Now that is an actual adventure. I also do laptop repairs but for Win OS, and I used to work as an arcade tech some years back. I'm reading your post and thinking to myself right now, why I am not doing this?
I undercharge for my repairs, and if it requires a part I have on hand, I'll drop it in for free and my name gets out there a little better. Coordinating where to go with google maps is brilliant. It will probably look weird to see a small girl climbing around dumpsters at night though.
For one of my future projects I'm planning to acquire a bunch of "broken" laptops on craigslist, repair what I can, and resell. I know that working on Apple products is high paying since their hardware is proprietary and you need special tools for disassembly, even a lot of my friends suggested I go that route. This is one of the best adventures I read in a long time!
Cheers @shello, glad you enjoyed the read - and yeh its one of the best adventures ive had in a while!
Fixing macbooks has been a good little earner for me over the years. I put it down to 1. Brand name, 2. Apple work on a replace policy, rather than repair. That means if you have a logic board with a blown fuse, they will tell you you need a new one and more often than not render your machine a write off! Because of this you can pick up machines for $50 - $100. If you get 2 the same model you can quite easily mix and match to make a working machine (i.e 1 with broken screen + 1 with water damaged logic board).
Dont think too much about tools and repairs. You can pick up sets on ebay for less than $50 for every tool you will ever need working with macs. All my work has been learnt from youtube videos, ifixit and people ive got to know who work in the industry.
You can do anything you want in life. That includes rummaging in bins - even if other people do think it looks weird! :)
Ah, I havent realized the benefits of working on Macs. On win os machines, good luck finding matching parts. This makes working on apple computers sound more viable to me. I learnt a lot of repair from friends, work, and online myself, it isn't too hard when you have time to learn. I'll look into getting a repair kit, seeing as my soldering kit also came in recently. There is money to he made lol
Great work again, I look forward to reading more of your compiter adventures :D
If you can get into micro soldering with macs your onto a winner! Theres a lot more skill in it than just replacing hardware components and parts (which is mainly what i do) If you have any questions about making the jump feel free to get in touch, id be happy to help :)
I'll see how my next repair goes with soldering a new dc jack onto a tablet. If I can figure it out, I'll definitely contact you. A lot of my friends and other people I know need Mac repairs. Thanks a bunch c:
@shello