For many years, we have contemplated visiting a local Repair Café but could never be bothered. Finally, we decided to test the Reading one out with a recently-faulty VCR. The Toshiba device, bought in 2010 for it’s VHS tape, DVD and hard drive recording facilities, has recently decided to power down when a tape is inserted. The cartridge would be accepted and pulled into place before starting to play. At that point, system crash and lights off.
So we drove to Reading’s Hackspace and got there as the Repair Café was opening. Paperwork completed, we demonstrated the problem and handed over the VCR to a volunteer. We stood back to watch the magic. The VCR was completely dismantled – only because it’s not designed to be easily repaired like a PC. The cassette assembly was given a good look at then, after finding nothing wrong with it, everything was reassembled. We now have a spare screw, which the repair man was quite embarrassed about.
And the VCR works! Standard technical issue – no idea what caused the problem but cleared up by showing the device who was boss.
Total cost : £20 donation and £4 parking meter. Bargain.
John Breakwell's blog 
Thanks John for the post.