Nowadays, most items cannot be fixed because the parts are not available, or are too expensive, or there is no one experienced enough to fix it. For example, last month I tried to fix my projector. I needed a small prism-like piece of glass that was one of the lenses. Probably, a five dollar part, but you could only get the whole lens assembly which was $1,500.00 bucks!
When Brent accidenty broke my 55-300MM lens by holding on the focus ring while he was trying to focus, I told myself I was going to fix this lens if it killed me. The hardest part was getting the nerve to take it apart with the many small screws, ribbon cables, and wires. Once apart it was obvious that the small Silent Wave Motor (SWM) was broken. The plastic drive shaft had snapped (see below).
I went on-line and Googled the part and was able to find one for sale in China for $22 bucks with free shipping. It arived in about a week. The most difficult part was soldering the small wires to the ribbon cable, because I had never tried this. Using an aligator clip and holding the wire in contact with the ribbon cable, I let a small drop of solder fall on the wire tip and voila!, a good connection (see below).
