Replacing An Overheating Tablet Power Supply

January 13, 2012 by Mike Szczys 28 Comments

[Dave] has an ASUS tablet PC with a little problem. The device is charged via the docking connector’s USB cable when plugged into a special wall transformer. The problem is that the wall unit tends to overheat, and is shut down by a thermister inside to avoid permanent damage. The word on the Internet is to drop it in a zipper bag and chill it in the freezer for a bit. Although this works, it’s not the permanent solution that he was looking for. Instead, he hit the parts bin and built his own power supply replacement without buying anything.

The device is simply looking for 12V on the power pin (pin 1) of the USB cable. [Dave] dug through his mountain of unused AC adapters and found one that fit the voltage and current specs of the stock unit. He also grabbed a dusty old motherboard and plucked the USB ports off of the back. A bit of protoboard makes for a good base to connect the AC adapter wires to the ports, which was then covered with one big shrink tube. The result is seen above, and demonstrated in the clip after the break.

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Got Dead Bugs In Your Stereo?

January 9, 2012 by Kevin Dady 44 Comments

It happens to the best of designers, spending untold amounts of time designing a complex device just to find out that you missed a trace, or you couldn’t rout something to something else. As time marches on its becoming a bit less common to pop open a commercially produced device and see a little jumper wire or 2 flying across a pcb, or a resistor straddling an IC.

But when [Ilektron] opened up a Yamaha Dolby Pro Logic receiver to scavenge for parts he saw a very big “oops” and a even wilder fix. The maker took a pair of relays, flipped them “belly up” and hot glued them into place on top of a pair of ICs. Then the mess was “dead bug” wired to the circuit using insulated and uninsulated bus wire, contacts were then reinforced / insulated using more hot glue.

This is one of the most hacky fix we have seen in a commercially produced product, but we would love to hear your amusing horror stories of “WTH did they do?” So join us in the comments after the break.

Focus Fix For Non-reflex 35mm Camera

December 30, 2011 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

For camera fanatics the acquisition of an old camera is a thrilling event. But if you’re going to collect them, you’d better have some repair skills so that you can also use them. [Fernando’s] latest find was this Minox 35mm camera. The aperture needed cleaning, and after reassembling the unit he realized the he had not marked the focus ring when taking it apart. This is not a reflex camera, so you can’t look in the view finder to adjust focus. He came up with his own method to get the focus ring calibrated.

The focal point needs to focus on the film. He simulated this plane using some magic tape, which removes easily without leaving a residue. When the shutter is open, you can see the image projected on this translucent surface. He then set up the camera with the lens 90 cm from a bright light bulb. By adjusting the focus to create a sharp image on the temporary screen, he knows the focus is calibrated, and can reset the focus ring to the 0.9m mark.

Need some help developing that exposed film? You could always give the coffee and vitamin C hack a try.

Relighting A Gauge Cluster

December 29, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 36 Comments

When a few lights in the dashboard of [Garrett]’s truck burned out, he was looking at a hefty repair bill. The repair shop would have to replace the huge PCB to change a few soldered light bulbs, so he was looking at a $500 repair bill. Lighting up a LED is everyone’s first project, so [Garrett] decided to change out the bulbs with LEDs and save a few dollars.

The repair was very simple – after removing the dials and needles, [Garrett] found a huge PCB with a few burnt out bulbs on board. He took a multimeter to each bulb’s solder pad and replaced each one with an LED and resistor. The finished project looks like it came out of a factory and is a huge improvement over the ugly amber bulbs originally found in his truck. [Garrett] also posted a nice Instructable of his build showing the nicely soldered lamp replacements.

Repairing A Commercial-grade Pick And Place Machine

December 28, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 12 Comments

It looks like Null Space Labs has a new pick and place machine. This immense repair job began when [Charliex] and [Gleep] found a JukiPlacemat 360 pick and place machine. The idea of having their very own pick and place machine proved intoxicating, possibly too much so because the didn’t return the machine when they found out it wasn’t working.

After a ton of work that involved adding a camera, [Charliex] and the rest of the builders at Null Space Labs finally have their own pick and place machine that works. This was a complete rebuild from the ground up. So many things didn’t work on the machine, they might have been better off building one from scratch. Aside from the massive effort that went into turning the shell of a machine into a working unit, we really have to commend everyone who worked on it.

The team added a nice GUI to control the machine. The guys have already run a successful test and ovened a few boards, so everything works as it should have at purchase. It’ll be great for making next year’s LayerOne conference badges.

Troubleshooting Household Light Timers

December 13, 2011 by Mike Nathan 13 Comments

timer-repair

When [Todd Harrison’s] Christmas lights stayed on well past the pre-defined shut off time, he knew there was something wrong with the timer. He took the device into his workshop and spent some time diagnosing and repairing the device, a process he recorded for all to see.

After busting the screw-less timer open with a hammer, he inspected the PCB for any apparent signs of damage. After seeing what looked like a damaged transistor, he desoldered it from the board for testing. After the transistor passed his tests with flying colors, [Todd] assumed that the fault had to be in the relay which the transistor was responsible for switching.

Sure enough, the relay had shorted out, and upon cutting it open he found that the contact points were fused together. He separated and sanded the contacts down, enabling him to get the timer working – at least for the time being.

Part of [Todd’s] goal with this video was to show off different methods of desoldering, including a manual solder sucker (my favorite), desoldering braid, and a purpose built desoldering iron. If you’re in the market for some desoldering tools, but don’t know what to buy, [Todd] is more than happy to offer his advice.

Continue reading to see a video of [Todd’s] troubleshooting process.

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Network Monitoring Panel Built From The IT Department Junk Heap

November 30, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

network-monitoring-panel

One of the benefits of working in IT is that there is typically a healthy supply of miscellaneous, half-functioning equipment to mess around with. [Vittore] had an old laptop with a busted LCD sitting around (Google Translation), so he figured he might as well get it to do something useful. With a spare desktop LCD panel and some software tweaking, he built himself a slick network monitoring panel that hangs in his office.

He stripped the laptop down to the bare essentials, and mounted it along with an LCD screen in a plexiglass enclosure. He has Nagios running a server in his office, and with the help of a few plugins, he created a simple web interface that show him the topology of his entire network. The panel itself runs a live version of Debian, which he configured to load up his Nagios web page each time it is started.

While having the ability to view the status of every network-connected device in an instant is great, he didn’t stop there. While browsing around online, he found diagram for a simple USB-based performance monitor that uses a PIC to drive a pair of VU meters. He hooked the meters up to a router monitored by Nagios, so he can watch office’s bandwidth usage in real time.

If you’re interested in seeing how it was built, be sure to check out the Flickr photo set put together by [Vittore’s] co-worker [Matthew].