Posts Tagged ‘ Fix-It ’

Fix-It: Ross Distortion Guitar Pedal (Phase 1 – Final)

Ok, so I got this guitar pedal that was said to be not working…  a somewhat oldie but in fairly good shape “Ross” brand Distortion Pedal for guitars.

Indeed, as the person who handed it to me said… if it’s plugged, no sound come from it… only a ‘hummmm’ …  So I sliced it open (read: unscrew the back panel), checked out the circuit… everything and torn it out in piece…  nothing… No visual issue, nothing looking wrong, chip is properly inserted in the socket…  everything looks fine…

So… I had a genius idea…   … …  could it be the battery ?  … I checked out the 9v … and it’s dead dead dead…   -_-   I replaced it with a new one … and Voila ! Magic happen again…

My advice for today… and to myself…   Check the dang battery FIRST ! 🙂

(( on the bright side, I might take a quick look at how I could recreate a Distortion pedal like that 😛 the IC is a simple Low-Noise Dual Op-Amp 🙂 and all the caps/resistances are not a big deal 😛 soooo… I might make my own clone of it soon ! ))

2011
01/04
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Electronic
Fix-It
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Fix-It: Emergency Light System (Phase 2)

I still play with that thing once in a while when I have time to devote to it but… frankly, I’m clueless now.

I have tried a small 4.8v SLA battery ( after dropping the voltage to 4.8-ish volts from the charging system) but it doesn’t seems to charge … or not more than 1v after a while…

Next, I managed to get a 12v SLA battery from my father’s old Alarm system … and… same-ish issue, can’t get over 4v with it.

So now, I’m back to square 1 … or maybe square 2 since I fixed some issues already 😛 Anyways, I’ll try to get a real 6v SLA like the circuit is supposed to work with and try it again… in the mean time, enjoy the circuit with a battery (instead of a biggie Capa like the other time 🙂 )

2011
01/04
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Electronic
Fix-It
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Fix-It: Emergency Light System (Phase 1)

I recently got my hand on a broken Emergency light system for free. I was told that it was the battery or something like that who died… At that point… Fine 🙂 I’ll have a look.

I cracked open the baby to have a quick look inside and gave a visual inspection real quick…  everything seems fine except one of the resistance that is darken a bit (bad sign!), the Pot seems to have either a goo or rust on it but happily, no exploded parts ( like in that old rooter PSU ? huh ? remember ? 🙂 ). Since I don’t have a battery on hand (6v SLA is not *yet* in my part bin but I’m working on it… ), I didn’t bothered trying the system.

So, First thing first, I decided to unplug everything to have a closer look at the board and when I pulled the Bat+ plug, guess what stayed in my hand ? That’s right ! the header !…  Cold Solder? maybe…

Few minutes later, I had the pot out of the board, tested (works fine) and resolered, the header was resoldered properly and the resistance changed. Initial power up with 0 load and no battery seemed to work fairly well, nothing blew up! So, I added the multimeter on the bat+ and bat- and I was surprised to see 6v ! which is pretty good ! next was the terminals for the load… I had to come up with an idea on how to see if, when the power come down, the battery was coming into play ? …  …   ….  *insert long waiting here*…  … DING ! Capacitors ! Yes, so I plugged in a small 10v 2200uf Cap on it, It did show as charging for about 1/2 of a second and when I was cutting the power, the multimeter would show 6v for a fraction of second before dieing. So far, So good ! … … But, that’s not how I’m going to see if it is not just a luck…  so I found that biggie cap in one of my boxes…  10v … 130000MFD …   pretty big one 😀 … after a 3-4 second charge, I cut the power and the voltage stayed stable for … ouff, at least a good 5 minutes. ( FYI, difference from the 2 picture is the multimeter voltage, 1st picture is with power on, 2nd picture is with power off )

Next test was to use the lamps… but I figured out at my expense that… when I put the lamp on the cap, I get about 1 second of light…. when I put it on the load terminal, it looks like it’s shorting and I can’t get anything out of it… but the cap still hold the charge. So, I will have to see if it’s not the mofset who’s playing tricks on me or I really have to use a SLA battery.

On this, I will go to bed and continue working on it soon !

2010
12/18
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Electronic
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Fix-It: Convert an European AC Cord to US AC Cord

If you’re the lucky owner of a Dell laptop & that you travel, you might have noticed that their Power brick is made to handle any kind of input as long as you have the proper ‘connector’. Recently, I got my hand on a power brick that had one of the European (I think) plug but I didn’t had the US plug for it.. so, guess what happen ? Indeed, it got butchered up to fit on US plugs 😛

So here’s a quick ‘info-tutorial’ on how to convert the cord for European to US plug.
NOTE: this could probably have been done WAY easily with a ‘repair’ plug but I didn’t had any on hand at that time so…

1-Chop the head & skin it !
ok, that sound horribly creepy but that’s what it is, Chop the poor useless head, skin the beast & Expose it flesh .

