How Far to Take Things

[Steve]

I am a self-confessed hoarder. At work they think I'm a Womble, because I'll take anything that looks useful rather than see it thrown away. The trouble is, life keeps on rewarding me for saving things - a couple of weeks ago my LPG boiler packed up, it's obsolete, an exchange circuit board is minimum £250 if you can find someone who has one, and a replacement boiler is £1500. I have experience of component level repairs so I dived in and traced the fault to an opto-isolator on the circuit board, and I ordered a replacement for pennies online. The part arrived and I replaced it - still didn't work, although I was sure the opto-isolator was the fault. The part was a modern "equivalent" by a different manufacturer, but same part number and supposedly identical.

So, I looked through some old power supplies I had "wombled" some years ago, and found the same part by the original manufacturer, replaced it and bingo - heating working again.

I'm incurable.