Had friend contact me today with an unusual request, can I solder a wire to a pin in a phonograph head? Turns out I can. Now all he needs is a needle and he can play records again.
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What electronics have YOU fixed lately?
- Thread starter Robb
- Start date
I had to fix my canon SX60HS camera. Somehow bumped the lens. Had to follow the ifixit teardown to get to the lens section then a youtube where someone took that apart and inside the front lens was held by a small plastic ring which snaps in place so I was able to just put it back in place and all back together. Still took several days, there are a lot of tiny screws and parts in there.
Dak x
D&A Phantom triple stage
D&A Phantom Dual
Donkey Stomper 2 x 6
Donkey Stomper 4 x 12
Mod on a Madison removing clock & installing frequency Counter
Stryker 955
President Washington
Grant XL
Grant Lt
Royce 655 ?
Robyn 520D
Robyn 510 mobile
8 position remote coaxial switch box
Ranger 2950
Stryker 947HP
100 watt Guitar Amp
PALOMAR 300 BASE AMP
RCI99N2
BUILT A COAXIAL TRANSFERE REMOTE SWITCH TO BYPASS AN AMP WHEN TESTING ANOTHER AMP ON THE BENCH.
This is a list just for the last 5 weeks while working another full time job. The list isn't complete there were more just can't remember them off hand.
D&A Phantom triple stage
D&A Phantom Dual
Donkey Stomper 2 x 6
Donkey Stomper 4 x 12
Mod on a Madison removing clock & installing frequency Counter
Stryker 955
President Washington
Grant XL
Grant Lt
Royce 655 ?
Robyn 520D
Robyn 510 mobile
8 position remote coaxial switch box
Ranger 2950
Stryker 947HP
100 watt Guitar Amp
PALOMAR 300 BASE AMP
RCI99N2
BUILT A COAXIAL TRANSFERE REMOTE SWITCH TO BYPASS AN AMP WHEN TESTING ANOTHER AMP ON THE BENCH.
This is a list just for the last 5 weeks while working another full time job. The list isn't complete there were more just can't remember them off hand.
A Peavey KB-400 amp head/mixer.
A large box fan.
Courier Classic IV CB radio.
9:1 balun for an end fed halfwave antenna.
A large box fan.
Courier Classic IV CB radio.
9:1 balun for an end fed halfwave antenna.
I havent really fixed anything in a while, but I did fail to fix something recently.
My grandparents had a lightning strike take out most of the stuff in their house a while back. I thought I would try fixing their denon A/V system. Power supplies seemed to be working but it was unresponsive up front. There was an unusual voltage on the standby led circuit and that traced directly back to an fpga chip. Denon doesnt share their programming so I didnt even bother looking for a replacement chip. Its a $1000 paperweight now.
This is why we need to hang on to analog stuff as long as we can. All the fancy features like dsp, waterfalls, small size dont mean crap if a cosmic ray can flip a bit and brick your shit.
My grandparents had a lightning strike take out most of the stuff in their house a while back. I thought I would try fixing their denon A/V system. Power supplies seemed to be working but it was unresponsive up front. There was an unusual voltage on the standby led circuit and that traced directly back to an fpga chip. Denon doesnt share their programming so I didnt even bother looking for a replacement chip. Its a $1000 paperweight now.
This is why we need to hang on to analog stuff as long as we can. All the fancy features like dsp, waterfalls, small size dont mean crap if a cosmic ray can flip a bit and brick your shit.
My fixen thigs are basically over. But the last has been repairing an Alphadelta coax lightning/surge protector.
I turned on my Kenwood radio and every band was dead??? I checked continuity at the antenna I found the coax shorted at the radio. I took my meter to the protector on the ground bus bar and disconnected the coax going inside to the radio That was clean I checked the protector with antenna coax disconnected and that was where the problem was. I took the gas protector out and the resistance was inside the Alpha protector with out the gas pill in. I took it apart and found moisture inside. Once it dried out the continuity was gone. I put it back in line and rx came back FANTASTIC !! More rain the next night and again in the morning No Rx again. I went to the dang protector and it was shorted again moisture inside. I am now using a NONAME protector waitingfor a rain storm to see if water gets inside it.
Well a new storm came to visit and again with noname protector in series. But this time the gas pill in the dipole center piece was shorted BURNT badly. Repacing that I'm finally ready for the next storm.
At least I'm not inside the Ts 590S........Yet.
I turned on my Kenwood radio and every band was dead??? I checked continuity at the antenna I found the coax shorted at the radio. I took my meter to the protector on the ground bus bar and disconnected the coax going inside to the radio That was clean I checked the protector with antenna coax disconnected and that was where the problem was. I took the gas protector out and the resistance was inside the Alpha protector with out the gas pill in. I took it apart and found moisture inside. Once it dried out the continuity was gone. I put it back in line and rx came back FANTASTIC !! More rain the next night and again in the morning No Rx again. I went to the dang protector and it was shorted again moisture inside. I am now using a NONAME protector waitingfor a rain storm to see if water gets inside it.
