ATTEMPTS AGAINST UNNECESSARY GARBAGE COLLECTION
Things have broken and I've fixed them. While I encourage myself
towards this enterprise, I feel there's a set of risks inherent to any
repair undertaken. What if:
- I can't put it back together
- I lose a part
- I hurt myself
- I break it further
Unfortunately, I have a pretty bad track records when it comes to
fixing what's broken. More often than not I experience one or all of
the above. The fix I morn most is an attempted typewriter repair. I
was fixing a roller, and I ended up breaking a very important feature
that keeps pressure against the paper. Plus, after putting the thing
back together I ended up with left over parts. Never a good sign. The
fix I cherish most is a successful offset printer paper jam detector
repair. I found and swapped out a broken switch in a Ryobi 3200. That
required a bit of faffering and analysis of a parts
manual. Unfortunately, a later repair towards a new fountain roller
didn't end so pleasantly :')
More recently, I've repaired some essential items in my life: computer
speakers, glasses, kitchen scale, keyboard. These are briefly outlined
below. I've also failed to fix some important items: TV. This is very
briefly outlined below.
Ear-loop on pair of glasses
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My glasses have these brown resin ear-loops on either arm. One day, I
found a large piece of an ear-loop in my hair. It had somehow broken
off from the rest of it. I discovered to my surprise that the metal
frame of the glasses didn't travel all the way through the resin's
core. In other words, the resin was lacking additional structural
support. I think this manufacturing decision (and my habit of
sometimes lying on my side while watching TV) is what lead to the
eventual break.
IMG Glasses ear loops, showing seam from epoxy
To fix, I first positioned my third-hand to hold the broken piece into
contact with the part of it that remained attached to the glasses
frame. I mixed up a bit of domestic epoxy and dabbed it around the
break and into the split. I gently pushed the two pieces together,
made sure they were securely held together, and let it cure.
Speakers in a laptop
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The sound of a GT40 shredding pavement in Ford v Ferrari destroyed my
laptop speakers. Really, the engine sounds were too much for the
five-ish year old laptop speakers to speak. They blew.
IMG Speakers, showing a pair with cracked edges
To fix, I sourced the part on Ebay. I glanced at some pictures of how
the speakers were assembled into the frame then swapped out the
parts. It was a trivial replacement, which is fortunate for me and the
laptop.
Membrane in a keyboard switch
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The super key of my laptop cracked in half one day. So I removed the
key-cap and kept using it. Eventually the membrane beneath the key-cap
fell off and disappeared into a dust pan. I decided to fix the damn
thing, since the super key sees a lot of action as my window manager's
`$mod' key.
IMG Key mechanism, showing new plastic nipple
I elected another less-used key to donate its key-cap to super. The
right-side alt key humbly obliged. I then snipped off a bit of
membrane from a shitty Microsoft keyboard I had disassembled for
another project. The membrane needed some trimming to fit under the
key-cap and provide tactility. When that seemed right, I placed it
over the key's housing and clicked on the key-cap. The action is a bit
stiff compared to the other keys, but the reliability of a stroke it
much improved.
Battery dependency in a kitchen scale
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One day, the battery in my kitchen scale depleted. The battery is the
3.3V coin cell type that can't be recharged. I realized that my
needing to purchase and replace these with such frequency was an
indicated of a broken device. So I decided to fix the scale by
attaching an external battery.
IMG Kitchen scale, showing wires leading to new circuit board
To fix, I used the remnants of a project from many years ago: a very
simple circuit that contain an AAA battery slot and a step-up voltage
regulator (among other things not applicable for the fix). I soldered
wires between the circuit and the coin cell battery slot. A bit of
yummy plastic melting was required.
TV
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I have a Sony XBR-43X800H TV. I really like the device. It has an
analogue audio output which is great for plugging into a hi-fi or
headset. Anyways, one day the TV showed a gray screen. Pressing
buttons still activated sounds, and the backlight dimmed when going to
what I imagine are different apps. But no image. Just gray pixels.
I looked around a little bit to learn the issue could be the main
board or the t-con board. I decided to roll the dice and buy a new
t-con board. After swapping one with the other and maybe performing a
firmware update (I read this is required for a t-con board swap, but I
can't see anything so I have no idea if the firwmare update worked),
no improvement was seen. Next I did an eyeball inspection of all the
TV's circuit boards, looking for nasty components. Everything looks
OK, except for maybe one ceramic capacity that has a darker spot in
the middle. No clue if this means anything.
IMG Internals of TV, showing new T-CON board
At this point, I'm not ready to spill more money into a maybe
fix. Besides, I only know symptoms. I'll just go without a TV for a
while, I guess. Not a terrible situation. Just kinda sucks that I
don't know how to fix this thing and it'll probably end up in a
landfill.
Update <2024-04-22 Mon 13:12>
......................................................................
After a bit more researched, I learned about another part of the TV
that could be cause for the issue: "buffer boards". These things are
full of capacitors and ribbon connections. I suppose either of the two
could somehow be broken (a short is the most common issue I've read
about). Unfortunetaly, I don't know how to check for a short. So I
tried troubleshooting by disconnecting the boards, one at a time, to
see if one produced results different from the other. And indeed: the
left board (if only it is plugged in) shows half the screen in gray
and half in black; the right board (if only it is pluggin in) shows
half the screen in white and half in black. I don't know what the
correct result of this test. But it seems logical to surmise that the
gray is a sign of trouble.
I want the issue to be a short, but I can't detect any. "A charging
capacitance appears as a short (beep) and then an open when fully
charged (no beep)."
Update <2024-06-11 Tue 18:57>
......................................................................
Today I decided to clear the TV off of the table it was occupying. Its
next destination would be the dump, I figured. On a lark, I decided to
turn the TV on. To my utter surprise I saw a SONY and Android logo
flash across the screen for a few seconds before the panel went
black. Was it working again? I tempered my excitement, then
reconnected all the compenents that had been disconnected during my
repair process (WiFi card and speakers). I turned the TV on again. The
logos, again, and then a privacy policy screen. The panel stayed lit,
no weird flickers observed. Apparently, the TV was working again.
Broken things bug me. But what bugs me more is when something broken
becomes inexplicably functional again. The TV is working. This is
great. But why? Was some lose connection somehow snugged up? Did the
ambient temperature or humidity of the room somehow positively affect
a component? Did I miss that it had been working back in May? My mind
is boggled. Once I saw the TV was working, I actually swapped the old
T-CON board back in to see if the initial symptoms would
reappear. Nope! The old T-CON board worked.
Anyways, I guess I have a TV again. I also have a new Privacy Policy
to accept. Here's a line worth excerpting from the change notes:
November 1, 2021
- Adding model year as acquisition information to Product improvements
and Advertisement and Marketing
November 1, 2020
- Adding other usage data of products which are connected to the TV in
Product improvements
November 1, 2019
- Adding acquisition information to Product improvements (e.g. Wi-Fi
connection)
And deeper into the policy itself the unsurprising gory details about
what information is collected:
- TV usage data (such as remote button presses, audio/visual format, the number of times that you use the program recording function on your TV [...], assigned channel settings, power on/off details, and which Wi-Fi channel is connected to your TV, the name of the Wi-Fi router vendor and the strength of Wi-Fi signal that your TV receives)
- Information regarding products which are connected to the TV (such as
type, number, model name of connected devices, connection method
(e.g.: USB, HDMI, Bluetooth)
The interface lets me proceed past agreeing to share this
data. However, I opted to disconnect the Wi-Fi card during the final
reassembly so I wouldn't have to worry about any "what ifs".