2-Prepare the replacement head
Simply get a repair plug or scavenge through your old wires to find a US AC cord.
In my case, I used an old plug so I prepared the connection with heat shrink tubing & then solder it up.

Note that in my particular case, the Yellow/Green wire on the European plug was the Ground and the 2 others (brown & Blue) were the hot wires. never assume anything about the pinout, Always validate it with a multimeter or a continuity tester.

3- Wrap up
Simply put the cover on the plug or wrap your soldered connection & enjoy !

Disclaimer: This technique only works with Power Adapter that are able to dynamically able to accept 110-220v power input. PLEASE, don’t try this with a Power Adapter that only can accept 220v or 110v. you would ruin the power adapter and this could lead to issues and harms.

2010
12/14
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Electronic
Fix-It
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Fix-It: Ericsson “Rocket Hub” 3G Modem PSU Fix

This weekend, somebody handed me a “Ericsson Rocket Hub 3G modem” which the PSU had been beaten up (the power wires were cut from the PSU).

Instead of wasting priceless money on a new PSU (which would have cost over 50$), I took a look at the little box. Good thing I did 🙂 !

Cracking the box open:
Probably the hardest part of the whole experience. When they built that PSU, It was on purpose meant ‘There is no serviceable parts inside.” but… since when that stopped me ? 🙂 So, first, if you need to open one, you’ll need a flat screwdriver (somewhat big) to pry on the little edge. Be warned, the case is sealed shut by pressure fit & some kind of glue… It will not come off easily. Once you have the top piece removed, you will have to pry (Again!) to remove the bottom part. This one will come off more easily than the previous one but you will still have a good fight with it. I’d suggest using the same screwdriver and pry where the heatsink is (on the side). Be careful to not break the board and FYI, there is a little ‘somewhat fragile’ floating PCB under the main one so be gentle.

Finding the issue:
This one was quite easy to find… the Output power wires were cut off so, I’ve noticed the issue right away. Now, let’s clean up that mess to be able to fix it… This mean, heat up the iron, arm the solder pump and enjoy! Careful to torn apart the ‘floating’ board (you can see it pretty well in the following pictures). In fact, I’m warning you against it since it did happen to me. The ‘floating’ board came off really quick after I unsoldered one side. I’m guessing the 2nd side didn’t liked the visit so I had to solder a new pin to make the ground connection.

Fixing it:
Then, you will want to test if the PSU is still good (Nothing beat fixing everything, putting it back in the case, getting the case sealed shut properly… and realize that the PSU doesn’t is no good at all…). Grab some alligator clamps and check the voltage; should fire the proper voltage. Take note, once you unplug the PSU, be sure to leave it alone for a few minutes ! the capacitor charge up and it require TIME to bleed up all the current it got stored (If you want to verify by yourself, plug in your multimeter on the 2 clamps and unplug the box… you will see the voltage drop slowly). So, once you know it is working for sure, find out your pinout on ‘which wire should have what’.  Once done, solder it up and retest the voltage on your pins in the socket. Should be properly giving the right current.

The finishing touch:
Then, close up the box, put some seal or retainer on your wire so it doesn’t get cut again and enjoy a fully working appliance without spending a bunch of bucks !

 

2010
11/29
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Electronic
Fix-It
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Fix-It: Computer USB connector Fixing (Part 2 – Final)

During the weekend, I finally managed to find time to fix my USB connector on my PC case.

First started by demounting the circuit from the case.

Then, I desoldered the previous connector (which was a total pain) and cleaned up the holes. I also noticed a tiny issue… one of the trace for one of the connector pin is in very bad shape so, I made sure that It was still usable by checking connectivity on that little piece of trace (otherwise, I’d have had to use the classic ‘Green wire’ technique :P). Oh and, I’m sorry for the semi-blurry Trace picture, I HAD to try my new Reverse Macro setup with circuit trace 😉 !

So, I put the new connector back in, soldered it in place and made sure that every pins were keeping connectivity to the socket on the other side of the board. Success ! Then I mounted back everything in and tried it with a USB key and everything went flawless!

2010
11/08
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Electronic
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Fix-It: Computer USB connector Fixing (Part 1)

Recently, I got some old Motherboard from my father that had USB connector on them (which mobo don’t have any theses days ? heh) So, I though I’d fix my PC case that is missing 1 connector in the front (that’s what happen when some headset is plugged in and you trip in the wire… Bang! and there is pieces of plastic everywhere…)

So, The board is an old one but it connector will do the trick I hope. I carefully extracted the said connector and now, I just have to crack up my PC case open to see if it is the same pinout or that I’ll have to carve some other motherboards to get a connector that will fit… wish me luck!

2010
11/03
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Electronic
Fix-It
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