It’s a 7th gen i5, so I’ve definitely had my money’s worth :)
I’m hoping that epoxy will be enough. I’m going to strip everything out, clean and lube the hinge, then epoxy that in and rebuild the rest around it. I’ve got a replacement base, as that was also broken, and as the laptop shouldn’t need to be opened again, I’m hoping that it will hold :)
All the test strips I’ve ever used hold the blood at the opposite end to the machine. The blood is intentionally kept away and on something that can easily be disposed of.
As far as I can tell, the bulk of the testing strip is a conductor to take a signal from the end with the blood to the tester, which makes it seem like there’s some sort of reaction on the blood end.