Category: Repair

Posted on

Repair, Reuse and More Pockets: Climate Action Week with TOG

Climate Action Week runs from 12 to 18 October, and TOG is taking part with three events focused on repair, reuse and sharing practical skills.

At TOG, that can mean opening up a broken appliance, making an existing piece of clothing more useful, or helping someone build the confidence to try a repair themselves. Keeping things in use for longer helps reduce waste and the need for replacements. It is also a good reason to get people together and share what we know.

Seditious Pockets with Lovelace Space
Wednesday 14 October, 7 pm to 9 pm, at TOG

Our friends from Lovelace Space are joining us for a workshop on adding pockets to clothes you already own. Tríona and Maria will guide you through hand and machine sewing techniques, using reused materials sourced from Change Clothes.

No sewing experience is needed. Bring a freshly laundered garment that could do with a pocket or two. The workshop costs €5, covering materials and a small contribution towards TOG’s running costs.

Fix It, Don’t Bin It! in Laois
Thursday 15 October, 7 pm, at the Old School, Raheen

Our member Jeffrey Roe will lead a repair workshop hosted by Portlaoise Men’s Shed as part of the Laois Climate Action Festival. It is a chance to share practical repair skills and help more people give everyday items another chance. This session is for Men’s Shed members and is free to attend. The link above opens the event’s page in the festival programme.

International Repair Day at TOG’s Repair Café
Saturday 17 October, 12 noon to 4 pm, at TOG

Bring along a broken or worn item and work with our volunteer fixers to see what can be done. We can take a look at clothes, toys, small appliances, electronics and small furniture. PAT safety testing for electrical devices will also be available, along with tea, coffee and tours of the space.

The event also marks International Repair Day, joining communities around the world in celebrating repair.

We are members of Community Resources Network Ireland (CRNI), which supports community organisations working on reuse, repair and recycling. These events put that shared approach into practice: keeping useful things in use, sharing skills and helping people take action together.

The two Dublin events take place at TOG Hackerspace, Unit 1B Motor City, Kylemore Road, Dublin 12, D12 CF6V. Follow the event links above for full details and booking.

Posted on

Celebrate International Repair Day at TOG’s Repair Café

Have something broken at home that you keep meaning to sort out? Bring it along to our next Repair Café at TOG Hackerspace this Saturday, 17 October, from 12 noon to 4pm.

The day is also International Repair Day, and our event is part of Climate Action Week, which runs from 12 to 18 October. A good excuse to tackle that broken lamp, troublesome kitchen gadget or toy that has stopped doing its thing.

At a Repair Café, you sit down with a volunteer fixer and work together to see what can be done. We bring the tools and repair know-how, and you bring your item and a bit of curiosity. You do not need any repair experience.

We can take a look at things like clothes and accessories, toys, small electrical appliances, electronics and small furniture. If your item needs a charger, power supply or another part to work, please bring that along too.

Safety testing for electrical devices, known as Portable Appliance Testing (PAT), will also be available.

Sometimes a repair is straightforward. Sometimes it takes a little investigation. We cannot promise to fix everything, but we will do our best and help you understand what might be needed next.

You can have a go at repairing your item or watch and learn over a tea or coffee. TOG members will also be on hand to give you a tour of the space while you wait.

Repairing things keeps useful items in use for longer, reduces waste and saves the resources needed to make replacements. It can also save money and help us learn practical skills. Every Repair Café brings people together to share what they know and give a few more things another chance.

Have a look around the house, rescue something from the “I’ll fix that someday” pile, and join us this Saturday.

This event is supported by Dublin Maker, and we are delighted to have their support again for another afternoon of community repair.

Posted on

TOG Repair Café at BuzzFest in Phibsboro

We’re taking the TOG repair tools to Phibsboro this Saturday, 3 October, for BuzzFest.

BuzzFest is Phibsboro Village Tidy Towns’ community, sustainability and biodiversity festival. We’ll be running a Repair Café where you can bring along a small broken item and sit down with a volunteer to see what can be done. Small electrical appliances, electronics, toys, jewellery and clothing are among the things the Repair Café can look at.

The idea is to work on the item together. We can’t promise every repair will succeed, but we’ll give it a good look and help you understand what might be wrong.

The festival is free to visit, with stalls, talks, workshops, music and food throughout the afternoon. Please book a Repair Café slot in advance, as space at the repair tables is limited.

