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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.
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)?
Video Blog: Mini Amp!
Hey all, today I was given a special gift (well, I paid $24, but it was a gift nonetheless): a microphone pre-amp circuit (with mic integrated) AND a 0.5 Watt Mini Amplifier! Wow. I built both of them during class, it took about 1h30min to do both, and test. They are so awesome, the amp especially, so I made a video.
My first attempt at video blogging. Unscripted, edited to remove screw ups. Oh, technology… In any case, the mini amp is friggen’ awesome! A very simple design, aside from the IC, and the mic pre-amp is even simpler. I’m not sure if I am allowed to post this or not (if its copyrighted, let me know and I’ll take them down), but I’ve scanned the schematics in case anyone was interested in building their own. Of course, those two links are direct links to the inexpensive kits, so if you don’t feel like looking for the parts, you can order the kit with all the parts.
I was really quite impressed with how powerful the amplifier was. It is strong enough to drive my two-way, dual 6″ sub, floor-standing speakers, and create enough bass to feel in my pant legs and vibrate on my desk, equivalent to the volume I’m listening to music with my home theater amp right now. My predictions earlier at school were right: it would be equivalent to normal listening volumes. According to the equalizer display on my amp, it says about 0.1watts are going to the speakers right now. Now, I should be able to overtake any radio station with my FM transmitter!
😀