"Please discard this one and buy another machine" is what the technician said.
Part 1: Mr Bharath Kumar who is a Founder-Member of @repaircafecollectiveindia happens to be on the board of the hospital which had a faulty microscope in the O.T. He would not throw but always try to fix it. The machine was a 20-year-old Japanese one. The doctors had used it for many complex surgeries but now the "focus" function of the microscope was non-functional. Technicians' advice notwithstanding Mr Bharath Kumar decided to call in Mr Jithendran T. K . who was a comrade in-arms in @repaircafecollectiveindia . The two gentlemen were thorough tinkerers but they hadn't worked in the sanitized environs of an O.T. On being assured that they could feel at home as the O.T. would be sanitized afterwards in any case, they got down to work. They figured that there are 2 motors in the microscope: one for the "zoom function" and one for the "focus function". Also, they noticed that both motors were working. The motors are operated by the surgeon using