this kind of work: a soldering iron and a hot-air station, a multimeter, ESD-safe tweezers, the small pile of odd screwdriver bits that consoles need, pry tools, flux, wick, and isopropyl alcohol by the litre. Next to it, a TV, the cables and controllers for each console I work on, and a stack of test discs and cartridges I trust.
Where the consoles come from, and where they go
Most of them come from eBay, listed as "for parts or not working". Some come from Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace around Montréal, or hand to hand from people who heard I do this. I look for faults I can actually fix at a bench like mine: dead lasers, dirty drives, bad power, tired capacitors, broken shells. I stay away from the jobs that need a factory, like the Xbox 360 red ring or the PS3 yellow light.
Once a console is repaired and cleaned, it gets tested for real, hours of play rather than a boot screen, and then it goes up for sale, mostly on eBay. Sometimes it goes straight to a collector who wrote to me. If that's you, the contact page is the place.
Why: Japan, October 2027
Here's the real reason. My girlfriend is a karate fighter, and she's aiming to compete at the world championship in Japan in October 2027. I'm one of the coaches at our dojo, so I'm going too. Flights, hotels, registration fees, and everything that comes with two weeks on the other side of the planet: it adds up fast for the two of us, and this is how we're covering our share. It's a personal project, separate from anything the dojo organizes.
Every dollar of profit from these consoles goes into that trip. That's the deal. A broken console comes in, a working one goes out, and the difference buys a bit of runway for the two of us. When you buy a repaired console from me, that's where your money goes. Thank you for that.