Home Device Repair
Hello again, it has been a little bit. College has picked up, and as I am moving in a little over a week, most of my projects have been packed. However, I’ve worked on a few things in the past little while.
Remember my half-repaired LCD monitor? Well recently I obtained yet another defective LCD monitor. Symptoms: no power, no lights, no noise. I may or may not post photos about this one, because I did all repairs without taking photos, and it was a pain to take it apart, and I wish not to do so again, hehe. Basically, the cause was 4 blown caps in on the circuit board, which I’ve replaced and it now functions fully, aside from a little squealing when in stand-by or turned off (I believe due to a capacitor that started blowing but that I measured to be within proper values.)
A few months ago, however, I did document a repair project I undertook. I have two home theatre amps at home that I’ve had problems with. At one point, both had stopped functioning properly. So, naturally, I decided to set to fixing them.
Pinball: Meet the Machines
A very basic photo post: all sorts of photos of my dad’s pinball collection. Awesome 😀
Left of garage
Right of garage
Nostalgia: Windows 98
Last weekend I tried to install Windows 98 on the oldest laptop of mine. It didn’t work, it gave an error, “Insufficient system memory”. Funny, I had 2GB of RAM…
After all, it is a laptop. Why doesn’t Windows XP ask these questions? Maybe it just knows.
I wonder if it’s any better than Justin TV?
Dial-up server!!!
23 minutes remaining, no, I mean, 14 minutes, no, I mean, 3 hours 27 minutes!
I miss this… Sort of, not really. It’s so much nicer to have it all shut down on its own.
I’ve got a video of it trying, and failing, to boot, however, bad quality, and not all that important.
DIY Multimeter: Complete!
As mentioned in a previous posting, for Christmas, I received an Assemble-it-yourself Digital Multimeter Kit. Awesome. So, for the last week or two I’ve been building it, section at a time, till tonight, where I found myself in need of doing a calming activity. What is more calming then sitting down and soldering for 2 hours, while listening to Paramore’s discography using my DIY FM Transmitter to broadcast to my DIY AM/FM Radio?
Anyway… This is what it looks like, finished:
Sorry about the Mr. Blurrycam shot. Darn flash. I’ll have a clearer shot after the break, along with more details on the functions.
Video Blog: Oscilloscope
Alright, my second video installment. Enjoy the consistent, awkward style of yours truly!
Gorgar: Photos
All photos about Gorgar. If there is anyone out there who is into pinball machines, who has any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!
Yes, the next two are photos from another post, but there are new ones after the break!
Winter Break: Projects
Over the break I’ve got a few projects on the go. Whether I finish any/all is another story, but at least, I don’t have an excuse if I find myself bored. I hope that all of your Christmases were enjoyable. My mom got me the following, which I had mentioned I wanted not too long ago:
A wire tracker. Perfect for checking phones lines, network cables, car wiring, coax cabling, and, most importantly, following wiring in pinball machines!
There are giant harnesses of wires in pinball machines that make it very difficult to track individual wires. This will make it so much easier for me to track where they go, rather than dealing with the two-colour wire coding system.
Another neat tool I got for Christmas was the following. Can you guess what it is (after the jump)?
Obligatory Christmas Post
Alright, so it isn’t really obligatory. Merry Christmas to you, reader, and a happy new year to you as well. Next semester starts January 18th, 2010, so there should be plenty of new projects. In fact, we are apparently building a robot!
During the break, I should be getting around to photographing and making posts for all my projects this semester (that I’ve not yet covered).
Oh, and as for Gorgar, I’ve located the triac responsible for the second drop-target solenoid not firing. (Notice to missing one above, 3rd row of triacs, 3rd triac in: right in the center!)
Now to locate a replacement. Shouldn’t be too hard. The way I located the defective triac was pretty awesome. I put the multimeter on continuity, and put one probe on the pin that triggers the malfunctioning solenoid, then, with the other probe, I touched the back-plate of all the triac, under the hopes that it was the pin attached to the back-plate (I assume ground, or perhaps the base, of the triac) would be the same pin that provides the power to the solenoid. Well, I was lucky, and found continuity between one of the triacs.
I checked on the intertubes for how to test a transistor/triac, and went about checking the hi-lo values on this one. Nothing. As a control group, I tested all the other triacs on the board, and all of those ones were fine, this was the only one that had no continuity anywhere. Safe to say, she has blown.
Piano, transistors
I’ve posted, on the Music page, a new song I started a few nights ago. A sad but hopeful piano song, that seems to pull you up and down. This is definitely a pre-release version, of course, but it’s there for all to enjoy!
I haven’t played much with the pinball machine since, however, I believe I know what the cause of the problem with the middle GAR drop-targets: because no power is coming from the board itself, I know it’s not a problem with wires between the board and the solenoid. On the board where it connect to, there are a whole bunch of transistors and triacs: relays. I’m 75% sure that these relays control lights and solenoids, so chances are good that one of the transistors are blown that are in charge of sending current to the solenoid. It’s just a matter of finding which one is it, and finding a suitable replacement part.
I’ve gone through my first MP3-player-to-tape-deck-adapter, which I knew would happen eventually. Luckily I’ve got a second one, but it has given me renewed desire to hack into my car’s stereo console and wire-up an Aux input. If only it weren’t so damned cold outside.
😛
Gorgar: Speaks.
The opening lines of this pinball machine. And now, my father, running out of room to store new (old) pinball machines, has let me take this one home to work on as my own project. Thanks, Dad!
As promised, here is a picture of the actual machine, and not some picture from the Intertubes. Again, it’s missing the backglass, but it is still awesome. The play field is interesting, it’s not empty, and it’s in good shape, too!
Scary. One of the feature I find the most interesting about it is the electro-magnet at the top left. The “snake pit”. The ball gets caught for a bit, then gets let go of and rolls down. I’m really hoping that I can fix this machine up, maybe it is something as simple as dirty contacts (after all, it is over 25 years old, and antique, if you will). Here is a video of me playing it. Not a great angle at the beginning, but you can hear the sounds of the game. One of the first electronic pinball machines, with electronic sounds. Before, all the machines used bells!
Note: Sorry for the, ahem, shitty video. Using Windows 7, I no longer have the well designed, fully functional, and advanced Windows Movie Maker found in Windows XP, as such, I have no control over export options, and the transitions and titles are all different (and quite frankly, nowhere near as good).