Comment by mindcrime

What is the pragmatic approach in this mission?

There are a lot of good videos on Youtube, for one. Louis Rossmann has some good stuff (especially his older stuff), Dave Jones has some good repair videos (intermingled with a LOT of other stuff, though), and there are plenty of other channels dedicated to electronics repairs.

Having said that... you'll need to know at least a bit about electronics (qua electronics) before going terribly far with electronics repair. Much the same way that one could only get so far at debugging and fixing code, if one didn't know something about writing code in the first place.

So... there are, again, videos on Youtube. The Vocademy channel, for one, is a great resource for general electronics theory.

And books. Don't forget books.

I'd suggest, depending on your existing knowledge level, find a couple of books on basic electronics, load up some of those videos, get some components and perfboard and a soldering iron and some basic test equipment (a multimeter and an oscilloscope are a good start) and start building simple circuits. And gradually expand the range of circuits you build to become more complex over time. More or less simultaneously, start watching YT videos on "electronics repair". The thing is, there's a difference between knowing "the theory of electronics" and having the debugging / troubleshooting skills, intuition, judgment, etc. to diagnose faults. The two things are related, but are somewhat orthogonal.

At some point, find used junk non-working electronics, either stuff friends/family will give you, or stuff you dig out of a dumpster, or buy at thrift shops, or buy off of Ebay listed as "not working / for parts only" and start trying to fix things.

So basically... "learn theory / build stuff / fix stuff" in an iterative loop. That's about the best advice I can give.

I reckon it will be valuable in the future that comes.

I agree. That's one reason (not the only reason mind you, but one) that I've spent a modest amount of money over the last year or two, upgrading my electronics lab, in terms of tools, test equipment, etc. I mean, I do this stuff for a hobby, and it's been a nearly life-long thing for me anyway. But more and more recently, I find myself thinking that the ability to repair/hack/build electronic "stuff" will be a skill with serious value. I just wish I had more time to commit to it.