Event details

  • When: Saturday 3 October 2026, 12:30 pm to 4 pm
  • Where: Panama Scout Hall, Royal Canal Bank, Phibsborough, behind Phibsboro Library
  • Cost: Free

Book your Repair Café slot here, or find out more about BuzzFest.

Thanks to Phibsboro Village Tidy Towns for inviting us. We look forward to seeing what turns up on the repair tables.

Posted on

The Autumn Reset: Repair Café in Clondalkin

We are taking the TOG repair tools on the road again.

On Thursday 17 September, TOG volunteers will be at Ace Enterprise Park in Bawnogue for a free Repair Café. The event is part of The Autumn Reset, Ace Enterprise Park’s Circular Economy Week.

Do you have a broken household item sitting at home? Bring it along and see if we can help give it another chance.

At a Repair Café, the idea is not simply to hand something over to be fixed. You sit down with a volunteer repairer, open it up together and try to work out what has gone wrong. We cannot promise that everything can be repaired, but we will give it a good look and hopefully share some useful skills along the way.

Repair Cafés help keep useful items in service for longer, reduce waste and make repair a little less mysterious.

Event details

  • Date: Thursday 17 September 2026
  • Time: 12:00 to 16:00
  • Location: Ace Enterprise Park, Bawnogue, Dublin 22
  • Eircode: D22 P6E8
  • Cost: Free
  • Free parking is available on site.

Full details and free registration are available on Eventbrite.

The Autumn Reset continues on Friday 18 September with a Community Clothing Swap.

Thanks to Ace Enterprise Park for inviting us. We look forward to seeing what turns up on the repair tables.

Posted on

Repair, Radio and a Bicycle: Clonmel to Waterford

Read all about our member Jeffrey‘s trip to The Circular Square.

On Saturday 5 September I put my bicycle on an Irish Rail train in Dublin and headed south to Clonmel. With the bike safely in its rack and the panniers packed, it was a pleasantly straightforward start to a three-day trip running through to Monday 7 September.

The main reason for travelling was a weekend of repair and Linux workshops at The Circular Square. Around that, I had plans for some cycling, portable amateur radio and a little monument photography. It sounds like several different weekends packed into one, but they fitted together rather well.

Continue reading “Repair, Radio and a Bicycle: Clonmel to Waterford”
Posted on

Bringing an Old Test Receiver Back to Life

It was Tuesday Open Night at TOG, and once again there was an interesting bit of equipment sitting on the electronics bench.

This time it was a Rohde & Schwarz ESH 3 test receiver, part of a recent donation from Testwall. It covers frequencies from 9 kHz to 30 MHz and was designed as a serious piece of test equipment rather than an ordinary radio receiver.

As you may know, TOG also has an amateur radio club, with the callsign EI0TOG. A radio receiver like this is complete overkill for simply listening to amateur radio, which naturally meant that it caught our attention.

We did what any group of makers would do: we took it apart.

After plenty of poking around, checking voltages and trying to understand the collection of boards inside, we found a few blown fuses, some jammed buttons and a wire from the power supply that appeared to be stopping the unit from turning on when it was plugged in.

We disconnected the troublesome wire, replaced the fuses and tried powering it up again.

There was no magic smoke. Instead, we had lights!

It is not completely repaired yet. The receiver still displays an error message when it starts and is unhappy about some of its calibration settings. That did not stop us from wanting to find out whether it could receive anything.

We connected a length of wire as a very makeshift indoor antenna and tuned to the 40-metre amateur radio band, around 7 MHz. At first, we were not hearing very much. That was hardly surprising given our poor antenna, its position inside the building and all the electrical noise around the space.

Then a station from Italy came booming through the speaker. They must have been putting out a good signal to overcome our antenna arrangement and all the other things working against us.

After a little more experimenting with the front panel, we figured out enough of the interface to select single-sideband reception and tune around properly. Despite its remaining faults, this old piece of test equipment was receiving amateur radio again.

It was a great example of repair and of bringing something back to life rather than simply throwing it away.

We would still like to understand what the ESH 3 was originally used for and how to operate all of its test and measurement functions properly. Does anyone remember using one of these when it first came out, or know their way around this kind of equipment?

Even if we never manage to use every specialised feature, the amateur radio enthusiasts at TOG will find some use for it. Who knows, with a proper HF antenna connected, it might even become genuinely useful.