I fairly recently got a "broken" Brother B&W laser printer off Facebook marketplace for free. Owner said they couldn't connect over Bluetooth/WiFi, app didn't work, cable wouldn't connect.
A quick search told me it wasn't a smart printer in any way shape or form, so attempting a wireless connection was a pointless endeavour anyway.
USB socket was bollocksed. Removed that and soldered an old cable directly to the PCB and it's running perfectly now.
I did buy some replacement USB sockets but that would mean taking it apart again, and my bodge job with the cable is still working. So they're in a drawer waiting to never be used.
Free is the charm as they say.
I used to do the occasional soldering repair, but recently when I've tried on a couple of components I made a total bollocks of it. I don't know whether it's because I'm older and less "steady of hand" than I was, or the soldering stuff is different, or just that it's a skill you need to keep practicing.
I recently accidentally buggered a 3TB HDD by snapping of the little plastic tab over the data port. Lost the tab somewhere in the mess of my desk. I took an old 120GB donor drive and cut the matching tab off. This is nearly impossible to hold over the flapping pins while pushing a cable on, but it can be inserted into the female cable and then this is wiggled over the pins to make a decent contact. The cable is then glued in place with a hot glue gun. I know that I can make a "proper" repair by swapping the whole HDD circuit board (it's only held on with screws) with a matching donor board with intact SATA connectors. With this HDD, as with most, there's a BIOS chip which has to be desoldered from the original and used to replace the donor BIOS chip.
1) my recent inability to solder, even though this is a really simple hot-air and flux job is a real blocker. 2) that people have cottoned-on to how straightforward this repair is (for all kinds of issues not just clumsy twats like me) and crappy old circuit boards are being ripped off dead disks and ebayed for silly money, doesn't help 3) but mainly the fact that my bodgy fix works, has stopped me seriously considering this.