Well a new storm came to visit and again with noname protector in series. But this time the gas pill in the dipole center piece was shorted BURNT badly. Repacing that I'm finally ready for the next storm.
At least I'm not inside the Ts 590S........Yet.
Fixed up a couple Siltronix 1011D's. Mostly recapping them and one needed a slight centering of the Drift (haha). I have been pecking at a third one that was modified a bit to run into a Swan 1200x. That one may take a bit longer!
Not fixed
My wife has this little vacuum, got it from Walmart, I don't pay much attention to it.
She said that the battery is not lasting as much anymore.
I figured it was just a pack of rechargeable cells, I will pull it out and replace it.
Removed screws......
Well I guess that MAh rating was off just a tad and the individual cells are spot welded on each end to the power rail and permanently attached to the charge/speed controller board that would require destroying it to remove the cells.
Yeppers disposable garbage can fodder never ment to be repaired
73
Jeff
My wife has this little vacuum, got it from Walmart, I don't pay much attention to it.
She said that the battery is not lasting as much anymore.
I figured it was just a pack of rechargeable cells, I will pull it out and replace it.
Removed screws......
Well I guess that MAh rating was off just a tad and the individual cells are spot welded on each end to the power rail and permanently attached to the charge/speed controller board that would require destroying it to remove the cells.
Yeppers disposable garbage can fodder never ment to be repaired
73
Jeff
'Just woke up and cleaned up an old 2003 Dell mini-tower PC for my boy's to try out some old PC games. Or, mainly for me to play a version of Battleship on the PC, it shows the big guns firing. It was not a big job. It was a matter of just cleaning up the dust, cleaning the DVD drives, I still need to replace the 3 1/4 floppy drive, its too dirty. My boys do not know what it is anyway. The PC came from a local business office. I stripped off all of the programs that were left from the business, left MS-Office. Any Windows XP SP3 updates needed were installed, hard drive purged of junk files. Anti-Virus scanned. It's surprising when you find a PC virus in an older hard drive from yesterday. I used to have a pile of infected floppies in my virus collection. Oh- PSA: "Ladies, if your date lets you know he/she has a computer virus collection- that is a clear flag that you are on a date with a nerd, or nerd in denial." This is coming from a self identified nerd. "Wait until I show you my CB radio collection," used to be one of my best pickup lines. In a crowded loud bar all the nice lady would hear was," Wait until I show you my VD infection." A lot of dates ended too soon. I did meet this nice lady on Channel 20 at the I-80 Barkleyville TA Truck Stop in PA. Her name was "Bubble Gum." She was a popular girl- every time I asked her out on Channel 20, she would always say she could only spare 15 or 30mins at time. I am off topic. It was fun bringing the old PC back to life. My son Connor found a ZIP disk drive. He asked, "What's this?" It was so great when the ZIP disk was released: 100MB/250MB removable storage, wow!"
That can still be repaired. Depends if you want to buy/make a spot welder yourself, or buy cells with solder tabs or buy from a reseller who will spot weld for a small charge.
Never used it as a pickup line, but learning the nuances of the certain types of viruses at the time could help identify and remove it. I came from the sneaker-net era and viruses were common. A collection of viruses, thousands of them, were available to download freely at one point, they were "for experimental use only" and of course you had to acknowledge to download. I never used them maliciously. I learned from them, made great money cleaning up and upgrading PCs locally and met many fantastic folks.
My son Connor found a ZIP disk drive. He asked, "What's this?" It was so great when the ZIP disk was released: 100MB/250MB removable storage, wow!"
I saved to get one when 1.44 was the norm and you had to break larger files to span multiple disks. I miss the 1.44 floppy though, the feeling and sound of one locking in the drive.
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I recently "refreshed" a made for Canada "only" 3A power supply that I bought brand new back in the 80's. It sat on the shelf all this time waiting for me to get around to it! I don't believe it ever put out the right voltage due to missing components on the regulator board. See video below;
Radio Shack - Micronta 22-8241
Radio Shack - Micronta 22-8241
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The Courier Gladiator I have needs some TLC. I got one back in 2017 or so and it was dead in the water. No audio. Fast forward to recently, I took it off the shelf and will be the next radio I try to fix. I replaced some capacitors years ago and the radio just kept making a poping sound through the speaker, and nothing else. Sadly, the radio was hacked up at some point. A couple years ago I bought an actual 40 channel Courier Gladiator for reference. The one that doesnt work I believe was originally a 23 channel PLL, but had its channel selector replaced with a 40 channel.
When I go down that lane, I will keep everyone posted.
Next thing to try is a new audio chip....
When I go down that lane, I will keep everyone posted.
Next thing to try is a new audio chip....